Help 4
NonProfits & Tribes Community-Driventm
INSTITUTE. e-Newsletter Building Community-Driven Organizations
May
2005 (If our newsletter does not appear
below, or if it appears as gobbledy-gook, please
click
here to get the newsletter from the Help 4 NonProfits Website. And please
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Hello! Its been a whirlwind month for
us here at Help 4 NonProfits & Tribes, and so, in addition to our normal
bevy of goodies, we thought wed take some time to share some of where
weve been. The journey is always amazing for us, and were glad to
have you along!
- A New Feature - Learnings from
the Road
- Board
Accountability: A Model for Community-Driven
Governance
- Boards Library Kicks Off Website
Change to Community-Driven Model
- Power Notes Close-out:
Everything Must Go!
- Seeking Testimonials for our Speaker Workbook
- Best Sellers from our Nonprofit
Bookstore
- New E-newsletter: Help 4 Funders
- Sharing this
Newsletter
- Sneak Preview: More Community-Driven programs!
Please read and enjoy, and pass these
items along. We know it will help you improve the quality of life in your
community. And isn't that really why we all do the work we
do?
A New
Feature:
Learnings from
the RoadCLICK
Weve always said we learn at
least as much as we teach, and that was never more evident than the two trips
we combined into one terrific 10 days last month. We spent the better part of a
week in the small rural town of Danville, Virginia. And we ended the trip with
the American Bar Association in Chicago! So we thought we would share some of
what we learned and observed as we taught in those two amazing
places.
Boards and governance and
accountability continue to head the list of things we think about everywhere we
teach.
CLICK
These days we are also concerned about
collaboration. Does forcing nonprofits to collaborate simply doom those
collaborations to fail?
CLICK
We also spent some time focusing on how funders can more effectively create community impact.
CLICK
And this trip in particular made us
think about just what faith-based means, wondering if this whole
sector isnt in fact based in faith.
CLICK
In addition, we learned a great tip for
consent agenda users
CLICK
As we continue to travel, sharing our
Community-Driven approaches with communities across the continent, we'll
continue to share our observations along the way. It's always an
adventure!
Who Are Boards Accountable To, and
What Are Boards Accountable For?
Announcing the
Community-Driven Governance ModelCLICK
Welcome to the Community-Driven Governance Model
We have been so excited to see the
response to this model. And as weve watched boards begin using the model,
we are even more excited, seeing how engaged and alive those boards become with
the things that really matter. When boards are focused on the benefit the
organization provides to the community, the sky is truly the
limit!
If your board cant quite figure out what its role
should be, CLICK
If your board is concerned about accountability but not
quite sure what the board is accountable for, CLICK
And if your board already seems to have its act
together, and wants to take your organization to the next level - incredible
impact in the community - then this is absolutely the model for
you!CLICK
The Community-Driven Governance Model will help you create an amazing board, aimed at
running an amazing organization, all aimed at creating an amazing future for
your community.
Boards
Library Begins the Website Change to Our Community-Driven
ModelCLICK
We are slowly peeling away 8 years of website layers to
focus the whole Help 4 NonProfits site around our Community-Driven model. Over
the coming months, we will be announcing a new section here or there, along
with many new features.
In the meantime, check out the changes weve
begun, all in the Boards section of the NonProfit Library.
As we looked over the articles in the Boards Library,
we saw that some of our older Boards articles pre-dated the development of our
Community-Driven approach. Weve therefore retooled some of our most
popular articles - check out the Micromanagement article, the Boards and Fundraising
article... Weve been busy!
We have also made the Boards section of the library
easier to navigate. We think youll find the changes helpful, and if you
have other suggestions, please let us know!
CLICK
PowerNotes
Close-out: Everything Must Go!
The PowerNotes line in our bookstore is being
discontinued. Once our current supply is gone, we will have no
more.
That means all our PowerNotes are only
$5.00!
So what are PowerNotes?
PowerNotes summarize the thinking that has emerged from
some of Americas top conferences, reviewed and presented by some of the
best minds around. But PowerNotes doesnt just give you a summary of each
speakers talk. Instead, each book is organized around the major themes of
that conference. In that way, PowerNotes provides a broad view across ALL the
break-out sessions, to get the
true essence of what made that conference special. You may learn more from
PowerNotes than from actually being there!
All this for only
$5.00! Quantities are limited, so check
them out now!
Pursuit of the Summit: Attracting
and Retaining the Best Employees and CustomersCLICK
Innovate or DIE: The 8th Annual
Innovative Thinking ConferenceCLICK
A
Rich Heritage, A Prosperous Future: Arizona Governors Rural Economic
Development ConferenceCLICK
Testimonials
Wanted:
Building Support
Through Public Speaking: Tips, Tools and Secrets Any Nonprofit Leader Can
Master
Until now, our speaker workbook has been available only
as a download. As we are preparing to release that workbook in print, we are
looking for testimonial quotes to use on the back
cover.
(If you are not familiar with the workbook, it will
be available as a download until the print version comes out - check it out!)
CLICK
If you have the workbook and you have found it helpful,
we want to know! The more specific you can be, the better. What section made an
impact on your organization? How did that work for
you?
Heres what Charity Channel Founder and CEO Steve
Nill said in his review of the book - and yes, Steves words will likely
be among those we use! (For a full copy of the review,
CLICK )
To my knowledge, this is the first book written about
public speaking in the context of raising support for nonprofit/NGO
organizations. In its own in-the-trenches, pragmatic way, it's ground-breaking.
If we choose your testimonial for the back of the book,
we will send you a prize from the Help 4 NonProfits bag of tricks, as a token
of
our gratitude! So
send them in!
To
submit a testimonial,
CLICK
To check out the workbook,
CLICK
Bookstore Best
Sellers
Aside from our own books, we have been slowly stocking
our bookstore with books we recommend by other authors. Because our inventory
is only books we think are worthy of sharing, being a best-seller at our tiny
bookstore means a lot to us!
Our first best-seller is a new title for us and has
been an immediate hit - Andy Robinsons
wonderful Big Gifts for Small Groups: A Board
Members 1-Hour Guide to Securing Gifts of $500 to
$5,000". We added this book just a month or so ago, and sales
have consistently proven that Andy has written a top notch
guide.
This tiny book (under 100 pages) makes
a complex subject understandable and immediately doable. Aimed at small
nonprofits for whom gifts of $500 to $5,000 are major gifts, this short guide
acknowledges you may never have done anything like this before. It shows how to
create a prospect list from folks you already know; how to create a gift chart;
how to determine where to meet with the prospect. And most importantly, it will
show you how to ask for the gift in a way anyone can comfortably do - really!
Andy Robinson clearly understands the needs and fears
of small organizations, and this book speaks directly and effectively to them.
We were not surprised at all when this book turned out to be a best-seller at
our site!CLICK
The other book is
Renata Raffertys
Dont Just Give It
Away: How to Make the Most of Your Charitable
Giving. This book
is the opposite of Andy Robinsons book in a couple of ways. First,
weve stocked it for a long time, so it has built a track record of sales
at our store over time. Secondly, unlike Andys fundraising book, this
book is technically intended as a guide for donors, not the organizations
asking for money. That is why we have
advised our website visitors,
Dont be fooled by the
books stated purpose OR the title.
And no, its not insanity to recommend a book and
then say Pay no attention to what its supposed to be about...
Thats because this bible
for educating donors on what to look for before investing their donations is an
amazing tool for NonProfits to use in
reverse - to know what funders are looking for! The chapters
on donor motivation provide great fundraising and marketing insights. The
chapters on performing due diligence (Ten Warning Signs: Where to Look
for the Bodies) make a fabulous checklist for ensuring your
organizations ducks are in a row. And if your board cant answer the
Ten Key Questions Every Board Member Should Be Able to Answer,
perhaps its time to get some help! If sales of this book are any
indication, we are encouraged that more and more nonprofits are heeding the
advice Renata Rafferty provides!CLICK
Help 4
Funders: A New
e-newsletter!
Thanks to inspiration from funders all over the country
(and a final boost over the top from the funders in Danville, Virginia - see
our Learnings from the Road for details!), we will be launching a new
e-newsletter just for funders! We are hoping to get an issue out every few
months, and it will be aptly named Help 4 Funders!
To sign up,
CLICK (Sorry - subscriptions are limited to funders
only).
Share this Newsletter With a
Friend!
Every month, hundreds of new subscribers sign up for
our e-newsletter, most of whom learn about our site from a friend or colleague.
Heres one of our favorite comments this month:
As an avid and loyal follower, please
notify us as you re-do the website - we wouldn't want to miss a thing! Your
work continues to inspire!
Sandi Cooper, The
Womens Center of America, Michigan
And because board members so rarely
receive information on how to do their job better, please be sure to pass this
newsletter along to your board. Or better yet, sign them all up to receive a
copy of their own!
Sneak Preview: More Community-Driven
Programs!
There is so much coming up in the next few months, it
is hard to tell it all! First, our new workbook on Boards and Fundraising will
be on the market in the next few months. We are getting more and more excited
about this book as it is certainly not the standard fare. First, it
doesnt tell boards they have to fundraise, but provides them with great
ways to do so if that is what they choose to do. Second, the book provides
boards with ways to generate support that go far beyond fundraising in their ability to
create sustainability. So stay tuned for that one
soon!
We are continuing to work on great projects, and have
vowed to share what we learn with you as we head down the road. And so, as we
revamp our website, we will find a way to make those learnings a fixture at the
site.
Lastly, we are finally assembling the book that will
describe in detail the Community-Driven model - methods for running every
aspect of a nonprofit for maximum community benefit. We hope to have that out
by the end of the year.
We look forward to keeping you posted as these projects
unfold!
Thank you, as always, for the work you do to make your
communities better places to live. We wish for you all the possibilities life
holds.
Hildy and
Dimitri Help 4
NonProfits & Tribes http://www.Help4NonProfits.com 4433 E. Broadway Blvd. Ste
202 Tucson,
Arizona 85711
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