Welcome to Research Friday! As part of a continuing series, we invite a nonprofit scholar, student, or professional to highlight current research reports or studies and discuss how they can inform and improve day-to-day nonprofit practice.

With the recent scarcity of grant funding, excellent program evaluation practices are becoming a distinguishing element of effective and grant-competitive nonprofit organizations. However, studies reveal that most nonprofits still view evaluation as exclusively about program outputs, and they often perceive data gathering as a resource drain and distraction.1 Even those who are eager to conduct evaluations often lack the funding and knowledge to evaluate their programs appropriately.

There are different approaches to evaluating a program. Some organizations gather data such as program expenditures, customer satisfaction or program outputs (e.g., the number of individuals receiving the services, number of trainings provided, number of animals rescued, etc.). However, increasingly nonprofits are moving to the…

Linton Weeks wrote an article on NPR back in 2009 on microvolunteering, and he said it right: we live in a micro world. “What began with microscopes and microbiology has morphed into microeverything.” Twitter is a microblogging platform, Kayla McKinney previously discussed the trend of microgiving, and now there’s microvolunteering.

Microvolunteering is an easy, commitment-free way to give back. Volunteers can choose the projects, causes, and organizations they help, and organizations can potentially get help from numerous volunteers. It can almost be seen as a form of crowdsourcing.

How does it work?

Sparked is a project-based microvolunteering site, where nonprofit organizations “challenge” the Sparked community, and the volunteers then respond. Volunteers may offer suggestions or solutions to the challenge, or they may give a “thumbs up” to other participants’ answers – either option will help the challenging organization get the best possible solution (or solutions) to their challenge.

I am relatively new to the Sparked community, having only been an…

Nonprofits can make a big difference in public schools, but that doesn't mean working with schools is always easy. Long-term partnerships with schools take a significant amount of time, effort, and flexibility to establish. Even hosting a one-time event at a public school can be a challenge. While school administrators appreciate the help from local nonprofits, they're often spread too thin and left with little time to coordinate schedules with your organization and help you execute initiatives. If your nonprofit is thinking about hosting an event at a public school or starting a long-term program in public schools, here's some advice to help you out.

Plan to be self-sufficient

Teachers and administrators have a million things to do each day. While they will often want to help your organization achieve its goals, they may not feasibly be able to provide you with a whole lot of assistance. Because of this, you should plan to be self-sufficient. The programs you establish should be able to run without the help of people who work at those schools. You should be able to come in before, after, or during school hours, and provide your service without interrupting the school's natural flow and schedule.

Get the word out

It'll be difficult to get kids and parents to participate in your public school initiatives without marketing those initiatives first. The more people your…

In today’s world, job roles are constantly changing and new challenges arise in the workplace. Professional development is a great tool to combat these issues and allows all individuals to continue to thrive within their organization. Additional training to individuals can also assist in expanding their knowledge on certain subjects that may be beneficial to them in the future.

Over the past four years, I have worked as an instructional designer in the for-profit education world and am excited to have transitioned into the nonprofit sector. While working in the for-profit sector I had access to the latest technology, studies, and methods to develop professional development courses for organizations such as Meritus University, University of Phoenix and Lockheed Martin. I was able to develop dynamic, innovative, and knowledgeable courses using e-learning tools such as Articulate, Camtasia, Microsoft Office, and worked with graphic artist to develop custom interactive multimedia instruction (IMI). During my time at Lockheed Martin I witnessed many software updates to critical machinery at airports across the country. Because of these updates, professional development courses/training had to be created and administered to airport personnel so that they could effectively continue to use the machinery. However, professional development does not only offer training regarding software updates or how to use a new tool, but professional development is a great…

Your grant proposal is due in a mere six hours and you are very confident that you have all your ducks in a row. Just to make sure, you unearth the official grant application checklist that was buried in a folder from day one, only to discover to your horror that you were so focused on writing the proposal narrative you completely forgot about the budget.

What do you do? Do you: a) grovel in front of your agency’s accountant and plead with them to make time to do it; b) simply do the budget yourself; c) submit the application without the budget and hope nobody notices; or d) start scrolling through the ASU Lodestar Center Nonprofit News looking for new job opportunities?

Ultimately, the answer is: you never should have gotten into this predicament in the first place, because preparing a grant application should be an inter-departmental endeavor. All too often, nonprofits that have a staff grant writer make the assumption that they will be 100% responsible for every aspect of the grant application process. And all too often the staff grant writer will take this on because that was the initial expectation.

The truth is that if ever there was a nonprofit activity that needs to be collaborative across departments, it is the preparation of a grant application package. It is not the grant writer’s job to create programs, or decide…