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Resource Collection

The NRDC has provided a Resource Collection of 15 publications, carefully selected to address the most common opportunities and challenges nonprofits face. The following books are being made available to local nonprofits via the Howard County Library system and through ACS. The Library will have the collection available at the end of August. In the meantime, local organizations can call or email Maureen Heim at ACS (410-715-9545) to reserve a book. You'll find resources in the following categories: Collaboration, Community Building, Finance, Mergers, Fundraising, Board Relations and Marketing.

Collaboration

Collaboration Handbook

Work together...and get greater results! Here's how to overcome obstacles to create a successful collaboration! Whether you're working on homelessness or building a rural farm cooperative, the Collaboration Handbook tells you what to expect and how to meet challenges in a way that strengthens your group and the results you're after. You'll learn how (and why) to:
  • Find and attract the right people
  • Build trust among diverse groups
  • Change conflict into cooperation
  • Select the best structure for your collaboration
  • Keep people involved, enthusiastic, and motivated
  • Energize your supporters with a powerful collaborative vision
  • Deepen the roots of collaboration for lasting success
More [+ / -]
Practical, interactive tools keep your collaboration on track Written by Michael Winer and Karen Ray, nationally recognized consultants in collaboration and organizational development, the Collaboration Handbook takes you step-by-step through the entire process. This unique handbook shows you:
  • How to know if collaboration is the best way to accomplish your goals
  • How to get started and keep up the momentum
  • Whether your collaboration has the necessary ingredients to succeed
  • How to manage the four stages of collaboration
  • When it makes sense to test the waters with a pilot project
Plus, you also get:
  • A case study following one collaboration from start to finish
  • Sixteen worksheets to help you solve problems, plan successful strategies, and document your progress
  • Special sidebars with helpful tips such as what to do at your first meeting, and how mandated collaborations can succeed
  • And much more

Collaboration: What Makes it Work?

Collaboration: What Makes it Work A new look at what makes collaborations successful. What makes the difference between your collaboration's failure or success? Collaboration: What Makes It Work, Second Edition answers this question with an up-to-date and in-depth review of collaboration research. What's new in the second edition
  • An important new success factor (there are twenty in all) related to the collaboration's pace of development and its evolution over time
  • Improved factor descriptions with fresh examples based on experience of organizations throughout the world during the 1990s
  • Research drawn from an additional pool of 281 research studies
  • An expanded bibliography and up-to-date list of collaboration experts
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New tools not included in the first edition
  • The Collaboration Factors Inventory, a practical tool for assessing how your collaboration is doing on the twenty success factors, along with instructions on interpretation
  • Examples of how organizations have used the inventory and a case study illustrating how one collaboration assessed itself and used the results to take action to improve its success
  • New ideas for using the factors based on examples of how others used the first edition
Practical information to help you benefit from the experience of others This is not an academic report! It provides useful information to help you:
  • Expand your thinking about ways to help your project succeed
  • Gain background information before beginning a collaboration
  • Compare your situation with others
  • Determine if your plans include necessary ingredients
  • Uncover and resolve trouble spots
  • Choose between cooperation, coordination, and collaboration
This helpful resource also gives you...
  • A working definition of collaboration
  • Details of the twenty factors influencing successful collaborations<
  • A handy one-page chart comparing the elements of cooperation, coordination, and collaboration
  • Practical suggestions for using this research

Nimble Collaboration: Fine-Tuning Your Collaboration for Lasting Success

The Nimble Collaboration Help Your Collaboration Have Less Pain, More Gain Let's face it, the collaboration process can be a pain in the neck. The Nimble Collaboration: Fine-Tuning Your Collaboration for Lasting Success, shows collaborations how to become leaner, more responsive, more flexible, and ultimately, more productive. In their bestselling book,Collaboration Handbook: Creating, Sustaining, and Enjoying the Journey, Michael Winer and Karen Ray describe how to form a successful collaboration. In The Nimble Collaboration, Ray guides existing partnerships into the next stage: becoming more effective. Part I presents the "three Rs" of nimble collaboration: results that are clearly defined, relationships that are deft, and a structure that is resilient. Readers will learn how to determine, describe, and evaluate the specific results everyone wants to achieve—and keep them at the heart of each step they take. The book shows readers how to build trust, reinforce roles, and avoid turf issues and hidden agendas. It also provides ten principles of resilience that will make any collaboration more sustainable.More [+ / -]
Action steps and examples show you how to apply the "three Rs" Part II walks through real-life applications in two typical collaborations: service integration collaborations, and complex problem-solving collaborations. Detailed case studies demonstrate nimbleness in action and give collaborations concrete problem-solving ideas. Throughout the book are samples, examples, and how-tos based on the author's many years of experience consulting with real people in real collaborations across the United States. A special section explains how to write the various documents that bind partners together on paper, including a memo of agreement and a formal governance agreement. Collaborations that involve government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, community-building groups, nonprofits, law enforcement, education, health, housing, arts, social services, business, foundation—you name it—will find hands-on help for making their collaboration satisfying and productive.

Forming Alliances: Working Together to Achieve Mutual Goals

Forming Alliances Simpler may be better Don’t waste time on complex partnerships when simpler alliances can be more effective. In Forming Alliances, authors Hoskins and Angelica help you understand and strategically form alliances that work at a lower level of intensity. This concise guide will help you:
  • Decide what kind of alliance you should create given your circumstances and needs
  • Plan and start an alliance
  • Strengthen an existing alliance
Step-by-step guidance Forming Alliances gives you concrete action steps, practical worksheets, and samples to help you succeed. Plus, you’ll get troubleshooting advice and an in-depth look at two problems that often derail alliances—a mismatched structure or relationship difficulties among the partners. Use this guide to unlock the potential of alliances and create them at the level of complexity that suits your goals—and no more.

Community Building

Community Economic Development Handbook: Strategies and Tools to Revitalize Your Neighborhood

Community Development HandbookA weak local economy can be strengthened. A run-down neighborhood of boarded-up storefronts, litter-strewn sidewalks, high unemployment, and poorly-maintained housing can be transformed. An entire community can be lifted up. Mihailo (Mike) Temali knows this first-hand. He has spent nearly twenty years working in community-based economic development, helping cities as diverse as St. Paul, Minnesota, and Santiago, Chile. In this concrete, practical, jargon-free handbook, he describes a proven way to make any community a better place to live. Comprehensive, realistic, and easy-to-use If you don't already have a community economic development (CED) organization in place, Temali tells you how to set one up. Then he defines four pivot points that are crucial to neighborhood economies:
  • Revitalizing your commercial district
  • Developing microbusinesses
  • Developing your community workforce
  • Growing good neighborhood jobs
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He explains how to choose your first pivot point, then guides you through the process of tackling each one. True stories of successful CED provide inspiration. Sidebars explore related issues: dealing with gentrification, finding potential partners, supporting microentrepreneurs, and more. Other CED professionals share their insights in “From the Field” notes. Appendices point you toward useful resources, show you how to use the Internet to research your regional economy, and include dozens of worksheets that will help you move from reading about CED to doing it. The Community Economic Development Handbook is precisely what you need to turn your neighborhood around!

The Creative Community Builder's Handbook: How to Transform Communities Using Local Assets, Art, and Culture

Creative Community Handbook Put the power of arts and culture to work in your community Part 1 of this unique guide distills research and emerging ideas behind culturally driven community development and explains key underlying principles. You’ll understand the arts impact on community well-being and have the rationale for engaging others. Find inspiration and ideas from twenty case studies Part 2 gives you ten concrete strategies for building on the unique qualities of your own community. Each strategy is illustrated by two case studies taken from a variety of cities, small towns, and neighborhoods across the United States. You’ll learn how people from all walks of life used culture and creativity as a glue to bind together people, ideas, enterprises, and institutions to make places more balanced and healthy. More [+ / -]
These examples are followed in Part 3 with six steps to assessing, planning, and implementing creative community building projects:
  1. Assess Your Situation and Goals
  2. Identify and Recruit Effective Partners
  3. Map Values, Strengths, Assets, and History
  4. Focus on Your Key Asset, Vision, Identity, and Core Strategies
  5. Craft a Plan That Brings the Identity to Life
  6. Secure Funding, Policy Support, and Media Coverage
Detailed guidance, hands-on worksheets, and a hypothetical community sample walk you through the entire process. Each section includes additional resources as well as an appendix listing books, web sites, organizations, and research studies. By understanding the theoretical context (Part 1), learning from case studies (Part 2), and following the six steps (Part 3), you’ll be able to build a more vibrant, creative, and equitable community.

Finance

Venture Forth! The Essential Guide to Starting a Moneymaking Business in Your Nonprofit Organization

Venture Forth!How to find, test, and launch a successful nonprofit venture Venture Forth! The Essential Guide to Starting a Moneymaking Business in Your Nonprofit Organization is the most complete step-by-step guide on the topic. Building on the experience of many organizations, this handbook gives you a time-tested approach for finding, testing, and launching a successful nonprofit business venture. Whether your organization is large or small, the book's seven steps guide you through the entire process-from idea to complete business plan. Examples, tips, timelines, and reproducible worksheets help you: More [+ / -]
  • Assess the strengths and weaknesses of venture ideas to find the most promising ones
  • Determine which ideas fit your mission, resources, and skills
  • Make solid decisions based on data rather than impressions
  • Prepare a complete-and reassuring-financial analysis showing your breakeven point and future profitability
  • Write a compelling, detailed business plan and get it approved
  • Get ready to start the new business!

Financial Leadership for Nonprofit Executives: Guiding Your Organization to Long-term Success

Financial Leadership Guide your organization to financial sustainability Making sure that your nonprofit is going to be around long-term requires financial leadership. This means creating a financial vision for your organization and planning how you’ll get there. Financial Leadership for Nonprofit Executives gives you the framework, specific language, and processes to lead with confidence. With it, you’ll learn how to protect and grow the assets of your organization and accomplish as much mission as possible with those resources. The good news is you don’t have to be a trained accountant, earn an MBA, or have run a for-profit business in another lifetime. You already have many of the skills it takes to be a financial leader. This useful guide makes the process understandable and doable. More [+ / -]
Logical, clear, and well-written You’ll find clear, logical steps to learn how to: 1. Get accurate financial data—in a format you can understand 2. Use financial data to evaluate your organization’s health 3. Plan around a set of meaningful financial goals. 4. Communicate progress on these goals to your staff, board, and external stakeholders You’ll also find:
  • Five foundational financial leadership principles
  • Three overarching questions every financial leader needs to be able to answer (and where to find those answers)
  • Two fundamental budgeting principles
  • Five steps to building a strong annual budget
"Red, Yellow, Green" Evaluation Keeps You on Track At the end of each chapter is an evaluation tool. You can rate how your organization is doing relative to the component of financial leadership covered in each chapter. Each attribute is scored as being red, yellow, or green. “Red” items are below standard and require immediate attention; “yellow” items are widely practiced though not generally ideal; and “green” items are considered best practice. Over time, as you and your partners on the board and staff move the organization toward “green” in each of these areas, you will create an environment in which financial leadership can flourish.

Coping with Cutbacks: The Nonprofit Guide to Success When Times Are Tight

Coping with Cutbacks Think about funding problems in a new way Coping with Cutbacks can help you deal with funding problems in a new way. Successful nonprofits today see that solutions of the past won't work in the long-run. Authors Angelica and Hyman urge you to take a different approach, shifting your thinking from "How do we get more money to keep our nonprofit in business?" to "How do we involve other segments of the community to address community issues?" How to go about working together The first part of the book shows you practical ways to involve business, government, and other nonprofits to solve problems together. In the process, you'll be making new connections, creating buy-in, and bringing new partners to the table. The second part of this unique guide gives you a six-step process for coming up with solutions to problems—financial or otherwise—that your organization is facing. The steps are similar to what a consultant might use to help you clarify the problem, set up criteria for success, brainstorm strategies, and finally, pick the best strategies. Detailed worksheets walk you through each step and help you write a workplan. More [+ / -]
Find immediate help with 185 specific cutback strategies Coping with Cutbacks also includes 185 specific cutback strategies gathered from interviews with a wide variety of nonprofit managers. These strategies can be put to use right away to help you overcome short-term crises, manage change, and use your resources more effectively. You'll find:
  • 51 ways to increase revenues, manage money differently, increase fund-raising, expand services, and improve productivity
  • 64 ways to cut costs, deal with bills, modify staffing, and change services
  • 28 ways to change how your organization works, including its mission, culture, and structure
  • 40 ways to involve more people in solving your problem, including other nonprofits, businesses, the community, and the government
  • And much more!

Mergers

Nonprofit Mergers Workbook Part I: The Leader’s Guide to Considering, Negotiating, and Executing a Merger

Nonprofit Mergers Part 1 Mergers can help you accomplish more mission, more effectively Nonprofit mergers are on the rise. Executive directors and board members are discovering the advantages:
  • Comprehensive service delivery
  • Better finances
  • More powerful fundraising,
  • Increased market share, and
  • Bottom line, mergers make more mission possible
Turn what can be a daunting process into a manageable one From assessing reasons and readiness, to finding a partner, to negotiating the best path, to budgeting and implementation, author David La Piana guides you through the maze of options with a steady hand. Based on experience with more than sixty mergers, this handbook is the perfect starting point for any nonprofit exploring a possible merger—and a basic resource for all nonprofit managers. You'll find: More [+ / -]
  • How to decide what kind of structure—from collaboration to merger—meets your goals
  • How to know your own motivation and keep your mission forefront
  • What kind of merger best fits your goals, structure, and financial situation
  • How to seek merger partners and objectively assess the pros and cons of each
  • How to manage the board’s essential role in merger considerations
  • How to exercise due diligence and write the merger agreement
  • How to deal with the rumor mill
  • What you can do yourself, when to call in attorneys and consultants, and how to select them
  • Typical roadblocks and how to beat them
  • How to move past old history and build new traditions as you integrate staff, management, boards, systems, and corporate cultures
  • How to budget for and raise funds to implement the merger
  • And much more!
Full merger case studies, decision trees, twenty-two worksheets, checklists, tips, milestones, an extensive resource section and many samples—including the minutes of a completed merger negotiation—give you concrete assistance with your own merger plans and implementation. A special chapter written for nonprofit organizational consultants explains their roles and responsibilities in assisting clients interested in merger. The Nonprofit Mergers Workbook Part I shows that merger is not a last ditch survival move but an important strategic tool for organizations focused on doing their best for their community.

Nonprofit Mergers Workbook Part II: Unifying the Organization after a Merger

Nonprofit Mergers Part 2 You've completed the merger agreement. Now, how do you make the merger work? Nonprofit Mergers Part II helps you create a comprehensive plan to achieve integration. It addresses large, strategic issues as well as small practical ones. Section I: Going the Distance provides a broad view of integration, its challenges, and how to meet them. Topics include:
  • The basic tenets of organizational change
  • What success looks like in a well-implemented merger
  • The purpose and content of an integration plan
  • How to address people issues through leadership and planning
  • The relationship between effective leadership, effective communication, and their combined contribution to integration success
More [+ / -]
Integration issues and how to handle them How to create a useful integration plan Section II: Creating an Integration Plan takes you step-by-step through this essential process. You'll learn about:
  • Integration of boards, cultures, management, staff and volunteers, programs, communications and marketing, and systems—one by one, in detail
  • The steps needed to create each section of the plan
  • Common challenges, roadblocks, and crises that will arise, and how to respond when they do
  • Processes, procedures, and interventions likely to be most helpful and necessary
Software helps you create an organized plan Included with the book is a CD-ROM with a detailed integration plan template. Use it to keep your planning organized and on track. This useful guide also includes:
  • Sample integration plans
  • Worksheets
  • Checklists
  • Tips and quotes from leaders of merged organizations
Nonprofit Mergers Part II is a must-read for anyone considering, embarking on, of just completing a merger!

Fundraising

Fundraising Online

Fundraising Online Practical ways to raise money on the Internet The opportunities for fundraising on the internet are huge. But who has time to click around for hours hunting for kernels of useful information? Fundraising Online is a quick road map to using the internet as a fundraising channel. Whether you want to attract new donors, troll for grants, or get listed on sites that assist donors, this concise guide will help. You'll find practical tips on how to:
  • Prospect for potential donors
  • Find funders who fit your profile and download grant applications
  • Put together an online fundraising strategic plan
  • Increase your visibility with effective search engine marketing
  • Set up a secure online store to sell your products and services, fulfill orders, provide customer service, and protect sensitive customer data
  • Set up an online charity auction
  • Develop blogs, podcasts, and online communities to enhance your fundraising efforts
  • Assess the value of working with application service providers (ASPs)
  • Answer donor's questions about third-party charity evaluation sites
More [+ / -]
Build your fundraising skills Even if you don't intend to raise a dime on the internet, you can use it to learn more about the art of fundraising. Fundraising Online provides the online solution to getting the information you need in a way that's easy to search, convenient, and low-cost. You'll find:
  • Practical advice about what does and doesn't work to generate donations and grants
  • Reviews of more than 100 Web sites where you can download free online store software and web page tools, find information about affiliate programs, and partner with online retailers Information about the regulation of online fundraising
  • Whether you're a nonprofit executive, development officer, prospect researcher, board member, consultant, or Webmaster, use Fundraising Online, and start tapping the internet now!

Board Relations

The Best of the Board Cafe

Best of the Board Cafe A Bestseller Becomes Even More Pertinent First published in 2005, this collection of CompassPoint online newsletter articles became instantly popular with busy board members of nonprofits. Now updated with new essays that are “short enough to read over a cup of coffee,” readers will find essential insights on board responsibilities, executive directors, fundraising, finance, and more. New topics include:
  • Eleven ways to get a new executive director off to a good start
  • A board members guide to nonprofit insurance
  • How to take a public stand
  • Working boards versus governing boards
  • The right way to resign from the board
  • The best way to raise money
  • Meaningful board-staff acts of appreciation
  • What boards need to know about copyrights

Marketing

Marketing Workbook for Nonprofit Organizations Volume I: Develop the Plan

Marketing Workbook Don't just wish for marketing results—get them! If marketing seems too commercial or too complex, or if your current efforts aren't delivering results, this book is for you. With this helpful guide, you can create a simple, usable marketing plan designed to get results! Since its first edition in 1990, the Marketing Workbook has helped thousands like you use marketing to reach the people you want to help—and attract the money and support your organization deserves. Now, this updated second edition: More [+ / -]
  • Offers an easy-to-follow five-step process to create an effective marketing plan
  • Provides an expanded resources section including Internet examples
  • Includes "web wisdom" to help you set reasonable web goals, build an on-line reputation, and learn about the possibilities and pitfalls of web promotion
Use it to:
  • Be sure you have the right services to meet people's needs
  • Reach the audiences you want with a message that motivates people to respond
  • Make a strong impact in your community and beyond
You don't need an MBA to do marketing This book will guide you through each stage of the marketing process. You'll learn how to:
  • Link marketing with strategic planning
  • Set goals and evaluate your success
  • Conduct a marketing audit using the Six Ps of Marketing
  • Position your organization in a unique niche
  • Develop a marketing plan and promotional campaign
Plus, you also get:
  • 27 proven promotional techniques
  • Dozens of tips for writing and design
  • A sample marketing plan
  • A case study of how one nonprofit implemented their plan
  • And much more!
Read the Marketing Workbook and start putting the power of marketing to work in your organization!

Mobilize People for Marketing Success

Uncover your nonprofit’s hidden “sales force!” Here’s how to turn your nonprofit’s staff, board, and volunteers into active marketing representatives! Use this new guide to put together a successful promotional campaign based on the most persuasive tool of all: personal contact. Whether your goal is raising funds, recruiting volunteers, or selling tickets, the old saying, “people buy from people,” is as true as ever. A postcard, phone call, face-to-face visit, even an e-mail—from someone we know—cuts through, gets our attention, and is more likely than anything to get us to act. Marketing Workbook Volume II: Mobilize People for Marketing Success shows you how to mobilize your entire organization, its staff, volunteers, and supporters in a focused, one-to-one marketing campaign. This unique guide gives you complete instructions, real-life examples, and detailed worksheets to create an effective campaign. Regardless of the size of your organization, you can use the ten steps in this book to: More [+ / -]
  • Reach ongoing fundraising, membership, enrollment, and volunteer recruitment goals
  • Plan and carry out capital campaigns and generate attendance for major special events
  • Build name recognition and awareness of your organization or cause
  • Increase the skills and confidence of everyone associated with your nonprofit to be effective marketing representatives
Each workbook also comes with Pocket Guide for Marketing Representatives, a pocket guide available for all your representatives. In it, they can record key campaign messages and find motivational reminders. Complete, easy-to-follow steps make the process doable! Using the same concise style as in his top-selling Marketing Workbook Volume I, author Gary J. Stern shows you step-by-step how to:
  • Get your organization’s support for the campaign
  • Define the campaign’s scope and create a master action plan
  • Form a marketing task force to set goals and strategies
  • Recruit people for the right roles
  • Motivate and give ongoing follow-up and support to representatives
  • Celebrate your successes and evaluate the campaign
The workbook also gives you:
  • Four marketing representative roles and how they work
  • A simple and effective formula for targeting the best prospects
  • Detailed instructions and sample agendas for motivational trainings
  • 25 tips for marketing representatives to increase their effectiveness
  • Clear worksheets to keep your campaign organized and on track