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.

It has often been said that organizational culture trumps strategy. An organization’s culture is composed of the values and behaviors practiced inside the organization, and it can be positive or negative. Culture is strongly influenced by relationships, as well as formal policies and informal practices. A healthy culture can inspire individuals to bond together and weather difficult challenges in pursuit of a common goal. A weak culture can leave individuals and the organization damaged and unsuccessful1.

Culture is not an “off the shelf” product, it must be cultivated. Achieving a strong culture requires intention and commitment, but the investment can pay off: a strong organizational culture can be a competitive advantage that strengthens the organization’s ability to achieve its mission and strategic goals. And, most of us find it much more pleasant to work in a positive work environment full of people who enjoy their work and their co-workers.

In 2009, The Bridgespan Group published a report titled "…

The observations presented here are drawn from six years of work in an indigenous Guatemala village of about 1,500 families called Chocolá. Our experiences may not apply to other rural communities. However, from our conferences and discussions with other NGOs and our interviews and work within other communities, we suspect our experiences are more common than they are unique.

The end of the Guatemalan Civil War resulted in a flood of non-governmental organization (NGO) programs spreading across the country in the hope of helping desperately poor people gain everything from their human rights, to better health care, food and nutrition, and training in governance. Most deserve to be applauded, but because the government and many NGOs find it quicker and less costly to pass out money, services, and equipment for “immediate impact” on critical issues, there has been a lack of emphasis on human resources. The absence of such training may leave communities fighting over the goods and services, rather than learning how to work together toward critical common goals. Many communities came to look to the government and NGOs for charity rather than for the human resource development that they need in order to gain control of their futures.

The observations presented in this blog post deal with some of the things we have learned while founding and then running a small community development NGO in an indigenous Guatemala…

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.

For nearly 50 years, the Federal Poverty Limit (FPL) has been the standard measure used by governments and nonprofit organizations serving low income individuals and families to determine eligibility for anti-poverty programs. The FPL was based almost exclusively on the cost of food, assuming that food is one-third of a family’s budget. While it has been adjusted for inflation, it has never accurately reflected household costs, nor does it take into account childcare costs or other family variables. The FPL for a family of three is $19,090, regardless of whether those three people are adults, teen-agers or infants.

The Women’s Foundation of Southern Arizona (WFSA) commissioned a study to create a more comprehensive, useful measure of self-sufficiency. The recently released report, How Much is Enough in Your County? The Self-Sufficiency Standard for Arizona 2012, is a comprehensive, user-friendly tool that can be used by agencies and individuals to help Arizona’s families make real progress…

The more I work with boards of directors, the more the topic of board governance versus management comes up. That is, there seems to be an ever-present issue of organizations navigating the very sensitive notion of where board responsibilities end and where the executive director’s duties begin. It is obvious that many boards are unclear of their role within an organization.

We’ve all heard horror stories about members of the board coming into organizations and managing and/or directing staff. While staff interaction with the board should be encouraged, those aforementioned instances are wildly inappropriate. It is absolutely imperative that the board realize its role in an organization, and that role is not to manage employees or to be involved in any of the day-to-day operations of a nonprofit, but to steer the organization in accordance to its mission; to govern.

Peter C. Brinckerhoff, in The Mission Based Management Newsletter writes, "The executive director works for the board. All the other employees work for the executive director. Period." It’s simple: the only employee of an organization that reports to the board of directors is the executive director, no one else. While board members are obviously valuable and insightful, that venerability should be used to govern and not to guide staff or their roles. Not only is it confusing for a staff member for a member…

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.

While driving to work recently I heard an NPR report about philanthropic giving in the US; but it was not the numbers I had just read in Giving USA 2012 published by the Giving USA Foundation and compiled by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. Listening further, I learned this was a report of a study just recently published by The Chronicle of Philanthropy, using data on giving from 2008. 

Both Giving USA and The Chronicle of Philanthropy are reputable sources of information, but the way each measures philanthropic giving for their reports differs – significantly. Both provide valid information, although in this instance it was for two different years, thus it is important that we know these differences, understand them, and appreciate what learnings we can glean from them.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s report follows on the heels of Giving USA’s 2012 report for 2011 giving, where the total current individual giving was reported to be $217.79 billion.1 But let’s compare their numbers for 2008, the year for which the Chronicle recently reported.

Giving USA’s number for individual giving in 2008 is $214 billion. The Chronicle of…