Picks of the Week: December 18 - 24, 2011

Website of the Week -- onPhilanthropy.com

onPhilanthropy.com is a global resource for non-profit, philanthropy and corporate social engagement professionals. It is free of charge and features the industry’s leading e-mail newsletter. onPhilanthropy.com is published by CauseWired Communications, a communications firm specializing in helping nonprofits and causes effectively communicate and secure the support to advance their mission. Thanks to our dedicated staff and contributors, onPhilanthropy.com has become one of the leading online resources connecting a community of voices for change. More than 100,000 non-profit and philanthropy professionals visit OnPhilanthropy's web site, blogs, and newsletters each month. Go to: http://onphilanthropy.com.


Publication of the Week -- Boomer Volunteer Engagement: Collaborate Today, Thrive Tomorrow by Jill Friedman Fixler, Sandie Eichberg and Gail Lorenz

From the publisher: Boomer Volunteer Engagement: Collaborate Today, Thrive Tomorrow is everything nonprofits need to engage skilled Boomer volunteers. This innovative book provides a step-by-step guide for engaging Boomers as volunteers to build organizational capacity. The authors offer a new framework through which nonprofits can capitalize on the vast skills and resources of the 78.2 million Baby Boomers. The guidebook includes a comprehensive, easy-to-understand synthesis of the body of research on the Baby Boomer generation, featuring information that is current and relevant to volunteer engagement. The book also includes 14 downloadable interactive PDF worksheets that focus effort on measurable results. With this inspiring and practical guide for reengineering volunteer programs, nonprofits will not only survive in a changing world, but also thrive in the future. Through collaborative volunteer engagement with the Baby Boomer generation, organizations will have the capacity to fulfill their missions and achieve their dreams.

Click to preview this book on Amazon.com.


Trend of the Week – Foundation Giving Trends 2011 and Beyond

According to the Foundation Center's The Foundation Yearbook, 2011 edition, giving by this country’s more than 76,000 grantmaking foundations stabilized at $45.7 billion in 2010, nearly unchanged from 2009. This followed a record 2.1 percent decline in giving between 2008 and 2009. Numerous factors contributed to the relative stabilization of giving
following the unprecedented 17 percent drop in foundation assets in 2008, including the beginning of a stock market resurgence in the latter half of 2009, the commitment of many foundations to maintaining their grants budgets or reducing the extent of reductions relative to their assets losses, and new resources provided by recently established or newly large foundations. The Foundation Center estimates that foundation giving returned to modest growth in 2011. As the economic recovery remains shaky, the outlook for 2012 and beyond remains uncertain. Nonetheless, while it may take some time to return to the levels of giving recorded prior to the Great Recession it seems unlikely that foundations will institute further pronounced reductions in their giving. To download a summary of the Foundation Yearbook, 2011 Edition, go to: http://foundationcenter.org. To order a copy of the yearbook, go to: http://foundationcenter.org/marketplace.


Resource of the Week – Next Generation Organizations: 9 Key Traits

According to Compasspoint Nonprofit Services based in San Francisco, We have heard much about next generation leaders but little about the way their leadership styles are embodied inside organizational walls. What exactly does next generation leadership entail, how are their organizations structured, what practices are in place, what do their boards look like, and how are operations adapted? CompassPoint has identified a set of 9 characteristics that we think demonstrate how next generation leaders are transforming their organizations to operate in a fundamentally different way to raise the bar on mission impact. To access a monograph describing the Next Generation Organization featuring case examples as well as a companion self assessment tool, go to: http://www.compasspoint.org/nextgenorgs.


Tech Tip of the Week -- Status Bar Sums in Excel

• Select the cells you want to sum
• Check the Status Bar in the lower right
• All versions will display a Sum. By default, in Excel 2007 and 2010, the Count, Average and

Sum will be displayed. But this default can be changed by right clicking on the Status Bar to display the Customize Status Bar menu.