For successful nonprofit alliances or mergers, strategies should fit together like two pieces of a puzzle. When two organizations come together, their missions and cultures should provide common ground, but their strategies can be quite unique. This creates a 1+1=3 multiplication effect. As my friend Toyditz Cosico, an asset-based development guru, often says, "Don't compete with each other, complete each other."
Read MoreWhat then is the role of aligning missions for strategic alliances or mergers? Should the missions be identical? Similar? Completely different? The question matters when you consider the nonprofit hierarchy in figure 1.0. If you get mission wrong, the ship is sunk.
Read MoreHave you ever been in a meeting and though everyone is using your language, everything seems foreign and unintelligible? Maybe it is your first day at a new firm and none of the acronyms or terms make any sense, or the meeting is just run differently, or nobody participates the way you are used to. Often, we think of culture in terms of nationality or ethnicity, but organizations have culture too…
Read More
It was painfully hot in Phoenix, Arizona the day I locked our office doors for the last time. In the short span of 30 days I had laid off 50 staff, sold as many chairs, desktop computers, staplers (I still have one), and wound down the operation of my first real leadership job. It was a brutal ending to my role as Vice President of Client Services for a consumer credit counseling nonprofit start up.
Read More
My friend, Jamie McIntosh with Compassion Canada, recently posted an update about the value of sharing the load of leadership during times of crisis. I agree. During the COVID-19 pandemic, leaders can easily find themselves overloaded and weighed down by the burden of supporting staff and keeping their organizations viable. If you're an executive leader and you're feeling burned out, unable to sleep, and irritable all the time, it may be time to for you to rotate some leadership duties with your team.
Read More