Looking back and ahead

For the past five years I have been looking at Critical Issues for nonprofits, both through my quarterly articles on strategy, planning, and organizational development, and through this blog, which has ranged a bit more broadly.

For the past four years I have directed and hosted nonprofit Webinars, offering weekly presentations on all matters related to professional development for nonprofit staff and trustees. Our 400 or so Webinars from over 100 presenters have been seen by over 30,000 people from every state, most Canadian provinces, and scores of countries around the world. 

For the past 2 ½ years Nonprofit Webinars has been supported financially and logistically as a pro bono service of Good Done Great, which has more recently acquired Idea Encore and Nonprofit Direct. Now Good Done Great has packaged its collection of pro bono offerings into 4Good, a new resource sharing and capacity building site, launching tomorrow.

Looking ahead, while we’re learning about—and developing--the potential of 4Good, we’ll be using it also as the platform for several new offerings, including:

·       A resource for RFPs & RFQs:
As noted in Critical Issues #10: Mind Your RFPs & Qs, there is expertise and preparation required to issue a good request for proposals. There is also a need to get it into the hands of the right service providers. In the coming weeks we will be launching a service for guidance in developing RFPs & RFQs, and a clearinghouse for issuing them.

·       On-call advisory and referral services:
We have had a very positive response to our initiation of on-call services for executive directors and board chairs, so we will be expanding and broadening it.

Drawing on our expertise in planning (strategic, program, business, facilities), strategy, and organizational development and change, we have advised in-house strategic planning processes, coached board chairs in developing a more engaged and active board, and provided counsel to executive directors on a wide variety of management and governance issues.

Our on-call clients have used our services for a 15-minute telephone conversation, a half-hour edit of a strategic plan, or a 20-minute presentation by video to a board meeting, followed by Q&A. They have used an hour of consulting time over several days, or a day of consulting time over several weeks. This has offered affordable expertise in small, client-driven increments

We will expand these services by adding consultants with expertise in other fields (e.g. communications, fundraising, human resources), drawing on the broad array of experts we have invited to present webinars.

As we develop these services and others, we welcome suggestions about specific needs and priorities.

Happy new year.