Picks of the Week: September 23 - 29, 2012

Website of the Week -- Millennial Impact Project
The Millennial Impact Project is the starting point for organizations to learn how to best engage the millennial generation to volunteer, donate and get involved in leadership. You will get the latest research and hear from the top leaders, inspiring you to build strong Millennial connections within your organization. For more information, go to: http://themillennialimpact.com/about.

Publication of the Week --  Powered by Pro Bono: The Nonprofits Step-by-Step Guide to Scoping, Securing, Managing, and Scaling Pro Bono Resources by the Taproot Foundation
From the publisher:  Savvy nonprofits use strategic management, marketing, technology, leadership to be competitive. With strapped budgets, many nonprofits cannot afford to pay for these resources. However, businesses are an often overlooked as an effective source of skilled professionals who can supply the needed skills. This book shares the acclaimed Taproot Foundation's pro bono best practices and shows nonprofit managers to apply them to their own unique challenges in a low-to-no-cost way. The author, Taproot's Aaron Hurst, offers keys to identifying opportunities for using pro bono sources, recruiting pro bono resources, and managing pro bono projects effectively.

• Reveals how a nonprofit can partner with a global corporations to further their mission in an effective and low-cost manner
• Aaron Hurst is the president and founder of the Taproot Foundation who pioneered a new field in community investment and continually breaks new ground through its signature, catalytic programs designed for the emerging global pro bono marketplace
• Gives nonprofit managers and staff the keys to identifying opportunities for using pro bono resources

Click to preview this book onAmazon.com.

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Trend of the Week – Nonprofits Need a Strong, Unified Voice to Lobby Government
Beyond the Cause: The Art and Science of Successful Advocacy is a comprehensive study that identifies five essential approaches to successful advocacy and analyzes the effectiveness of advocacy on issues facing the entire nonprofit and philanthropic sector. This study is based on more than 100 interviews, three surveys, three case studies, four coalition profiles, and a detailed examination of the sector’s track record and approach to public policy advocacy on sector-wide issues. The five strategic approaches that emerged as the common ingredients in successful advocacy both for the corporate and nonprofit lobbying groups include: 

·         Sustain a laserlike focus on long-term goals.
·         Prioritize building the elements for successful campaigns.
·         Consider the motivations of public officials.
·         Galvanize coalitions to achieve short-term goals.
·         Ensure strong, high-integrity leadership.

To download the full report and an executive summary, go to: https://www.independentsector.org/beyond_the_cause

Resource of the Week – The Nonprofit Website Project Handbook
An organization’s website should highlight its mission and inspire supporters to take action. But where does one begin in building a website? Is your organization ready for a new website project? Who will work on this team, and what is the time and effort required to build a quality website? Does a website fit into this year’s budget? The Handbook offers an overview of the website design and development process and information helpful to nonprofit staff during a website project. From the organization’s capabilities to design and from launch to post-launch training, this handbook provides essential steps and real-life examples to guide you in what can sometimes be a confusing process. Go to: http://www.smartcausedigital.com/sites/default/files/documents/nonprofit_website_project_handbook.pdf.

Tech Tip of the Week -- Using the Clipboard Pane in Office 2007/2010
Although this feature has been around for many years, most people still copy/paste one item at a time. Using the Clipboard pane you can copy multiple items and paste the one you need. Or even paste them all. Here’s how:

·         Click the Home tab of the Ribbon
·         In the Clipboard group, click the arrow button on the bottom right to open the Clipboard pane
·         Select where you want to paste an item and click it in the Clipboard pane

This tip works in Word, Excel and PowerPoint. You can paste items between worksheets, workbooks, pages, documents, slides, or even between different programs. (To view the Clipboard pane in earlier versions, click the Edit pull-down menu and select Office Clipboard.)

Picks of the Week: September 16-22, 2012

Website of the Week -- Financial Management Training Center
The Financial Management Training Center offers free web based courses on a broad range of financial management topics. Courses are downloaded to your computer by clicking on the hyperlinks on the opening webpage. Short Courses come in three formats: Microsoft Word documents, pdf files and exe files (self-extracting file). Finally, you can find Lecture Notes from other financial management courses. Go to www.exinfm.com/training

Publication of the Week --  A Fundraising Guide for Nonprofit Board Members by Julia I. Walker
From the publisher:  Engaging and informative, this practical guide to fundraising contains valuable insights that nonprofit boards need to succeed in raising money in today's dynamic economic environment. While written expressly for board members, this useful handbook also provides advice to executive directors and advancement staff on how to partner with your board to build an unstoppable fundraising team. A Fundraising Guide for Nonprofit Board Members shows you how to raise more money by building board leadership and skills in fundraising. This book covers it all—the board's leadership role in fundraising; how to organize and train your board to raise funds; building a team with board and staff; raising funds for operations, major gifts and capital campaigns; how to ask for gifts; plus a guide for conducting a board retreat that will lead to fundraising success.

·         Demystifies the ask by providing a straightforward guide on how to ask for, and close, gifts

·         Features case studies, real life examples, and checklists in an easy to reference format
·         Offers sample materials for a board retreat on building the successful fundraising team

 Click to preview this book on Amazon.com.

Trend of the Week – Struggling Economy Continued to Affect Nonprofit CEO Compensation
According to GuideStar's 2012 GuideStar Nonprofit Compensation Report, between 2009 and 2010, increases for incumbent CEO compensation started to creep back up at larger organizations, though still below levels seen before the economic meltdown. At organizations with expenses of $1 million or less, compensation increases were lower than during the period between 2008 and 2009. In total, the compensation of 41 percent of incumbent CEOs remained static or declined. Program areas that had higher median CEO compensation were science and technology research institutes and health, while the median compensation for animal- and religion-related programs tended to be lower. Report’s highlights include: 
·         The economy had a definite effect on compensation. In 2008, median increases in incumbent CEO compensation were generally 4 percent or higher. In 2010, increases were below this level for the second consecutive year.
·         Median compensation of females continued to lag behind that of males when considering comparable positions at similar organizations. The gap ranged from 10.4 percent for CEOs at organizations with budgets of $250 thousand-$500 thousand to 24.8 percent at organizations with budgets of more than $50 million. Since 2000, though, these gaps narrowed for most sizes of organizations. Organizations in the $1 million-$10 million range, where the gap actually increased, were the notable exception.
·         For the seventh straight year, Washington, D.C., had the highest overall median salary of the top 20 metropolitan statistical areas (MSA). Denver-Boulder, Colo., had the lowest. Adjusted for cost of living, New York was the MSA where nonprofit executives had the lowest median buying power, whereas those in St. Louis had the highest

For more information, go to: http://www.cisionwire.com/guidestar/r/new-guidestar-nonprofit-compensation-report-reveals-struggling-economy-continued-to-affect-nonprofit,c9304996

Resource of the Week – Nonprofit Good Practice Guide: Human Resources
The Nonprofit Good Practice Guide is a project of the Philanthropic and Nonprofit Knowledge Management Initiative (PNKM) at the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy & Nonprofit Leadership. The Guide is designed as a one-stop shop for widely-accepted and innovative nonprofit practices offering Preferred Practices and Pitfalls, Glossaries, Resources, Trends and Web site Profiles within the topic area of human resources. Go to: http://www.npgoodpractice.org/category/Human%20Resources

Tech Tip of the Week -- Creating Custom Images in PowerPoint 2010
PowerPoint 2010 has several advanced features that allow you do work with shapes and clip art.  By default, these features are NOT included on the Ribbon.  You can add these tools to the Ribbon or the Quick Access Toolbar.  Here’s how:
·         Click the File menu  
·         Select Options 
·         Select Quick Access Toolbar or Ribbon
·         From the Choose commands menu, select Commands Not in the Ribbon
·         Select the Command you want to add and click the Add button
·         Click OK 

For example, the Combine Shapes tool allows you to create new shapes by combining multiple shapes in one of four ways: Union, Combine, Subtract, or Intersect.

Picks of the Week: September 9 - 15, 2012

Website of the Week -- Alliance for Technology Access
The mission of the ATA is to increase the use of technology by children and adults with disabilities and functional limitations. ATA encourages and facilitates the empowerment of people with disabilities to participate fully in their communities. Through public education, information and referral, capacity building in community organizations, and advocacy/policy efforts, the ATA enables millions of people to live, learn, work, define their futures, and achieve their dreams. Go to: http://www.ataccess.org/

Publication of the Week --  Promote Your Business or Cause Using Social Media: A Beginner's Handbook by Dennis J. Smith
From the publisher:  Market and Promote Your Business Using Social Media with this award winning handbook for beginner's interested in using social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+ to grow, market and promote a small business or take any cause to the internet. Learn how to create a WordPress blog, start a blog talk radio show, upload videos to YouTube, Tweet on Twitter and build a fan page on Facebook with social apps and even eCommerce. - Learn how to add a shopping cart to your Facebook fan page and sell product right from your fan page. - Learn how to get your own personal Facebook URL. - Updated for Facebook Timeline. - Updated Google+ - How to get started with WordPress and your own blog. - Twitter Tips! - Covers the hot new social media site Pinterest! Now featuring updated Facebook Fan Page creation, Facebook Insights, Google+ and Social Media Tools!

Click to preview this book on Amazon.com.

Trend of the Week – Corporate Foundation Giving Trends
Corporate foundation giving grew the fastest across foundation types in 2011, according to Key Facts on Corporate Foundations (2012 Edition). Grant dollars rose 6 percent to $5.2 billion. Despite continued economic volatility, corporate profits have been at record levels, leading corporations to put more resources into their foundations. Looking ahead, just over half (53 percent) of corporate foundations responding to the Foundation Center's annual forecasting survey expect to increase their giving in 2012. To download the free report, go to: http://foundationcenter.org/gainknowledge/research/pdf/keyfacts_corp2012.pdf

Resource of the Week – Nonprofit Collaboration Database
The Nonprofit Collaboration Database was originally developed by Lodestar as part of its work related to The Collaboration Prize competition, which it launched in 2008. Capitalizing on the wealth of material created through the collaboration prize nomination process, the Nonprofit Collaboration Database provides access to more than 650 entrants including all of the relevant information about and documents from the collaborations. The Foundation Center is now the new home of the Collaboration Database. The database has been organized so that you can search for information from a variety of access points allowing you to customize your search a variety of ways. For example, you can find all mergers among arts and culture organizations, or all administrative consolidations in Ohio and Arizona, or only those joint programming collaborations among state health organizations that were initiated by funders. The ability to search by multiple criteria, including key words, provides the opportunity to explore the database using factors that are most relevant to your needs. To access the Collaboration Database,  go to: http://collaboration.foundationcenter.org/search/searchGenerator.php.

Tech Tip of the Week -- Recording a Slide Show in PowerPoint 2010
Did you know you can record a Slide Show in PowerPoint 2010?  Here's how: 

·         Open the Slide Show you want to record

·         Click the Slide Show tab on the Ribbon
·         In the Set Up group click the Record Slide Show icon
·         In the Record Slide Show dialog box, select what you want to record
·         Click Start Recording

Picks of the Week: September 2 - 8, 2012

Website of the Week -- Coalitions Work
Coalitions Work is a consulting group based in the Hampton Roads region of eastern Virginia that is dedicated to serving public and private clients throughout the world. Coalitions Work offers your organization, partnership or coalition the benefit of 20 years of coalition skill building and change strategies. Coalitions Work offers training and technical assistance in strategic planning and management, health promotion and education, social marketing, advocacy, research, and evaluation. Coalitions Work has the tools and resources needed to mobilize the power of collaboration in your community or organization. The website includes links to an extensive collection of resources. Go to: http://coalitionswork.com.

Publication of the Week --  Giving Back: A Tribute to Generations of African American Philanthropists by Valaida Fullwood and Charles W. Thomas Jr.
From the publisher: Giving Back lifts up seldom-celebrated traditions of giving among Americans of African descent. Rarely acknowledged as philanthropy, these centuries-old cultural customs and beliefs nevertheless continue to have an impact on lives and communities. Images and narratives of more than 200 people commemorate the legacy of black philanthropists - from generous donors of wealth to ingenious givers carving a way out of no way. In Giving Back, Valaida Fullwood poignantly chronicles the African American philanthropy experience. Intimate vignettes and candid reflections reveal a myriad of philanthropic practices grounded in faith, mutuality, and responsibility. Fullwood juxtaposes personal accounts from a cross section of black philanthropists with fascinating quotes from givers and game-changers across cultures to illuminate transcendent truths and elicit new thinking about philanthropy. Photographer Charles W. Thomas Jr. beautifully captures images that portray the joy, aspirations, remembrance, and resilience that characterize black philanthropy. Pairing photographic portraiture and narrative, Thomas and Fullwood give readers over 160 artful page spreads that enliven the soul of philanthropy and honor the legacy of America's black philanthropists. Every book purchased will keep giving, since the proceeds will be invested in philanthropic causes - and since the stories themselves will inspire readers to give.

Click to preview this book on Amazon.com.

Trend of the Week – Women’s Growing Importance As Donors

The new report is the third in a series of research reports by the Women’s Philanthropy Institute at the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University that offers deeper insights as to how gender differences affect philanthropy. The Women Give studies complement a growing body of research that affirms women’s growing importance as donors in the nonprofit sector. They also benefit decision-makers and fundraisers seeking to expand their donor base and attract more volunteers by providing key insights to inform their strategic efforts to more deeply engage women. For more information, go to: http://www.philanthropy.iupui.edu/research-by-category/women-give-2012.

Resource of the Week – Online Diagnostic Tool for Leadership Development Bridgespan has released an online diagnostic tool to use as a first step in understanding an organization’s relative strengths and weaknesses in leadership development. As valuable as these Bridgespan resources are, I feel compelled to share some additional perspective that I hope the Bridgespan team will incorporate in future iterations: It’s hard for me to imagine a better path for developing great leaders within an organization than putting those people in positions that move them out of their comfort zone and into situations that require growth; set a clear expectation for what is to be achieved; and ensure there are people (ideally their managers) with the explicit purpose of supporting and stretching their growth. To access the tool go to: http://www.bridgestar.org/Library/LeadershipDiagnostic.aspx.

Tech Tip of the Week -- Keep a file on the Office 2007/2010 Recent Documents List
An excellent new feature in Office 2007/2010 which works in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access, is the ability to keep or “pin” a file in the Recent Documents list, here’s how:

·       In 2007 click the Microsoft Office button  or in 2010 click the File Tab and then click Recent

·       Click the pin icon beside the document you want to keep on the list
·       The pin button changes to a push pin viewed from the top