Picks of the Week: April 17 - 23, 2011

Website of the Week – Center for Effective Philanthropy


The Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) is a nonprofit organization focused on the development of comparative data to enable higher-performing funders. CEP’s mission is to provide data and create insight so philanthropic funders can better define, assess, and improve their effectiveness – and, as a result, their intended impact. CEP pursues its mission through data collection and research that fuel the creation of assessment tools, publications, and programming. Since receiving initial funding in 2001, CEP has produced widely referenced research reports on foundation performance assessment, foundation strategy, foundation governance, and foundation–grantee relationships. CEP has created new data sets relevant to foundation leaders and hosts highly regarded programming focused on key issues related to funder effectiveness. CEP has also developed new, widely used assessment tools, such as the Grantee Perception Report® (GPR), which provides foundations comparative data on grantee perceptions of key elements of foundation performance, and the Comparative Board Report (CBR), which allows foundation boards to assess their own structures and effectiveness against comparative data. Go to: http://www.effectivephilanthropy.org/index.php.


Publication of the Week -- The Big Shift: Navigating the New Stage Beyond Midlife by Marc Freedman


From the publisher: Marc Freedman, hailed by the New York Times as “the voice of aging baby boomers [seeking] meaningful and sustaining work later in life,” makes an impassioned call to accept the decades opening up between midlife and anything approximating old age for what they really are – an entirely new stage of life, which he dubs the encore years. In The Big Shift, Freedman bemoans the fact that the discussion about longer lives in America has been entirely about the staggering economic costs of a dramatically aging society when, in reality, most of the nation’s 78 million boomers are not getting old … at least not yet. The whole 60- to 80-year-old period is simply new territory, he writes, and the people in this period constitute a whole new phenomenon in the 21st century. The Big Shift is animated by a simple premise: that the challenge of transitioning to and making the most of this new stage—while deeply personal—is much more than an individual problem; it’s an urgent social imperative, one affecting all generations. By embracing this time as a unique period of life – and providing guidance, training, education and support to the millions who are in it – Freedman says that we can make a monument out of what so many think of as the leftover years. The result could be a windfall of talent that will carry us toward a new generation of solutions for growing problems in areas like education, the environment, and health care. Marc Freedman is founder and CEO of Civic Ventures. An award-winning social entrepreneur, frequent commentator in the national media, and the author of Encore, Prime Time, and The Kindness of Strangers, Freedman spearheaded the creation of Experience Corps and The Purpose Prize. Click to preview this look on Amazon.com


Trend of the Week – Nonprofits Struggle to Meet Growing Demand for Services


America's nonprofits are expecting 2011 to be another tough year for their organizations, and for the people they serve, according to a survey released by Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF), with support from the Bank of America Charitable Foundation. The survey of more than 1,900 nonprofit leaders in markets nationwide found that while there are some signs of hope, many nonprofits are straining under year-after-year increases in the demand for services. According to the survey, 2011 will be another tough year for nonprofits and the people they serve:

• 85% of organizations expect an increase in service demand in 2011; just 46% expect to be able to fully meet this demand.
• This comes on top of years of increases: in 2010, 77% of nonprofits saw an increase in demand; in 2009, 71% experienced an increase in demand, and 73% of organizations experienced increased demand in 2008.
• 60% of organizations have three months or less of cash on hand; 10% have none.
• Only 9% expect 2011 to be financially easier for the people they serve.

The survey also notes that there are signs of hope:
• 44% of nonprofits reported ending 2010 with a surplus, a move in the right direction from the 35% who had a surplus in 2009.
• 25% of organizations added to reserve funds in 2010.
• 35% of organizations raised more revenue in 2010 than anticipated.

For a summary or full results, go to: http://nonprofitfinancefund.org.


Resource of the Week – 5 Practices Key to Successful Networks


The Monitor Institute and Knight Foundation’s new report, Connected Citizens: The Power, Peril, and Potential of Networks, presents five online and offline practices through which networks can increase their impact. Their fifth practice – providing "handrails to collective action" — advises clearly outlining the steps people can take to make a difference; building feedback mechanisms so activists can learn and see progress together; and pushing power to the edges so participants share ownership and leadership. Go to: http://www.knightfoundation.org.


Tech Tip of the Week -- Using Screenshot in Office 2010

Screenshot -- a new feature in Office 2010 -- allows you to capture images from your screen.

• Click the document that you want to add the screenshot to
• Click the Insert tab on the Ribbon
• In the Illustrations group, click Screenshot
• To add the whole window, click the thumbnail in the Available Windows gallery
• To add part of the window, click Screen Clipping, and when the pointer becomes a cross, press and hold the left mouse button to select the area of your screen that you want to capture
• If you have multiple windows open, click the window you want to clip from before clicking Screen Clipping. When you click Screen Clipping, the program you are working in is minimized and only the window behind it is available for clipping
• After adding a screenshot, you can use the tools on the Picture Tools tab to edit and enhance the screenshot

You can use Screenshot in Word 2010, PowerPoint 2010 and Excel 2010.