Last week, we talked a little about how to give a great presentation. But what if you’re not giving a talk, but hosting one? Maybe you have donors coming to speak about why they support your work, or students wanting to learn about careers in philanthropy. Maybe you’re throwing a book launch party for your [...]

Believe it or not, I recently heard a bad non-profit spokesperson. This individual spoke for forty minutes, and spent half his time either promoting himself, or being openly aggressive with members of the audience. “Devil’s advocate,” he called it. I have no recollection of what his organization did. But I hope never to be stuck [...]

“I want to say one word to you,” Mr. McGuire says to Ben in The Graduate. “Just one word. Plastics.” It was the line that defined a generation, or the promise of it. Nearly forty-five years later, that famous clip is included in another film depicting the high cost of fulfilling that promise. On March [...]

Today is the big V Day. Maybe you’re selecting flowers that benefit a charity. Maybe you’re still researching fair trade chocolates for cacao content and worker conditions. Maybe you’ve torn up the sixteenth draft of the sonnet you’ve written your sweetie. If you’re still stumped (or even if you’re all set), there’s one thing you can [...]

As a volunteer manager, we have certain obligations. As much as we may be overworked, underpaid and possibly even under-appreciated (never!), we certainly don’t want to make any of that our volunteers’ problem. Here’s how to make sure your volunteers and your organization are reaching a mutually beneficial arrangement.

In my last article of my nonprofit series, I gave advice on how to tell if your non-profit is uncool…er…climatically challenged. “But Molly,” you may have thought to yourself, “now that I know I have a lame non-profit, what do I do about it?”

Sometimes it’s hard to remember why we got into non-profits; the long hours, budget cuts, donors that are increasingly harder to find and have less to give. But following these simple tips for a happier, more productive non-profit will allow your organization to spend less time on administration and more on pursuing its mission, and [...]