60 Straight-Talking Insights About Nonprofits (1-15)
As I lead up to a rather significant birthday, I wanted to share some of the honest, frank, even blunt insights I’ve gained in all my years as a volunteer, staff and board member in a countless number of nonprofits. Posts, stories, perspectives and especially partnerships are all welcome. The first of four installments:
Nonprofit staff are among the most extraordinary, passionate and committed individuals you will ever know.
The staff at nonprofits are problem-solvers, multi-taskers, full of ingenuity and rarely leave their work behind at the end of the day.
Burnout, exhaustion, frustration and a failure to be acknowledged are endemic at the vast majority of nonprofits.
Supervisors and Executive Directors rarely if ever ensure their staff take full advantage of the benefits they have earned and that health and well-being are made the priorities they should be.
STAFF RETENTION IS ONE OF THE MAJOR CONCERNS FACING NONPROFITS TODAY.
New Development Officers are brimming with ingenuity, ideas, and creative ways to bump up fundraising at their new organization.
On Day 1, Development staff are thrown onto an already speeding train, rarely provided time to ask probing questions, synthesize information, or bring the very talents they were hired for in the first place to bear.
Boards don’t like change. “If it ‘aint broke…” Events tend to utilize the same committees, the same programs, the same event consultants, and the same fundraising methodologies year after year after year with little deviation.
Our mailboxes remain full of direct mail pieces, when online fundraising has been the state of the art for a decade. Most nonprofits are still playing catch-up.
FUNDRAISING IN TODAY’S ENVIRONMENT REMAINS THE #1 CONCERN OF MOST NONPROFITS.
Saving things on Google Docs does NOT represent cyber security.
Nonprofits tend to stick with the same security consultants they’ve had for decades, who are often woefully lacking in state-of-the-art cyber protections.
To this day, I have security access to an organization I worked at 5 years ago, and others from even further back.
We all undervalue the threat poor cyber security represents, because none of us want to believe this is what the world has come to. This is what the world has come to.
CYBER SECURITY IS ONE OF THE MAJOR THREATS FACING ALL NONPROFITS.
Contact Andrew Stern at astern@inheritance-consulting.com and let’s begin!