Organizational strategy is crucial to success, but only when it has the right balance of vision and details, and words can get in the way. Strategy is often confused with tactics, and that’s when things can go badly.
Read moreWorkshops to Help Your Nonprofit Scale-up
Check out upcoming offerings including Strategic Partnerships for Nonprofits: Fresh Approaches to Building Scale, Impact and Sustainability” and “Business Planning as a Strategic Tool for Fundraising.”
Read morePilot Study Yields Benefits for Oregon Nonprofits
In partnership with the Nonprofit Association of Oregon, PIMG completed a pilot study of the new Success Factor Analysis methodology for assessing nonprofit organizations. Participating nonprofits found the process valuable in crafting strategies for improvement. Further, the data collected in the project sheds new light on which practices are and are not associated with organizational success.
Read moreStarting at the End
What you do next should be a function of where you're ultimately going. That seems simple, but envisioning an ultimate endpoint for an organization can be deceptively hard to do. A thoughtful new article offers a framework to consider different "endgames" for nonprofits. This has implications for how we think about organizational strategy and the issue of "scale."
Read moreInnovation—Separating Truth from Hype
Our culture seems to love the idea that big innovations and charismatic innovators drive change. But most good ideas and most useful innovations are, in fact, incremental. The world we know is the product of systematic, continuous improvement, not huge jumps. This is how innovation happens in the nonprofit sector. We should recognize and celebrate small, non-headline improvements, and exercise caution in embracing big new ideas or people who claim to have “the answer.” The next generation comes from all of us.
Read moreClient Focus: Food Lifeline is Thinking Big about the Future
Food Lifeline is Washington State’s largest hunger relief agency, and a leader in antipoverty strategies in the Pacific Northwest. Public Interest Management Group has supported this effort by helping Food Lifeline secure a site that will meet operational needs for decades to come, and develop partnerships with organizations that can complement Food Lifeline’s capacity. The new site is just south of Seattle, in the Riverton District. Projected to open in mid-2015, Anna Constant, Food Lifeline’s Director of Operations, is excited about the new facility and the larger concept of the Hunger Solution Center
Read moreData for Decisions—a Search for the Third Dimension
Nonprofit leaders are bombarded with information throughout each day. Some of it is important, some is interesting, and a lot is neither. Information is only as good as what we get from it. Unfortunately, a lot of what we get is noise. The problem is that the more background noise, the harder it is to hear the important idea or the cry for help. The key is to identify three-dimensional metrics that help tell us the real story about the organization and where you’re headed.
Read moreWhat Makes Great Nonprofits Tick?
New analysis by Public Interest Management Group offers insights—and a few surprises—on what nonprofits really need to succeed. Based on data from over forty nonprofits, this study explores 28 organizational facets correlated to overall success, including organizational strategy, culture, operations and overall business model.
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