island⁹⁴

Last weekend I was in NYC for the Craigslist Foundation’s Nonprofit Bootcamp. As a one-day conference, I’ve really enjoyed it as having a wide variety of informative sessions. This is my second time going and for 2 out of 3 of the sessions, I attended the Board Governance track. The following are my combined notes from 2 sessions: Board Governance 101 by Michael Davidson (Governance Matters), and Managing a Board by John Brothers (Cuidui Consulting) and David LaGreca (Volunteer Consulting Group).

7 Board Roles (from Michael Davidson)

1. Setting Strategic Direction
2. Providing Financial oversight and management
3. Protecting assets and ensuring legal and ethical integrity
4. Ensuring adequate resources
5. Serve as advocates and ambassadors for the organization
6. Developing and maintaining a cohesive and committed Board of Directors
7. Select, support, partner with and evaluate the executive Director

4 Board Roles (from John Brothers and Dvid LaGreca)

1. Know why the organization exists… and annually review why it should
2. Interpret the organization’s work to the public in words of 2 syllables
3. Combine a sense of obligation with a sense of humor
4. Give money, or get it, or both

Board Structure: structure should be determined by what you are doing, not bylaws or god. …read more

I’ve been meaning to type of some of my notes from the NTEN 2008 Conference, but the benefit of waiting is that someone will do it better. Like Britt Bravo: Notes from The Seven Things Everyone Wants: What Freud and Buddha Understood (and We’re Forgetting) about Online Outreach .

In short (lots more notes and examples in the link):

Need 1: To be SEEN and HEARD

Does your home page make people feel heard? Not many people give money because they read a well word-smithed mission statement. Effective sites and campaigns provide space for people to express themselves. Nonprofits need to truly listen to their supporters and acknowledge what they are saying.

Need 2: To be CONNECTED to someone or something

Engage people by connecting to what they (not you!) care about.

Need 3: To be part of something GREATER THAN THEMSELVES

Need 4: To have HOPE for the future

Doom and gloom, and finger-wagging messages don’t work.

Need 5: The security of TRUST

People are starved for a sense of trust in “the messenger.”

Need 6: To be of SERVICE
…read more

Giving the keynote at last weekend’s Craigslist Foundation’s Nonprofit Bootcamp in New York, was Nancy Lublin, CEO and Chief Old Person of Do Something and founder of Dress for Success.

She gave us her Top Ten List of things she hates about nonprofits:

1. Being told “Be more like a for-profit”. In response: “I wish you would act more like you had the soul of a nonprofit.”
2. The people who say that. In response to the “venture philanthropists”: “I’d like you to behave like an ATM with legs.
3. My grandfather thinks he can find me at home in the middle of the day.
4. The way you people dress: flannel, cotton turtlenecks, socks with sandals
5. Redundancy. There are no market forces to force collaboration: every cosmetic corporation has a breast cancer organization.
6. Fundraising dinners: it’s always salmon.
7. Used Computers. If it’s not good enough for them, why should it be for us?
8. Direct Mail: antiquated, wastes time, money, trees.
9. The standard business model: “We do good work. Give us money”. In response: “Monetize your core competency”. You should hope to put yourself out of business.
10. Cute names: Do you think you’ll raise more money if your name rhymes?

Last week I attended NTEN’s 2007 Nonprofit Technology Conference and sat in on a wonderful session entitled Nonprofit Communications 2.0: Seven Steps to Transform Your Organization. Led by Lauren-Glenn Davitian of the CCTV Center for Media and Democracy, the session provided a strong framework for nonprofits to better communicate in an increasingly networked society.

I am also very lucky to serve with Lauren-Glenn on the editorial board of the Community Media Review.

The video itself is approximately 1 hour, 24 minutes long and worth every second, but I included my notes from the session below. …read more

Community technology is great. It is incredibly refreshing to be reminded on a daily basis that, as a developer and technologist, I don’t know crap about how everyday people view and use technology.

Two weeks ago I was in Washington, DC for the CTCnet Conference. While there I helped John Lorance of CompuMentor give a presentation on how Community Technology Centers and nonprofit orgaizations can use “Web 2.0″ services and tools like Flickr, del.icio.us, wikis, mapping, et cetera, to improve their programs and better fulfill their missions.

At the end we opened the floor to questions and comments. An attendee stood up and said that he had always been worried that with computers and machines growing ever smarter and more powerful, one day they would overthrow mankind. But, after seeing these new Web 2.0 tools, he is relieved that humans will always stay one step ahead of the machines. Hallelujah.

I made this drawing using Inkscape, an awesome open source illustration program.