Picks of the Week: June 30 - July 6, 2013

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 (requires Acrobat Reader) and exe files (self-extracting file). Finally, you can find Lecture Notes from other financial management courses. Go to http://www.exinfm.com/training

Publication of the Week -- Group Alchemy: The Six Elements of Highly Successful Collaboration by Deborah Pruitt
From the publisher: You’re passionate about making an impact … and you know that high-level collaboration is the key. Now you can confidently and consistently create the relationships, partnerships, and groups that achieve outstanding success. Group Alchemy: The Six Elements of Highly Successful Collaboration synthesizes Deborah Pruitt’s dual perspectives as anthropologist and accomplished organizational consultant into six elements proven to make groups more successful: consistently producing outstanding results and enjoying a rewarding and inspiring collaboration experience. As you work through Group Alchemy, you can take the leap to the next level and create a group culture that serves your vision. With the group alchemy formula you can consistently generate the communication and trust necessary for truly successful collaboration—the kind where people personally invest in the group’s goals and aspirations and are willing to do what it takes to reach them. This is the promise of group alchemy, a promise the author has seen fulfilled time and again in groups that engage this method. Let your group be next!

Clickto preview this book on Amazon.com


Trend of the Week -- Volunteering as a Pathway to Employment
The Corporation for National & Community Service has recently released a report, Volunteering as a Pathway to Employment, which shows just how valued volunteering can be in the workforce. The study discovered that volunteering is linked with a 27 percent increase in odds of employment, and provides “social capital and human capital,” which are directly related with better job prospects. Some of the benefits volunteering can provide are professional contacts, expanding networks, leadership opportunities, social relationships, knowledge, and work experience. Volunteering has the strongest impact on rural communities and individuals who lack a high school diploma. One interesting finding was that economic conditions and time don’t seem to impact the relationship between volunteering and employment. CNCS also provided an infographic for their collected data. For more information and to download the report, go to: http://www.nationalservice.gov/sites/default/files/upload/employment_research_report.pdf

Resource of the Week – Retaining and Developing High Potential Talent: A Toolkit
Among the best strategies for developing diversity in human services is to retain and develop talent within your organization. The National Human Services Assembly's toolkit, Retaining and Developing High Potential Talent, focuses on onboarding, employee mentoring and succession planning as key levers for advancing diversity and inclusion through talent management. The guide offers a quick and accessible overview of key elements for building a successful Diversity & Inclusion approach to your organization’s talent management, followed by a closer look at how to build effective onboarding, mentoring and succession planning programs. To download the guide, go to: http://tinyurl.com/mk5qkmt

Tech Tip of the Week -- Broadcasting PowerPoint 2010 Presentations
An amazing new feature in PowerPoint 2010 is the ability to Broadcast your slideshows to anyone, anywhere.  Here's how:

• Make sure you have signed up for a Windows Live ID
• Open your slide show
• Click the Slide Show tab on the Ribbon
• Click the Broadcast Slide Show button in the Start Slide Show group
• PowerPoint prepares your slide show 
• The Broadcast Slide Show screen is displayed with a link to your presentation
• Email the link to anyone you want to attend your presentation
• Now click the Start Slide Show button and remote viewers can view your presentation

The following articles can help you learn this powerful new tool:

• PowerPointBlog: Introducing Broadcast Slide Show
• PowerPointBlog: Broadcast your Presentation with PowerPoint 2010

Picks of the Week: June 9 - 22, 2013

Website of the Week --  Marguerite Casey Foundation
Marguerite Casey Foundation is dedicated to creating a movement of working families advocating on their own behalf for change. The work of the Foundation is guided by the firm belief that significant positive change is not only possible, but absolutely necessary. Within this framework, the Marguerite Casey Foundation seeks to do the following:

• Support and nurture strong, vibrant activism within and among families, enabling them to advocate for their own interests and improve the public and private systems that impact their lives.
• Examine, change and inform the advancement of social and economic policies and practices that promote the development of strong families and strong communities.
• Encourage the development of a coherent knowledge base for advocates, families and the organizations that serve them.
• Invest in system change and cross-system change in order to generate greater knowledge and provide effective working models for practice.

Go to: http://www.caseygrants.org

Publication of the Week -- You and Your Nonprofit Board: Advice and Practical Tips from the Field's Top Practitioners, Researchers, and Provocateurs edited by Terrie Temkin
From the publisher: Terrie Temkin guides a star-studded cast of collaborators in creating a board volume that delivers the wisdom of the nonprofit world's leading practitioners, researchers, and provocateurs. This easily-digestible book is a must for board directors and anyone who is interested in effective nonprofit leadership. The focused, short-essay format makes it easy for the reader to absorb the authors' thinking on a variety of topics: some traditional—such as board member roles and responsibilities, recruitment, meeting management, and evaluation—and others not so much. For instance, you'll find articles on coaching for directors, the value of conversation, and several new structures for governance.  YOU and Your Nonprofit Board: Advice and Practical Tips from the Field’s Top Practitioners, Researchers, and Provocateurs is a book of how, not what. Eschewing a single perspective of governance, it is suggestive, not prescriptive. And it invites you to be part of the dialogue. It is the first governance book of its kind to:

• Reexamine nonprofit governance at its essence
• Challenge dogma about the board versus chief executive roles
• Let YOU decide if you still agree with the old thinking on governance
• Take aim at myths about governance that hold organizations back
• Provide practical, in-the-trenches advice and tips you can use NOW

Whether you are new to the field or have been immersed in it for years, you will find new ideas to help you navigate today's fast-paced, information-saturated reality in which wise practice is rapidly evolving.

Click to preview this book on Amazon.com

Trend of the Week --  Over Emphasis on Overhead Costs Shown to Impede Potential of Global NGOs

Over the past quarter century, nongovernmental organizations have become increasingly essential players in solving global problems. However a fixation on restraining overhead is a funding trend that is affecting NGOs’ ability to solve global problems according to a new Bridgespan study. Generous private funders have fueled the spectacular  growth of global NGOs in recent years. But the money comes with strings that thwart these organizations’ ability to create the platforms for scale needed to solve global problems. This fixation on restraining overhead stems from recent funding trends:

• Since the mid-1990s, governments, foundations, and high-net-worth individuals have dramatically increased global NGOs’ financial support but restricted this funding primarily to specific programs and projects, shrinking unrestricted funding that supports the organization as a whole.
• Because they typically view overhead as money poorly spent, funders generally set—or expect—strict limits on how much can be allocated for this purpose.
• Program- and project-based funding has spawned a patchwork of short-term engagements across countries and continents as NGOs chase donor dollars. This fragmentation further serves to divert attention from investing in essential administrative functions that would improve overall performance.

To download the study, go to: http://www.bridgespan.org/getmedia/ca2c40f0-5a70-475f-9e6c-90682b178bc5/StopStarvingScale-UnlockingthePotentialofGlobalNGOs.pdf.aspx

Resource of the Week –  Operating Reserves Toolkit for Nonprofit Organizations
The Operating Reserves Toolkit for Nonprofit Organizations is a new resource to help nonprofits through the process of building a reserve policy. The toolkit is the result of a rigorous, multi-year research, writing and review process by the Nonprofit Operating Reserves Initiative Workgroup. In 2009, the workgroup – led by the Urban Institute’s National Center for Charitable Statistics and the United Way Worldwide – produced a whitepaper that called for organizations to make maintaining an adequate level of operating reserves their top priority. Go to: http://www.nccs2.org/wiki/images/b/b4/Operating_Reserves_Policy_Toolkit_1st_Ed_2010-09-16.pdf

Tech Tip of the Week -- Using Date Functions in Excel 2007/2010

There are many ways to use the Date functions in Excel.  Previous Tech Tips have included:  Calculate a Person's Age in Excel; Calculate Remaining Days in the Year; and Calculate the Days, Months or Years between Dates in Excel.

A lesser known date function is NETWORKDAYS, which returns the number of work days between two dates. For example:
The format for this function is: NETWORKDAYS(start_date,end_date,[holidays]).  Holidays is optional.

The following tutorials can help you learn to use of the Date functions in Excel:
Excel 2007 / 2010 Date Functions: Working with Dates in Excel from www.about.com
Microsoft Excel 2007 to 2010: The Date Function in Excel from www.homeandlearn.co.uk

Picks of the Week: June 2 - 8, 2013

Website of the Week --  LeapofReason.org
LeapofReason.org provides free access to a suite of materials, including articles, speeches, videos, guides, and other tools, which build on and augment Leap of Reason: Managing to Outcomes in an Era of Scarcity, a book written by Venture Philanthropy Partners Chairman Mario Morino in partnership with McKinsey & Company and a dozen other social-sector experts and practitioners. You can also download David Hunter’s new book, Working Hard—and Working Well. The website is created and hosted by Venture Philanthropy Partners (VPP), a philanthropic investment organization that helps leaders build strong, high-performing nonprofit institutions. Go to: http://www.vppartners.org/leapofreason/overview

Publication of the Week -- Handbook of Practical Program Evaluation by Joseph S. Wholey, Harry P. Hatry and Kathryn E. Newcomer
From the publisher: The third edition of Handbook of Practical Program Evaluation offers managers, analysts, consultants, and educators in government, nonprofit, and private institutions a valuable resource that outlines efficient and economical methods for assessing program results and identifying ways to improve program performance. This latest edition has been thoroughly revised. It reflects the evolving nature of the field, while maintaining its value as a guide to the foundational skills needed for evaluation Many new chapters have been prepared for this edition, including chapters on logic modeling and on evaluation applications for small nonprofit organizations. The Handbook of Practical Program Evaluation is a comprehensive resource on evaluation, covering both in-depth program evaluations and performance monitoring.  It presents evaluation methods that will be useful at all levels of government and in nonprofit organizations.

Click to preview this book on Amazon.com

 

Trend of the Week -- Program-Related Investing Trends

Program-related investments (PRIs) are gaining attention from foundations for their potential to meet charitable purposes while generating financial returns, but their use remains limited, a new study by the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy finds. The report, which was sponsored by Mission Throttle, analyzes key trends in foundations’ use of program-related investing between 2000 and 2010. Key findings include:

• Housing, community development and education were the program areas that received both the highest total dollar amounts and the largest number of PRIs made by foundations between 2000 and 2010. Non-traditional program areas such as environment, health and arts and culture were also likely to receive PRI support during that period.
• More than half of all PRIs were loans, but foundations have increased the use of equity investments and debt other than loans, such as loan guarantees or loan funds.
• Measuring success is challenging. Foundations generally define success in two ways—programmatic or social success and financial or investment success—and some deem a PRI successful even if it did not produce a positive financial return on the investment so long as it produced the desired social outcome. Achieving success requires planning, new team structures, traditional financial investment skills and social metrics.

The full report, Leveraging the Power of Foundations: An Analysis of Program-Related Investments, and an executive summary are available on the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy website at http://www.philanthropy.iupui.edu/research-by-category/PRIreport

Resource of the Week –  Ten Nonprofit Funding Models

While the “for profit” world has many universally known business models, the nonprofit arena is lacking common plans.  In this study, Landes-Foster, Kim and Christiansen take a look at developing a series of ten funding models based on research of 144 large nonprofits with significant growth year over year.  The intent was not to help choose which model each organization should use, but to inform and educate. They discuss the important distinction between business models and funding models and posit that while business models are generally developed and understood, especially by the for-profit sector, funding models have never been clearly articulated. By using these three parameters: source of funds, type of decision makers and the motivation of the decision makers, the authors came up with ten funding models grouped into categories defined by dominant type of funder (single funder, many individuals, government, corporations and a mix).  They include a few questions with each model to help determine which is the best fit for an organization. Go to:

http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/ten_nonprofit_funding_models

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

Picks of the Week: May 26 - June 1, 2013

Website of the Week --  Building Movement Project
The Building Movement Project works to strengthen the role of US nonprofit organizations as sites of democratic practice and to advance ways nonprofits can significantly contribute to building movement for progressive social change. The Building Movement Project engages four strategies to accomplish its goals. These include:

• Changing the discourse and practice within the nonprofit sector to endorse values of justice, fairness, equity, and sustainability.
• Identifying and working with social service organizations as neglected sites for social change/justice activities where staff and constituencies can be engaged as participants in democratic practices for social change.
• Supporting young leaders who bring new ideas and energy to social change work and the promise of developing new forms of movement building.
• Listening to and engaging people working in social change organizations, especially grassroots and community-based groups, to strengthen their ability to connect their vision and mission to practice.

Go to: http://www.buildingmovement.org.

Publication of the Week -- Wiley Not-for-Profit GAAP 2013: Interpretation and Application of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles

From the publisher: The Wiley Not-for-Profit GAAP 2013 is a comprehensive, easy-to-use guide to the accounting and financial reporting principles used by not-for-profit organizations. Written with the needs of the financial statement preparer, user, and attestor in mind, this guide provides a complete review of the authoritative accounting literature that impacts all types of not-for-profit organizations. At the same time, Wiley Not-for-Profit GAAP 2013 features many examples and illustrations that will assist professionals in applying authoritative literature to real-life situations.

• Easy-to-use information that enables users to find needed information quickly
• Coverage of accounting principles specifically related to not-for-profit organizations, as well as accounting principles applicable to all types of organizations
• Specific coverage of accounting issues for different types of not-for-profit organizations
• A disclosure checklist that helps financial statement preparers and attestors ensure that all disclosures required by GAAP have been considered
• Flowcharts, diagrams, and charts, wherever possible, to help facilitate the user's understanding of the material presented

Destined to become the reference you keep at your side, Wiley Not-for-Profit GAAP 2013 strives to be a thorough, reliable reference that nonprofit accounting professionals will use constantly.

Click to preview this book on Amazon.com

Trend of the Week -- Nonprofit Chief Development Officer Retention

The study CDO Confidential: What CDOs Want You to Know about Retention reveals that unrealistic expectations set by management have reduced the average Chief Development Officer (CDO) tenure to one to two years. Other factors include a lack of sufficient resources and cooperation among CDOs, CEOs and Boards. Campbell & Company, a national nonprofit consulting and executive search firm, recently completed a nationwide survey to understand the reasons behind this trend. CDO Confidential received responses from more than 400 Chief Development Officers and Chief Executive Officers to gain multiple perspectives. The sample included organizations with a wide range of missions, budgets, staff sizes and geographic areas.  According to the report, shorter tenure in leading development roles not only leads to difficulty maintaining donor relationships, but also hinders the development and execution of long-term fundraising strategies. The implications of having short tenure are vast ranging from attracting and evaluating talent to onboarding to succession planning and require a wider, more in-depth dialogue with all parties involved. The report describes four main challenges:

• Short tenure: Fifty-two percent (52%) of CDO served one to two years in their most recent position, confirming anecdotal evidence of shorter tenures. 
• Unrealistic expectations: CDOs (75%) and CEOs (62%) cited unrealistic expectations are the number one reason behind CDO turnover. 
• Reasons for departure: Twenty-eight percent (28%) of CDOs cited their organization’s lack of understanding of development as a reason for their most recent departure. 
• Inadequate resources: Fifty-eight percent (58%) of CDOs felt they did not have the resources to do their job effectively, and twenty-nine percent (29%) of CDOs indicated professional development as their primary need.

To download the report, go to: http://www.campbellcompany.com/Portals/22807/docs/CDOConfidentialFinalStudyReport.pdf

Resource of the Week –  Audit Guide for Charitable Nonprofits

The National Council of Nonprofits has created a Nonprofit Audit Guide to provide charitable nonprofits with the tools they need to make informed decisions about independent audits. Because state laws vary in the scope of their regulation of charitable nonprofits, this Guide includes a 50-state chart that shows whether there is an audit requirement in each state, and if so, under what conditions. The Guide will help you understand what independent audits are, and help you prepare your nonprofit for an audit. The Guide will also tell you about the role of the board in the audit process, and shares tips and tools to help your charitable organization manage the audit process -- from hiring an auditor and preparing for the audit, to evaluating the audit firm's work. Additionally, the Guide includes information about special audit requirements that apply to nonprofits that receive funding from the federal government.  To download the guide, go to: http://www.councilofnonprofits.org/nonprofit-audit-guide

 

Tech Tip of the Week -- Animation Painter in PowerPoint 2010

The Animation Painter button is a new feature in PowerPoint 2010.  It works the same way as the Format Painter button except it copies animations from one object to another.  Here’s how to use it:

• Select an object with animations
• Click the Animations tab on the Ribbon
• Select the Animation Painter button in the Advanced Animation group
• With a single click you can transfer all the animations and settings to another object
• If you double-click the Animation Painter button, you can paint multiple objects

 

Picks of the Week: May 19 - 24, 2013

Website of the Week --  Nonprofit Best Practice Library
The best practice library consists of exemplary projects completed by graduate students enrolled in the University of San Diego’s Nonprofit Leadership and Management program for, and in collaboration with, nonprofit organizations. The library expands each semester as students create or revise essential policy, planning, research, and fundraising documents that are critical to the successful operation of nonprofit organizations and programs. A portion of the nearly 800 consulting projects completed for nonprofits and foundations by students in the Nonprofit Leadership and Management program is contained in the library. Go to: www.sandiego.edu/nponline

Publication of the Week -- Balanced Scorecard: Step-by-Step for Government and Nonprofit Agencies by Paul Niven
From the publisher: This book provides an easy-to-follow roadmap for successfully implementing the Balanced Scorecard methodology in small- and medium-sized companies. Building on the success of the first edition, the Second Edition includes new cases based on the author's experience implementing the balanced scorecard at government and nonprofit agencies. It is a must-read for any organization interested in achieving breakthrough results.

Click to preview this book onAmazon.com


Trend of the Week -- Challenges Facing Nonprofit Fundraising
The study UnderDeveloped: A National Study of Challenges Facing Nonprofit Fundraising reveals that many nonprofits are stuck in a vicious cycle that threatens their ability to raise the resources they need to succeed. A joint project of CompassPoint and the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, the report found high levels of turnover and lengthy vacancies in development director positions throughout the sector. More significantly, the study reveals deeper issues that contribute to instability in the development director role, including a lack of basic fundraising systems and inadequate attention to fund development among key board and staff leaders. The report is organized around three main challenges and concludes with a set of recommendations to jumpstart a national conversation about how we can all help nonprofits take their fund development to the next level. Key findings include:

• Revolving Door - Organizations are struggling with high turnover and long vacancies in the development director position.
• Help Wanted - Organizations aren’t finding enough qualified candidates for development director jobs. Executives also report performance problems and a lack of basic fundraising skills among key development staff.
• It’s About More Than One Person - Beyond creating a development director position and hiring someone who is qualified for the job, organizations and their leaders need to build the capacity, the systems, and the culture to support fundraising success. The findings indicate that many nonprofits aren’t doing this.
• Breaking The Cycle - UnderDeveloped offers urgent calls to action for the nonprofit sector, citing key steps that nonprofit executives, funders, and sector leaders should consider as they set out to address the challenges detailed in the report.

To download the full report, go to: http://www.compasspoint.org/underdeveloped?goback=%2Egde_976867_member_240744162


Resource of the Week –  Partnership Self-Assessment Tool 2.0
The Partnership Self-Assessment Tool gives a partnership a way to assess how well its collaborative process is working and to identify specific areas for its partners to focus on to make the process work better. The Tool is provided by the Center for the Advancement of Collaborative Strategies in Health at The New York Academy of Medicine with funding from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. The Tool was originally offered as a web-based assessment. Recognizing the popularity of the Tool and its usefulness to partnerships, the Center has now made the questionnaire and action-oriented report available with instructions for using the Tool offline. You will find a brief overview of the Tool, with a rundown of who should use it and why. For partnerships interested in using the Tool, a coordinator guide has been provided, along with instructions for using the tool offline (including how to use the questionnaire as a pen and paper instrument and how to tabulate the results), the tool questionnaire, and the tool report. Go to: http://www.partnershiptool.net

Tech Tip of the Week -- Using Date Functions in Excel 2007/2010
There are many ways to use the Date functions in Excel.  Previous Tech Tips have included:  Calculate a Person's Age in Excel; Calculate Remaining Days in the Year; and Calculate the Days, Months or Years between Dates in Excel.

A lesser known date function is NETWORKDAYS, which returns the number of work days between two dates.

The format for this function is: NETWORKDAYS(start_date,end_date,[holidays]).  "Holidays" is optional.

The following tutorials can help you learn to use of the Date functions in Excel:

Excel 2007 / 2010 Date Functions: Working with Dates in Excel from www.about.com
Microsoft Excel 2007 to 2010: The Date Function in Excel from www.homeandlearn.co.uk

 

 

Picks of the Week: May 12 - 18, 2013

Website of the Week --  FrameWorks Institute
The mission of the FrameWorks Institute is to advance the nonprofit sector's communications capacity by identifying, translating and modeling relevant scholarly research for framing the public discourse about social problems. FrameWorks designs, commissions, manages and publishes communications research to prepare nonprofit organizations to expand their constituency base, to build public will, and to further public understanding of specific social issues. In addition to working closely with social policy experts familiar with the specific issue, its work is informed by a team of communications scholars and practitioners who are convened to discuss the research problem, and to work together in outlining potential strategies for advancing remedial policies. FrameWorks also critiques, designs, conducts and evaluates communications campaigns on social issues. Its work is based on an approach called "strategic frame analysis," which has been developed in partnership with UCLA's Center for Communications and Community. Go to: www.frameworksinstitute.org

Publication of the Week -- Developmental Evaluation: Applying Complexity Concepts to Enhance Innovation and Use by Michael Quinn Patton PhD

From the publisher: Developmental evaluation (DE) offers a powerful approach to monitoring and supporting social innovations by working in partnership with program decision makers. In this book, eminent authority Michael Quinn Patton shows how to conduct evaluations within a DE framework. Patton draws on insights about complex dynamic systems, uncertainty, nonlinearity, and emergence. He illustrates how DE can be used for a range of purposes: ongoing program development, adapting effective principles of practice to local contexts, generating innovations and taking them to scale, and facilitating rapid response in crisis situations. Students and practicing evaluators will appreciate the book's extensive case examples and stories, cartoons, clear writing style, "closer look" sidebars, and summary tables. Provided is essential guidance for making evaluations useful, practical, and credible in support of social change.

 

Click to preview this book on Amazon.com

Trend of the Week -- Mobile Fundraising Trends

Artez Interactive is a provider of web, mobile and social fundraising solutions for non-profits and charities around the world. Artez conducted a study to answer the questions: What's the impact of mobile technology on peer-driven fundraising campaigns? The firm examined the success of over 80,000 participants in a variety of fundraising campaigns to help answer this question. Key findings include:

15% of traffic to fundraising and donation pages comes from mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

23% of participants in peer-driven events and campaigns choose to use mobile technology to help them fundraise for good causes.

Participants who use mobile technology to fundraise in a campaign raise up to 2.95x more than those who do not.

The percentage of donations made on mobile web browsers has grown 205% in the last 12 months.

Event participants using iPhones raise just slightly more than participants on Android devices.

To download the  research paper, go to: http://info.artez.com/mobile-fundraising-research-paper-2013

Resource of the Week –  Building Multiple Revenue Sources
The Compassion Capital Fund (CCF), administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, provided capacity building grants to expand and strengthen the role of nonprofit organizations in their ability to provide social services to low-income individuals. Between 2002 and 2009, CCF awarded 1,277 grants, and the CCF National Resource Center provided training and technical assistance to all CCF grantees. Strengthening Nonprofits: A Capacity Builder’s Resource Library is born out of the expansive set of resources created by the National Resource Center during that time period, to be shared and to continue the legacy of CCF’s capacity building work. This guidebook provides an overview of fifteen different revenue sources, insight into how online tools can help support revenue development, a step-by-step guide to developing a new revenue source, and analysis tools to help you assess your organization’s strengths and limitations. After reading this guidebook, you will know how to evaluate, start, and sustain one or more new income or revenue sources. Ideally, the tools, resources, and knowledge included in this guidebook will enable you to raise more money through the development of a targeted strategy that caters to your organization’s stage of development, strengths, and community assets. To download the free guide, go to: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/ocs/revenue_sources.pdf

Picks of the Week: April 28 - May 4, 2013

Website of the Week --  Social Enterprise Alliance
The Social Enterprise Alliance is a membership organization devoted to building sustainable nonprofits through earned income strategies. The Alliance offers a network connecting entrepreneurial nonprofits with learning opportunities, technical assistance and resources to further their efforts. The members are predominantly nonprofit practitioners and grantmakers, but include technical consultants, for-profit businesses and academics as well. The Social Enterprise Alliance links nonprofit executives who have operated in isolation with an ongoing forum for addressing the needs and concerns of the enterprising nonprofit. Go to: www.se-alliance.org

Publication of the Week -- The Ethics Challenge in Public Service: A Problem-Solving Guide Carol W. Lewis and Stuart C. Gilman

From the publisher: This thoroughly revised and updated third edition of The Ethics Challenge in Public Service is the classic ethics text used in public management programs nationwide. The book serves as a valuable resource for public managers who work in a world that presents numerous ethical challenges every day. It is filled with a wealth of practical tools and strategies that public managers can use when making ethical choices in the ambiguous and pressured world of public service. The book also contains new material on topics such as social networking, the use of apology, ethics as applied to public policy, working with elected officials, and more.

 

Click to preview this book on Amazon.com

 

 

Trend of the Week -- Most Major Gifts Are Made Locally 

According to a new study from the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, the majority of gifts of $1 million or more (60 percent) come from donors who live in the same state or geographic region as the nonprofit or foundation that receives the gift, the report finds. About half of all publicly announced gifts of this size (47 percent of the total number of gifts and 52 percent of the total dollar amount) come from donors living in the same state. In particular, health nonprofits, arts, culture and humanities organizations, higher education institutions, foundations and government agencies received more than half of their million-dollar-plus gifts from donors in the same state. About two-thirds of gifts of $1 million or more to these types of organizations were given by donors in their geographic region. Foundations and higher education institutions were the top two recipients of million-dollar-plus gifts between 2000 and 2011, with each receiving about one-third of the total dollar value of gifts at this level. The remaining dollars were relatively evenly split among the other types of organizations; no single subsector (apart from higher education and foundations) received more than 10 percent of publicly announced million-dollar-plus gifts. To download the study, go to: http://philanthropy.iupui.edu/research-by-category/a-decade-of-million-dollar-gifts

Resource of the Week -- Resources for Volunteer Managers
Located on the website of ServiceLeader.org, this resource area provides information on all aspects of volunteer management, including getting your organization ready to involve volunteers, volunteer screening, matching, record-keeping and evaluation, legal issues/risk management, volunteer/staff relations, online activism by volunteers, and volunteer management software. ServiceLeader.org is a project of the RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs of the University of Texas at Austin. For the resource page, go to: http://www.serviceleader.org/leaders

Tech Tip of the Week -- Adding Data Forms to the Excel 2010 Quick Access Toolbar
Those of you that enjoyed using the feature called Data Form in earlier versions of Excel may be unhappy when you can’t find it anywhere in the new 2007/2010 Ribbon interface.  But you CAN add it to the Quick Access Menu at the top of the Excel 2010 screen, and here’s how:

• Click the File Tab in the upper left corner of the Excel 2010 Screen
• Click the Options button at the bottom of the Office window to display the Excel Options dialog box
• Click Quick Access Toolbar from the Options list
• Select Commands Not in the Ribbon from the Choose commands from drop-down list
• Select Form
• Click Add and then OK

To use the Data Form click within the list range and click the Data Form button.