A new year. Time for a fresh start, resolutions, and hibernation (sometimes mental, sometimes physical, sometimes both). And time to identify the GuideStar Newsletter articles that caught your attention in 2018.

Have you heard of English Catholic historian, politician, and writer John Dalberg-Acton? Probably not. But I bet you’ve heard his famous quote: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Too much power is rarely a good thing. When it comes to nonprofit governance, best practice always calls for governance and management decisions to be made in the best interest of the organization, free from conflicts of interest or other personal concerns. And the best way to do that? Spread the decision-making power, rather than concentrate it in one person or among a few.

The new year (calendar or fiscal) typically comes with increased funding goals. However, this doesn’t always have to cause stress! Higher goals should boost your own confidence in your organization because it shows that you are passionate enough about your mission to want to grow.

The new year is here, and with it comes a season for planning. Do your goals for 2019 include growing your membership? Whether you’re part of an arts organization, an association, or local club, increasing your membership base can make all the difference. 

So, how do you grow your membership? 

Communicating by email and text can be tricky. You don’t have the advantage of vocal inflection as you do on the phone, or visual cues as you do in person.

Not to mention potential grammatical errors—which can sabotage the best of intentions.

For example, “Let’s eat, grandpa,” versus “Let’s eat grandpa.”

Hi everyone. If this is your first day back from the holiday break, make some coffee and read last week’s pep talk “Welcome back to work, you stunningly brilliant and attractive world-changer, you!” followed by “12 tips to ensure you don’t stab anyone on your first day back from break.” (Tip 9: Take a short walk. To your car. Drive home. Watch Netflix.)

It is 2019, a brand new start! Take a deep breath. What you smell is the aroma of change, of possibility, of hope!

New research supports what we at GuideStar have long believed: (1) donors give more to transparent nonprofits and (2) transparent organizations tend to be stronger organizations.

Birds of a feather flock together ... but when it comes to your capital campaign, they’ll only flock well with successful leadership. Your committee chairs must be well-organized and maintain excellent communication.

It’s easy to lose sight of the simple, basic practices that make systems work well when the goals are very big. But it turns out that the bigger and more complex the goals, the more important rigorous attention to essential practices of organization and communication.

From time to time, my phone rings. A nonprofit staff or board member begins to talk.

“We’re in a unique situation,” this person says.

Silently, I roll my eyes.

Or maybe, “We have a unique problem.”

Actually, you don’t.

Fundraising has two magic words. One is enchanting, the other has sinister force to weaken your writing. When you control these two words, as I explore in my book, How to Turn Your Words into Money, you can wield wizard-like powers.

Like ugly holiday sweaters, disasters come in a variety of forms and sizes. As we follow the news of big events like earthquakes, wildfires, and hurricanes affecting millions of people, we can’t forget that a simple burst pipe can seem just as disastrous for a single nonprofit. Yet, because we are all so busy with our nonprofit’s mission, taking the time to create a plan, document it, and practice it may fall by the wayside. Indeed, a new report from the Nonprofit Association of Oregon and Portland State University confirms that, despite a high level of awareness of—and concern about—the potential for certain disasters, many nonprofits still do not have a high degree of preparedness for those events.