Formed nearly 20 years ago as a membership association, the Communications Network today is a stand-alone nonprofit organization that promotes the use of consistent, strategic communications as an integral part of effective philanthropy. The Network connects communications professionals working in philanthropy and the nonprofit sector to each other for guidance and mentoring and regularly sponsors learning and networking opportunities through webinars and the annual conference. Today, the Network’s membership represents a wide range of foundation communications leaders and consultants who work to advance communications strategies and practices in all mediums. Go to: http://www.comnetwork.org.
Publication
of the Week -- Nonprofit Financial
Management: A Practical Guide by Charles K. Coe
From the publisher:
Nonprofits vary from organization to organization, each with its own
mission, funding sources, and organizational structure. One denominator is
common with all nonprofits: each must have a sound financial management system
in order to be accountable to its funders and perform capably. Written in plain
English with straightforward guidance, Nonprofit Financial Management: A
Practical Guide assists all nonprofits, from the smallest to the largest
and most financially sophisticated, to manage their finances responsibly and
professionally. Nonprofit Financial Management addresses federal
reporting requirements and discusses methods to decrease expenses, ensure
accounting control, and increase revenues through professional cash management.
It explains how to read financial statements and analyze a nonprofit's
financial condition by using the most recent IRS 990 reporting form. It is the
first book to cover concisely all of the principal financial management
subjects. It covers a full range of financial management topics, including
accounting, internal controls, auditing, evaluating financial condition,
budgeting, cash management and banking, purchasing and contracting, borrowing,
and risk management. Written in an easy-to-read style, this book includes more
than 100 exhibits, including thorough lists of best practices for you to keep
in mind and include in your own work, covering a variety of real-life
situations.
Click to preview this book on Amazon.com.
Trend of the Week – Use of Digital
Communications on Rise In Foundations
Communications
professionals at America’s grantmaking foundations are responding to the
digital age, according to a new survey. The survey of 155 foundation
communicators shows U.S. foundations are making use of all forms digital
communications, especially social media, a top priority. The survey results
suggest the growth of social media and other emerging digital technologies is
changing the way foundations communicate with target audiences. Almost half of
foundation communicators surveyed (47%) said they work for organizations that
have blogs and three-quarters (76%) host videos on their websites. On average,
respondents estimated that a quarter (24%) of their communications dollars in
2011 would be spent on electronic communications, more than any other tactic,
although printed annual reports and other print publications still consume a
sizeable share of the communications budget. Increasing capacity for new media
and related digital work was cited as a high internal priority by 60 percent of
survey participants, more than any other response. The survey also shows that
reaching and influencing policy-makers were among the highest communications
priorities cited by foundation communicators. Close to half of the respondents
(47%) said that influencing public policy-makers was a high-priority objective.
In fact, more respondents (55%) rated policy-makers as a “high-priority” target
audience than any other group, although community leaders (53%) and current grantees
(52%) followed closely. To download the report, go to:
http://www.comnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/SOP6011.pdf.
Resource of the Week – A
Short Guide to Consensus Building
Robert's
Rules of Order is a fine way to run a formal meeting or a town hall vote, but
too rigid for a business meeting where the agenda is to build consensus behind
decisions. This is a freely available excerpt from the 1999 book, The Consensus
Building Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide to Reaching Agreement, by Lawrence Susskind,
Sarah McKearnan, and Jennifer Thomas-Larmer, and posted by the Public Disputes
Program at Harvard Law School. This chapter, "Short Guide to Consensus
Building," provides a no-frills, step-by-step approach to running a
creative, productive meeting, down to the level of how to invite participants
who might be assuming a legal liability by attending. Go to:
http://web.mit.edu/publicdisputes/practice/cbh_ch1.html.
Tech
Tip of the Week -- Creating a PowerPoint Presentation Using Word 2007/2010
To use a Word document to create a PowerPoint
presentation
·
Format the document using Word heading styles· PowerPoint uses the heading styles in your Word document to set up the slides in a presentation ̶ each Heading 1 becomes the title of a new slide, and each Heading 2 becomes the first level of text
· You must apply a heading format to the text you want to include in a slide
· You can manually insert heading styles or create a document using Word outline
To
create a Word Outline
·
Click the View menu· Click Outline in the Document Views group
· Type your outline using Tab to add subheadings (promote)
· Press Shift Tab to decrease the indent (demote)
· You can also use the Promote and Demote buttons on the Ribbon
· Save your outline
To
Insert Outline Text from Word into PowerPoint
·
In PowerPoint, click the Outline tab in the left pane· Click the Home tab of the Ribbon
· In the Slides group, click the arrow next to New Slide
· Click Slides from Outline
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