The Social Sector often uses basic tools, like hammers and nails to change the world. Instead, we need power tools. Our weekly blog, Social TrendSpotter provides you with the latest trends and ideas within the social sector. It merges current thinking with the edge of innovation to inspire, to motivate and to take action so we can all ultimately create a better sector. Social TrendSpotter includes original analysis, but also highlights the latest sector-wide thinking into a user-friendly resource where social sector professionals and students alike can draw inspiration, share ideas and develop new thinking on best practices.
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A Check-Up for Your Nonprofit: Avoiding Organizational Decline or Failure
We have all done it. We wait until we absolutely have to go to the doctor when we are feeling poorly. But, delaying medical care until you are in severe pain can lead to an urgent trip to the emergency room, large medical bills and, at best, a lengthy recovery. The...
Where is Your Organization in the Nonprofit Lifecycle? Why All Nonprofits Need This Crucial Piece of the Puzzle
As another year comes to a close and we explore possibilities for the next, I find that many executives and board members are reflecting on the “state of their organization.” I was recently asked by a client about the best way to determine where to focus energies in...
May the Productivity Force Be with You
My friends and family often ask, “How do you get so much done?” “Jedi mind tricks,” I quip. Lately I have noticed a flood of Fortune 500 CEOs sharing their “productivity tricks,” so my team decided we would share ours – with a Stars Wars twist – as this busy holiday...
Corporate Social Responsibility is Getting an Upgrade – for Good
In the Social Entrepreneurship class I teach, I share with my students a continuum that places for-profit companies on the left and charitable organizations on the right. In recent years, for-profit companies and nonprofit companies have been moving toward...
Social Alchemy: Transforming Problems into Social Change
My favorite graduation gift is the bestselling book, The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho. I share it with anyone I can, because it speaks to all of us who want to find our own destiny. As one of the mentors tells the protagonist, Santiago, “When you really want something...
Top Questions on Social Enterprise
Last week, I was thrilled to teach students seeking Duke’s Executive Certificate in Nonprofit Leadership, offered each October, for the ninth time. (They may have been the best class so far!)It doesn’t feel like fall until I get to share my hard-won wisdom from being...
How to End Domestic Violence and Abuse
Domestic violence has been on the nation’s consciousness for the past four decades for good reason. More than one in three women (35.6%) and more than one in four men (28.5%) in the U.S. report having experienced rape, physical violence and/or stalking by...
What Does Nonprofit Sustainability Really Mean? Follow Our Formula to Build High Impact + High Performance Social Sector Organizations
“Sustainability” has been a buzzword in the social sector for the past few years, but what does it really mean? Everyone agrees that sustainability is an important factor to evaluate the resiliency of social sector organizations, but few have agreed on a simple...
How to Review Executive Director/CEO Performance
Governance expert John Carver was famous for saying “organizational performance is synonymous with chief executive performance.” In other words, if an organization is performing well, the CEO must be good. And, if an organization is performing poorly, it is the CEO’s...