Resources
These are many of our favorite current resources for nonprofit leaders who want to learn the latest tips, thought leadership, and research applications for nonprofit leadership. For our latest updates, join our mailing list.
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Strategy and Strategic Planning
Creating Your Nonprofit’s Future: Why Strategic Planning May Be the Most Important Thing Nonprofit Executive Directors Can Do, by Belinda Lyons-Newman
Good to Great and the Social Sectors, by Jim Collins
The Strategic Plan is Dead, Stanford Social Innovation Review
What Is Strategy, by Michael E. Porter
How to Create an Effective Non-Profit Mission Statement, Harvard Business Review
Scenario Planning: Rapid Planning in a Time of Rapid Change, by Belinda Lyons-Newman
Team Learning Tool: Building a Blameless Work Culture — As a team, we value innovation and are passionate about supporting strong teamwork and continuously learning. That’s why we love this article about how to build a blameless work culture. Inspired by this article, our team developed a continuous learning tool to track our own mistakes, lessons, and insights from our work, as well as action ideas for future improvement. Click here to download a free template of our tool that you can use at your own organization.
Governance
The Dynamic Board, by McKinsey & Company
Ten Responsibilities of Nonprofit Boards, by Richard T. Ingram
Board Development Insight Brief, by the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund
The Inclusive Nonprofit Boardroom, from Nonprofit Quarterly
Leading with Intent: BoardSource Index of Nonprofit Board Best Practices
Leadership
Discovering Your Authentic Leadership, by Bill George, Peter Sims, Andrew N. McLean, and Diana Mayer.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI)
Racial Equity and Liberation Virtual Learning Series, Move to End Violence
The Groundwater Approach: Building a Practical Understanding of Structural Racism
Continuum on Becoming an Anti-Racist Multicultural Institution
Divorcing White Supremacy Culture, Tema Okun
Change Management
The Inconvenient Truth About Change Management, by McKinsey & Company
Switch, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
Marketing and Branding
The Role of Brand in the Nonprofit Sector, Stanford Social Innovation Review
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
M&R Benchmarks Study on nonprofit digital funding and marketing metrics
Financial Management
Ten Nonprofit Funding Models, Stanford Social Innovation Review
Should Nonprofits Seek Profits? Harvard Business Review
The Nonprofit Starvation Cycle, Stanford Social Innovation Review.
Fund Development
Underdeveloped- A National Study of Challenges Facing Nonprofit Fundraising, by CompassPoint and the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund
15 Must-Know Fundraising and Social Media Stats, by Nonprofit Tech for Good
Beyond Fundraising: What Does It Mean to Build a Culture of Philanthropy? by the Evelyn & Walter Haas Jr. Fund
Collaboration and Networks
Needle-Moving Community Collaboratives, by The Bridgespan Group
How to Start a California Nonprofit, California Association of Nonprofits
The Networked Nonprofit, Stanford Social Innovation Review
Community Asset Mapping, The Laundromat Project
Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD), Asset-Based Community Development Institute
Client-Centered Design
Listening to Those That Matter Most, the Beneficiaries, Stanford Social Innovation Review
Design Thinking for Social Innovation, Stanford Social Innovation Review
From Input to Ownership- How Nonprofits Can Engage with the People they Serve to Carry Out Their Missions, by The Bridgespan Group
From the Streets to the Boardroom: Homeless Residents Take Back Power in the Bay Area, The Mercury News
Evaluation
Logic Model Development Guide, by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation
Next Generation Evaluation: Embracing Complexity, Connectivity, and Change, by Srik Gopalakrishnan, Hallie Preskill PhD, Shijie (SJ) Lu
Facilitation
Rituals for Work: 50 Ways to Create Engagement, Shared Purpose, and a Culture that Can Adapt to Change, Kursat Ozenc and Margaret Hagan
The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker
Organizations and Websites
What We Are Reading
Scaling Up Excellence, Robert I. Sutton and Huggy Rao
Performative Allyship is Deadly (Here’s What To Do Instead), Holiday Phillips
Dear White People, This Is What We Want You To Do, Kandise Le Blanc
Emergent Strategy, Adrienne Maree Brown