Our publications analyze current realities in nonprofits and provide innovative, practical recommendations for organizations to increase their impact.
Crafting Powerful Questions
Positive, strengths-based, open-ended questions can all be useful ways to engage with colleagues, clients, volunteers and boards. Asking “why” questions prompts people to make connections, identify patterns, and explore new […]
Asking Powerful Questions: A Series of 5% Shifts
People working in service agencies constantly ask questions. During an intake process, questions may assess need and eligibility; in a counseling session, questions may focus on strengths and diagnoses; in […]
Learning Circle: A Tool for Understanding Root Cause
The purpose of a learning circle is to develop a deeper understanding of community problems and issues experienced by agency constituents. The learning circle fosters critical thinking and analysis among […]
Client Voice and Engagement
When engaging clients or constituents more deeply in the work of your organization, it is helpful to examine not only the ways they are already involved, but also the quality […]
Four Components of Community
This discussion guide can be used to explore the key components of community building and evaluate where it is currently happening in your organization, and where it can be built […]
Developing the Leadership of Recipients: A Series of 5% Shifts
Leadership is closely tied to notions of confidence, agency and authority in our culture. Too often, structural inequities restrict the opportunities for people to develop those self-perceptions and exercise leadership, […]
Building Community from the Inside Out
This report includes two case studies of community building efforts by nonprofit organizations in Detroit and New York City. St. Matthew’s & St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church’s hot breakfast program in […]
The Leadership in Leaving
This report is the second in a series that examines different aspects of a transformational moment for the nonprofit sector, as the baby boomer cohort begin to transition out of […]
Introduction: Navigating Leadership Transitions
Tools in this Section: As long-term leaders in the nonprofit sector think about life after they leave their current jobs, two things become clear: They are not planning to move […]
The Leadership in Leaving
This report highlights the leadership in leaving as an often-neglected aspect of a nonprofit leader’s role, key in understanding and successfully completing the exit process.