Picks of the Week: August 21 - 27, 2011

Website of the Week – National Center for Children in Poverty

The National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) is the nation’s leading public policy center dedicated to promoting the economic security, health, and well-being of America’s low-income families and children. NCCP uses research to inform policy and practice with the goal of ensuring positive outcomes for the next generation. NCCP promotes family-oriented solutions at the state and national levels. Founded in 1989 as a division of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, NCCP is a nonpartisan, public interest research organization. Go to: http://www.nccp.org/about.html.


Publication of the Week -- Finance Fundamentals for Nonprofits, with Website: Building Capacity and Sustainability by Woods Bowman

From the publisher: A complete guide to the financial requirements a nonprofit organization must follow to indefinitely maintain the volume and quality of their services. An organization may have plenty of capacity in the long run, but in the short run, donor restrictions and limited financing options are constraining. Here-and-now liquid assets are the only resources available. Finance Fundamentals for Nonprofits: Building Capacity and Sustainability shows how to measure a nonprofit organization's financial capacity in different time frames and how to measure its ability to sustain capacity in each case.

• Explains how nonprofits differ from businesses and how they promote values-centered management
• Reveals how to improve financial capacity and sustainability
• Written by a nonprofit scholar

Filled with real-world case studies and actionable advice relating financial health to financial capacity and sustainability, this book is essential reading for every nonprofit professional.

Click to preview this book on Amazon.com.


Trend of the Week – Child Poverty Rates Increase in US

According to data released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation in its annual KIDS COUNT® Data Book, over the last decade there has been a significant decline in economic well-being for low income children and families. The official child poverty rate, which is a conservative measure of economic hardship, increased 18 percent between 2000 and 2009, essentially returning to the same level as the early 1990s. This increase means that 2.4 million more children are living below the federal poverty line. Data also reveals the impact of the job and foreclosure crisis on children. In 2010, 11 percent of children had at least one unemployed parent and 4 percent have been affected by foreclosure since 2007. For more information, go to: http://datacenter.kidscount.org.


Resource of the Week – Outcome Indicators Project

The Outcome Indicators Project provides a framework for tracking nonprofit performance. It suggests candidate outcomes and outcome indicators to assist nonprofit organizations that seek to develop new outcome monitoring processes or improve their existing systems. The Outcome Framework is applied to 14 program areas. For each program, there is a sample mission statement, an outcome sequence chart, a table of candidate program-specific outcomes, and data collection strategies with suggested data sources for each outcome indicator. For convenience, the outcome sequence chart and table of candidate program-specific outcomes are available for download. The sequence chart is an MS Word document and the table is an MS Excel spreadsheet. The program reports are available as PDFs. An excellent resource. Go to: http://www.urban.org.


Tech Tip of the Week -- Keep a Table Row from Breaking in Word 2007/2010

To keep a table row from breaking between pages in Word 2007/2010:

• Select the row you want to keep together on the same page
• Below the Table Tools tab on the Ribbon, click the Layout tab
• In the Table group, click Properties to open the Table Properties dialog box
• Click the Row tab
• Clear to de-select the Allow row to break across pages check box
• Click OK