Did you know a majority (90%) of non-profit organizations report that they have one source of funding and that one source accounts for 90% of their total funding? When we work with clients to help increase their funding, we typically recommend that they diversify their funding. When an organization is strongly reliant on fees for service or…
Author Archives: Amanda Lopez
3 Tips to Use Your Data to Drive Program Improvement
Nationally, only about half of students who start college actually complete and earn college degrees, according to the National Student Clearinghouse. It is much worse for students who start at a community college or 2-year degree program. This means many students are increasing their debt (from student loans) and not reaping the financial benefits of…
Are You Ready for a Federal Grant?
Receiving a federal grant can be a great way to accelerate your impact. There are many positive attributes in applying for and receiving a federal grant. Federal grants tend to be for larger amounts and are often multi-year funding to name a few. However, federal grant applications are complex and not easy to navigate. We…
Tools Your Board of Directors Need to be Effective
Every nonprofit organization and school has a Board of Directors that is meant to help govern the organization. There are many companies, books, and webinars that solely focus on supporting Boards of Directors. Over the years, we have found and developed some key tools that are easy to apply to help organizations and their Boards…
4 Steps to Complete a Feasibility Study
Too often non-profits and government agencies immediately begin implementing a new program or service area. They see a need with their clients or a gap in the existing services, so they elect to help meet that need. This all sounds good, right? The challenge is that there has not been enough time to complete a…
4 Steps of Strategic Planning
We have the privilege of working with a few organizations every year to help them create their “road map” or strategic plan for the next 3-5 years. In the course of completing these strategic plans, we have developed a formula that guides the process following four key steps. 1. Collaborate Good strategic plans are not…
4 Tips to Make the Most Out of Your Volunteer Committee
When was the last time you were asked to join a committee? Did you have a deep sigh of angst or a smile of excitement. Your reaction was probably the former, which is not uncommon. Most professionals I know are involved in one if not multiple volunteer committees and seem either frustrated or lukewarm about…
How to Reach Consensus on Your Strategic Plan
We are continuing our blog series on strategic planning by focusing on Step 3 of our 4 Step Strategic Planning Process: Facilitate Consensus. Read more about our previous strategic planning blogs in this series here, here, and here. The main purpose of this third step is for the strategic planning team to start to reach…
Board Member Recruitment Tips
Are you looking for new board members at your nonprofit? Board members are an important link to successful fundraising, community engagement and networking. Having the right people on your board is critical to successful organizational impact. Certainly, organizations should recruit Board members from the leadership and staff’s existing set of personal and professional contacts, but also consider…
Strategic Planning Process: Step 2
In this past blog we talked about the 4 Steps of Strategic Planning that we follow. A quick recap of the 4 steps are: Collaborate, Assess, Facilitate and Create. A few weeks ago we shared more about Step 1 in that process: “Collaborate”. Today we are continuing our blog series on strategic planning by focusing…