Notes for the people who run community nonprofits
Short pieces on boards, planning and knowing where you stand, by Jeff Ward.
Where you are going
- Where you are going
A Few Hopes for Your Next Board Packet
Somewhere out there, a board member is reading page three of forty, eleven minutes before the meeting starts. Five hopes for the humble board packet, offered with affection for everyone involved. - Where you are going
How to Find Out Who Funds Organizations Like Yours (Without Paying for a Database)
Foundation research can feel like a members-only room. Yet every private foundation lists its grants in a public filing, and two free tools will read those lists for you. A method any nonprofit can run in an afternoon. - Where you are going
Before You Add a Second Program
Growth is the sector's default compliment, and expansion ideas arrive dressed in mission language. Six questions to ask while the new program is still an idea, including the one about stopping. - Where you are going
You're Doing Well. Now What?
We assume the hardest organizational choices belong to struggling nonprofits. I've watched the opposite: strength brings the questions with no deadlines, no forcing functions, and no obvious answers. - Where you are going
From Surviving to a Five-Year Horizon
Someone asks where the organization wants to be in five years, and the room goes quiet. Not empty quiet. Out-of-practice quiet. On rebuilding a muscle that survival seasons take away. - Where you are going
A Strategic Plan Is Not an Action Plan
In a cabinet near you sits a handsome strategic plan that has been consulted twice since the retreat. Most small organizations need the other document first, and it fits on a page. - Where you are going
The Building Question
A bequest, a below-market offer, a landlord ready to sell: suddenly owning a building is possible, and the dream arrives with a shadow. Questions to sit with before your organization becomes a property owner. - Where you are going
When to Say No to a Grant
The funding opportunity is almost your mission. The room is talking itself into it. A few questions worth asking before yes, and some thoughts on declining money graciously. - Where you are going
Turning Assessment Results into a Productive Board Conversation
The report is a starting point. The real insight arrives when board and staff look at the same data together and ask what it means for us. A one-hour format, built around a single decision, that any chair can run.
Know where you stand, and decide where you are going
The free guide, the Planning Check, or the whole of KindTru for $299.