Monday, May 14, 2012

Picks of the Week: May 13 - 19, 2012

Website of the Week -- Severson Center Trend Website
The Severson Center, a division of the Alliance for Children and Families, has opened their trend website to the general public, allowing more immediate access to a library of information in a readily accessible, user-friendly format. No login is needed for the website, but some reports are password protected for access by members of the Alliance. Trends and their impacts are organized under the following categories: Business/Economy, Education, Nonprofits, Technology/Science, Demographics/Population, Health, Social Service Issues, and Work. No question about it: this is the only resource of its kind and an invaluable resource for nonprofit strategic planning efforts.  Go to: www.alliancetrends.org.

Publication of the Week --  The Responsible Administrator: An Approach to Ethics for the Administrative Role, 6th Edition by Terry L. Cooper

From the publisher:  Those who serve the public trust must take special care to ensure they make ethical and responsible decisions. Yet the realities of bureaucracies, deadlines, budgets, and demands for quick results make the payoffs for dealing formally with ethics seem unclear. Since its original publication, The Responsible Administrator has guided professionals and students alike as they grapple with the challenges of making ethical, responsible decisions in real world situations. This new edition includes information on coping with new demands for accountability, as well as new cases and examples, an examination of current issues relevant to administrative ethics, and supplementary materials for professors. Cooper’s theoretical framework and practical applications and techniques will help you consider all of the factors involved in a decision, ensuring that you balance professional, personal, and organizational values. Case studies and examples illustrate what works and what does not. The Responsible Administrator helps both experienced and novice public administrators and students become effective decision makers, provides them with a solid understanding of the role of ethics in public service and the framework to incorporate ethical and values-based decision making in day-to-day management.
Click to preview this book on Amazon.com.


Trend of the Week –  Social Justice Philanthropy Trends
According to a new report from the Foundation Center, a small but important subset of grantmakers — those who work on issues ranging from human rights to environmental justice — has been disproportionately impacted by the global financial crisis and their recovery remains in jeopardy. Diminishing Dollars: The Impact of the 2008 Financial Crisis on the Field of Social Justice Philanthropy examines historical trends in foundation assets, spending, and giving levels; describes strategies used by foundations to cope with depleted assets immediately following the crisis; and presents projections through 2015 for asset and grantmaking levels. Key findings of the study indicate:
  • Unless the field sees five years of above average investment returns, social justice grantmaking in 2015 will remain below 2008 levels.
  • Small foundations (less than $50 million in assets) will struggle the most to recover from the economic downturn.
  • Nonprofit organizations seeking new funders will have a difficult time.
  • Some foundations are unintentionally depleting their endowments at a very slow rate.
To download a copy of the report, go to: http://foundationcenter.org/gainknowledge/research/pdf/diminishing_dollars2011.pdf.


Resource of the Week – "Hour Series" of Nonprofit Guides
The award-winning “Hour” Series of Guides to Nonprofit Management has been developed  by Marilyn Donnellan, founder and president of Nonprofit Management Services.  Topic areas are general administration/management, board/volunteer development, community involvement,  marketing, program evaluation, and resource development. The series includes assessments, templates and sample policies/procedures. They are especially geared to smaller nonprofits. For more information, go to http://nonprofitmanagementservices.com/index.php/products and scroll down.


Tech Tip of the Week -- COUNTIFS in Excel 2007/2010
We've had the COUNTIF function in Excel for a while. This function allows you to count records in a list that match a single criteria. What's completely new with Excel 20072010 is COUNTIFS which allows you to count records based on multiple criteria. Sure, there were other ways of doing this before, but none as easy as the COUNTIFS function. Here's the syntax:
=COUNTIFS(range1,criterion1,range2,criterion2,…,range_n,criterion_n)
Makes it really simple to count records in a range that match the criteria you enter in the formula. If you need a little more help, check out this article on the Microsoft web site: Use the COUNTIFS function in Excel 2007 to analyze data.

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