Recovering Executive Director

Be Fearless! I have been thinking a lot about the work I do, to help organizations improve their plans or think about what they can measure for example. What is the common thread?  Well I really think it has something to do with "resilience". I work with nonprofits to sometimes face a crossroads, sometimes to even keep going at all; sometimes the organization needs clarity, to refine their mission; other times they need to be able to better measure what they do and demonstrate the impact they are having. Last year, Beth Kanter wrote about nonprofit resilience in her blog .  She wrote about it in the individual sense, that people who work in nonprofits have a high degree of stress and can burnout. Therefore, we need to think about the resilience of nonprofit staff. I use the term resilience in a broader sense, in terms of the whole organization. Organizations may change and morph over time, adapting to the world around them, or may stay stuck in an earlier time, ...

I lead two nonprofit workshops this week; one on the use of technology and one on how to communicate your impact.  I always begin my workshops with a similar theme: understand your organization and take a serious look at your values, vision, and mission.  Once that is clear, you can more clearly identify the goals and actions to take your organization where it needs to go.  Seems simple but in most cases, these are extremely hard conversations to have and even harder to reach consensus. As I was leaving my Forefront workshop in Galesburg, Illinois, I drove past a construction crew working on a house and had to capture the image.  The signs read  "Every action of creation is first of all an act of destruction " by Pablo Picasso .  Genius and true! If you want to build strong buildings and organizations, you first have to tear them apart, see what you're dealing with, come up with a plan for improvement and then build it. This also reminds of nonprofit...

This summer, I am putting myself back in the classroom but not as a teacher, as a student.  It's been a few years since I've been on that side of the podium.  I have always wanted to have a better understanding of American higher education to improve my own teaching and connectedness to today's college students. Luckily for me, my first course is a special topics class called "Race and Ethnicity in the Formation of American Higher Education" being taught by Dr. Rodney Cohen. He is a visiting associate professor and President of the Association for Black Culture Centers (ABCC).  NIU became the national headquarters of ABCC in November 2015.  We are reading the book " The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935 ". The course begins with a discussion of how African Americans were educated in the south.  I have never studied this before so I am soaking up all of this rich heritage but also questioning our current climate in higher education. Ear...

I want to connect with my own kids and my students, and I truly enjoy learning and using technology.  I also think that we need to manage our online brand as much as we spend our face to face identity. We pay attention to what we wear or how we speak, depending on the context.  We need to take the same care to develop and nurture our online brand, which is possibly the only brand we may be known for. So how do you do this?  At a basic level, Google yourself (really - right now!).  See what comes up. This is what people will do when you are applying for a job, joining a committee, volunteering in an organization etc.  What comes up when you Google yourself?  Is the content correct?  This is hard if you have a more common name because you will undoubtedly come up with information about people other than yourself.  But what content comes up that is actually about you and where does that information "live" online?  The media? Your employer's we...

This past week or two, I have been listening to several interviews with Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook Chief Operating Officer and author of the bestselling " Lean In " book. She has cowritten a new book called " Option B " following the death of her husband, just released this week.  I have the book and I can't wait to read it!  But beyond the book, she is calling for a movement, for all of us to build resilience and help others build theirs.  She and her co-author have created a nonprofit organization called OptionB.org to provide tools to build resilience.  Visitors can share their own personal stories, join online support groups and find information from experts. Of course we can all use some support if we faced with difficult circumstances or choices, sometimes because of something we have pursued but other times simply because life happens. Life is beautiful in all of its complexities and riches, and sorrow and disappointment as well. They are all learni...

The past week, I have been thinking a lot about my own background and why I do the work I do; teaching about nonprofits and helping nonprofits get stronger to fulfill their mission.  I love everything I have the privilege of doing. Today, I read about an interesting partnership which brought three aspects of my own life together: faith, education, and service.  The University of Ottawa is partnering with the Ottawa Mission , a homeless shelter, St. Paul University , and First Baptist Church to offer "Discovery University".  This experience is a true partnership where non-credit courses are taught by university professors and all textbooks and course materials are provided at no cost to the students. From the press release , "the courses are real gifts of hope that will enlighten the life of many individuals".  This is faith in action.  This is social justice in action. This is service in action.  I am a proud alum of the University of Ottawa and ev...