What if Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had just marched up to the pulpit of his upper middle class church -- and stayed there, instead of marching into the center of the Civil Rights Movement? What if Rosa Parks had not had access to training in civil disobedience and community leadership? What if Ghandi had spent his years [...]
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has released new data about nonprofit sector employment. Here are BLS slides with the data findings. Some important highlights: Employment for nonprofit organizations steadily increased from 2007 through 2012 Nonprofits accounted for 10.3% of all private sector employment (11.4 million employees) in 2012 Nonprofit wages accounted for 9.8% of total private wages ($532 billion) If we had data like this each updated annually by the government, we would be much better equipped to tell an impressive story: Nonprofit professionals compose a large, important part of the economy and society. We are job-creators. We are economic drivers as well as cultural, education, health and social service providers in our communities. And our sector gets going when the rest of the economy recedes. Now is the time nonprofit leaders to take action. Here’s a Flyer that tells you how you can educate the Bureau about the potential benefits of counting us annually. Take a minute to educate the BLS staff by commenting on the Bureau’s website today. We owe this development to the ground-breaking research and influence of John Hopkins University’s Center for Civil Society Studies and the Aspen Institute’s Program on Philanthropy and Social Innovation. […]
Rusty Stahl, founder and CEO, Talent Philanthropy Project Most nonprofit executives know their people are their best assets for achieving program goals and building a strong organization. Committed professionals, board members, volunteers, and consultants bring a vision to life and create value with their skills, passion, sweat-equity, relationships, creativity, grit, and endurance. It is “human [...]
A new study from the Center for Effective Philanthropy finds that 73% of nonprofit leaders feel they lack sufficient opportunities and resources to develop their leadership skills, and that their funders do not understand the nature of this challenge. Seventy-three percent. This issue is one of three key issues in the top findings. Of those [...]
It's official. The era of "overhead" is, well, over. Today, Guidestar, BBB Wise Giving Alliance, and Charity Navigator have issued a joint letter declaring: The percent of charity expenses that go to administrative and fundraising costs—commonly referred to as “overhead”—is a poor measure of a charity’s performance. We ask you to pay attention to other factors of nonprofit [...]
This post was originally published on Idealist.org’s IdealistCareers Blog on Feb. 20, 2013 as part of my Talent Agenda monthly column on that site. While we often talk about how networking is key to career development and job seeking, we tend to gloss over the importance of networking in the development of a strong social sector. Networks are central to cultivating a talented, healthy, and diverse workforce for nonprofit organizations and social movements. But how do we create and support these networks? This post makes the case for why and how funders should support you and your organization in developing high-impact networks. […]
Is there really a leadership crisis in the nonprofit sector? In the first post on my new monthly column at the great new IdealistCareers.org site, I argue that the social sector has the talent it needs to do great work, but foundations and organizations need to invest more in developing nonprofit employees and their careers. [...]
Thanks to Allison Jones and the other good folks over at Idealist.org for referencing my most recent piece on this blog on their blog! Here's their post: More than a pipeline. Given their large budget, they were able to percure much better graphics than me :) Excited to have this blog featured on the website of [...]
Earlier this year I worked with Putnam Community Investment Consulting on a research initiated dubbed Generating Change when I was E.D. at Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy. At one point, we were trying to develop a graphic image to represent how career pathways look amongst nonprofit talent and leaders. We called upon the commonly used analogy of the nonprofit leadership “pipeline”. Here’s a picture: Am I in a Pipeline? But a few things didn’t sit quite well with me. I had to ask: is the “pipeline” the most useful analogy? […]
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