Nonprofit

Charles Clement thinks he’s found an affordable and scalable way to inspire more people to work on solving the world’s social problems.

LinkedIn groups are an interesting way of taking the pulse of a specific community on a topic and collecting feedback on challenges you face. It’s also a way of becoming a thought-leader, by answering the questions of others. Yet, it is not one of the top five reasons nonprofits use social media.

As the results of Ditch Digital Dabbling: How Small Businesses + Nonprofits Can Master Online Marketing demonstrate, nonprofits need to take a deeper dive into online media. Well, an opportunity is knocking at your door.

What you don’t know can hurt you, especially if what you don’t know leaves your business back in the 20th century while your customers are well on their way into the 21st.

In that case, you are losing opportunities to grow, to reduce costs, and to build customer loyalty.

I’m delighted with the recent Ernst & Young report, Thinking big: How to accelerate the growth of women-owned companies, which matches what I’ve found from talking with high-growth women entrepreneurs. With the number of women-owned businesses increasing yearly, accelerating their growth is important.

Whoa! Just what do you have to do to lose your place at a nonprofit? Greg Mortenson has been ordered by the Montana attorney general to repay $1 million to the Central Asia Institute he founded because he misspent the charity’s money. By agreement with the Montana attorney general, Mortenson resigned as executive director and can no longer be a voting member of the board.

This year, the underlying theme in nonprofit governance seems to be that a good board is active, works hard, and provides a lot more than money to the operation of the organization.

Strange as it may seem, workplace flexibility is no longer just a mommy-track thing or a benefit given to employees by a generous business owner.

Your board and leadership have accepted that your nonprofit isn’t sustainable and can’t continue alone. You’ve decided to do it: Your clients will be better served if your nonprofit merges with another organization. That is, by the way, the only reason for a nonprofit to do anything: continue, expand or improve services to clients.