Book Description
This groundbreaking book will help nonprofit managers think in new and creative ways about how they define and meet the challenges they face--and how to rise above standard practices to lift their organizations to greater performance levels. Using examples of best practices from innovative organizations in both the corporate and nonprofit worlds, Breakthrough Thinking for Nonprofit Organizations offers a mix of "how-to" advice and case studies that will guide readers on a new road to creativity. This book will fundamentally change the way nonprofit professionals think about how they do their work--and usher in a new era for nonprofits.
2003 Terry McAdam Book Award Winner http://www.allianceonline.org/publications/mcadam_past_winners_1.page
Customer Reviews:
When "change drivers" hit your NPO, give this book a look........2006-10-20
Good book. I liked it! It was easy to read. Each chapter had a summary section so I could read the summaries before tackling the book as a whole. If you are managing a not-for-profit, or sitting as a board member to a nonprofit, and you believe your nonprofit could be doing things better, then consider getting a copy of this book and give it a read.
Back in July I read and reviewed "Managing Business Change for Dummies," by Beth Evard (ISBN: 0764553321), which focused on how managers successfully deal with employees who resist change in an organization. This book on the other hand focuses on how YOU, the manager, must deal with YOUR resistance to change so you can improve your organization's performance in the process.
The author lists nine "change drivers:"
1. New Mission or Vision
2. Speed of Business
3. Cost Reduction
4. Service Failure
5. New Technology
6. Change in Public Perception
7. Change in Priorities
8. Competition for Funds and Resources
9. Change in Technology
When your organization is hit by one or more of the above events you are going to have to implement change at your organization. This book provides examples of best practices as to how to do this. Also, the authors include exercises from their workshops on this subject. Both the best practices and exercises are very helpful to help us grasp what the authors are talking about.
If you are like me you can examine the Table of Contents for this book online and after doing so you will probably say: Wow, what is this book really about. The chapter titles are kind of weak is what I'm really trying to say. It's the chapter summaries, best practices examples, and exercises that make the book a worthwhile investment of your time.
I would have liked the book much better if the authors had organized it so it did not feel like just another book put together by a management consulting group. Yeah, it felt like one of "those" to me. And after you read 2 of them, they all start to sound the same. But since this book is informative, well written, and not too long I'm inclined to give it 5 stars.
For everyone connected with a noprofit.......2004-06-27
Good performance is no longer enough for nonprofits; nonprofits must set and achieve breakthrough goals. Managers and board members need to think in new and creative ways about how they define and meet the challenges they face and the strategies and techniques required to achieve extraordinary performance in fundraising, service delivery and overall results. Almost all nonprofits are affected to some extent by nine change drivers. There are five internal change drivers: organizations need a new mission or vision or they will run out of steam; the speed of business requires more decisions made faster; rising costs require new ways to deliver service from a distance; high profile service failure may require drastic measures such as clearing out top management to win back public confidence; new technology may make a nonprofit redundant or may offer opportunities to improve ways of doing business. There are also four external drivers of change: changes in public perception may result in being dropped from people's consciousness or require 24/7 availability; rapid public awareness of disasters quickly changes priorities; competition for funds has increased as distinctions between nonprofits, the public sector and the private sector has blurred; technology change can make old solutions redundant. Nonprofits that fail to answer two fundamental questions: where do we want to go? and how do we get there? may find themselves wandering in a fog, not knowing how they got into their current situation and wondering what is the right way to go. The decision to go for breakthrough is a strategic one involving risk and asking questions such as 'what is the worst thing that can happen if breakthrough goes wrong?' and 'how likely is it that the worst thing will happen?' and 'what can we do to minimize the risk of the worst thing happening?' and 'should we have a Plan B to cope with problems?' After appraising the risks and challenges and adopting a strategy you still need to decide on the approach required to encourage the people and innovation needed and the leadership required. Even then you need to ask 'to what extent do the improvements and changes made match up to what is needed?'
Once an organization has decided to transform its performance to have an impact on the need/performance gap or to achieve its potential, plotting the position on a life cycle chart can be very helpful. Organizations decide to change at various points in their life cycle and for different reasons. The challenge with the most common change point - just past the peak - is that the organization has to break out of its comfort zones and one way is to think about a dramatically improved level of performance. To drive that change a vision of the new performance level has to be agreed together with positive and negative drivers to provide pleasure and avoid pain. Two words have proved exceptionally useful in setting new goals - kaizen and horshin - because they describe not only the nature of the goals but the change process. Kaizen is slow, incremental change that leads, over time to significant improvement in performance. After the second world war Japan applied kaizen to a whole range of activities, including their car industry by setting a long-term world class performance goal and breaking it down into small, achievable chunks. Horshin is about sudden, exponential, discontinuous and radical change that leads to dramatically improved performance in a relatively short period of time. This process resulted in Sony's Walkman becoming one of the most widely used personal electronic devices on the planet. It was used by the National Trust in raising $7.5 in 200 days to save Mt. Snowdon in Wales for public use. In practice most organizations need a mixture of both kaizen and horshin as some areas of work need the stability and methodical progress of kaizen while others need the drive, transformation and vision implicit in horshin. An organization could have ten goals as part of a three-year strategic plan of which six might be kaizen and four horshin. Balance is important as you cannot transform everything overnight and you need to focus and emphasize a small number of key areas to transform quickly.
Engaging a horshin goal can be very stimulating such as Kennedy's "This nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth" or Fords " My vision is to build a motor car for the great multitude. It will be at so low a price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one". Many nonprofits build on Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" to express mission as an overarching, simple, concrete horshin goal while others are more specific such as "To become a world-class center for research of childhood diseases and to radically reduce their incidence." To achieve breakthrough, language is important as it helps people to shift into a different mindset, distinguish breakthrough goals from ordinary goals and to think creatively about 'how to' as well as 'what'.
The remaining eight chapters of 'Breakthrough Thinking for Nonprofit Organizations' deal with unlocking potential, releasing creativity, creating a smart organization, mapping the possibilities, balancing creativity and innovation, challenging mind sets, driving change and working in a breakthrough organization. It is difficult to imagine than anyone connected with a nonprofit could not profit from this book.
This Imaginative book will change your human toolkit!.......2003-03-17
Imagine your fundraising abilities as a human toolkit: thoughts, beliefs, skills, experience, creativity, and intelligences. Now imagine that someone offered you a foolproof book to completely enhance your toolkit and revolutionize your thinking by combining the use of your tools in new and unexpected ways to expand your creativity and its results exponentially. Would you buy it for $...?
Bernard Ross and Clare Segal, co-directors of THE MANAGEMENT CENTRE (=MC) in the United Kingdom, offer just such an enhancement in Breakthrough Thinking for Nonprofit Organizations: Creative Strategies for Extraordinary Results (Jossey-Bass: San Francisco, 2002) with their commitment ýto inspire managers and board member managers in non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to believe they can achieve extraordinary results, and to give practical strategies and techniques for achieving such results.ý
Leonardo da Vinci wrote: ýSmall rooms discipline the mind. Large rooms distract it.ý Drawing upon their extensive experience in working with nonprofits in the United States, Canada, Europe, Africa, and South America, Ross and Segal animate their strategies with persuasive examples that not only articulate the process of ýre-toolingý outmoded ways of thinking, they also provide working examples of how different organizations have applied these techniques in order to achieve astonishing results. The discipline they teach is the ýsmall roomý eurekas of breakthrough thinking by making learning more creative, more collaborative, and more fun.
Is breakthrough thinking magic? Is it only for gifted individuals? Ross and Segal donýt think so: ýThe lesson from our experience is that many breakthroughsýeven if they are apparently from out in left fieldýare often the result of simple hard work and simple rules applied consistently and methodicallyýyou need to create a culture and business structure that strongly reinforces innovation as well as creativity.ý
This joy of this book is that it outlines in clear, applicable language how different people are creative in different ways, how to stimulate personal and organizational creativity by simply challenging habits, attitudes, environments and work roles, and why innovation plays a crucial role in turning creative thinking into long-term organizational results. Refreshingly, Ross and Segalýs practical strategies are easy to understand, enjoyable to read, and actually do work once you give them a try:
· Second Wave Thinking anticipates organizational decay by restructuring resources in advance of predictable future change and the inevitable decline in results
· Kaizen and Horshin Planning helps you to differentiate between programs that will benefit from incremental growth and programs that will support sudden, exponential growth to create new heights of sustainable development
· Mind Tiles allow you to create a radically new concept simply by building on the combination of two existing concepts
· Gardnerýs Seven Intelligences conceptualizes individual strengths and weaknesses as being related to physical/kinetic, logical/mathematical, spatial/visual, linguistic, creative/musical, emotional/interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences
· The Learning Cycle relates how individuals and organizations go through a common process of reflection, theorizing, planning, and action before change is possible and how each of these different learning styles needs to change in order to accomplish its own breakthrough
· Creative Mindmapping organically links strategies or issues through creative planning that helps isolate new ideas and opportunities for growth
· The Matrix Analysis helps position your organization against key competitors to assess its direction and the potential fate of its programs
· The Ladder of Implication demonstrates how the same information can be interpreted by different mind-sets to reach different conclusions and strategies
· Reframing is a simple and useful technique for taking a negative mind-sets and restructuring their positive attributes and potential
· The Five Cýs teaches you how to deal with champions, chasers, converts, challengers, and changephobics in the workplace when your organization undergoes transformational change
Not all of these ideas are new and not all of them will apply to any one individual or organization. But if reading this book gives you one breakthrough technique that leads you to that one amazing idea that transforms your job, your organization, or even your life, then your investment will prove immeasurable.
Throughout their presentation, Ross and Segal talk candidly about both their successes and failures. In fact, they differentiate between failing because of poor ideas and failing because of poor performance. They give a number of constructive tips on how to communicate openly within organizations in ways that allows individuals the freedom to disagree without causing personal recrimination.
My favorite tips are their suggestions to hold ýsacred cow barbecues,ý during which participants are encouraged to articulate the ýunthinkable thoughtsý about an organizationýs most cherished beliefs which can then be either ýsaved or cooked,ý and invoking ýchampagne rulesý for private group discussions on difficult topics so that anyone can feel free to say what they think, personal attacks are discouraged, and nothing is repeated or recorded outside the groupýs discussion except by agreement.
Nonprofit organizations face the constant challenge of accelerating rates of change, demand for new services, and competition for scarce donor resources. The key for any organization in meeting these challenges it to answer the following questions:
· Do we know what our organizationýs mission is and where it needs to go in the future?
· Do our programs and our practices measure up to the needs we serve and the resources we expend?
· Are we, both individually and organizationally, as creative and cooperative as we need to be in order to ensure that our planning can achieve breakthrough results?
Only a poor workman blames his tools. In an age of accelerating change and increasing competition for scare resources, true breakthrough results can only be achieved if we look inwardly at our skills and outwardly at our organizations in new and creative ways. You donýt have to be an expert to achieve transformational results: you only have to aim higher, think better, and work smarter.
If you are comfortable with your human toolkit, you can write your own book. If not, buy this one.
This imaginative book will change your human toolkit!.......2003-03-17
Imagine your fundraising abilities as a human toolkit: thoughts, beliefs, skills, experience, creativity, and intelligences. Now imagine that someone offered you a foolproof book to completely enhance your toolkit and revolutionize your thinking by combining the use of your tools in new and unexpected ways to expand your creativity and its results exponentially. Would you buy it for $28.00?
Bernard Ross and Clare Segal, co-directors of THE MANAGEMENT CENTRE (=MC) in the United Kingdom, offer just such an enhancement in Breakthrough Thinking for Nonprofit Organizations: Creative Strategies for Extraordinary Results (Jossey-Bass: San Francisco, 2002) with their commitment "to inspire managers and board member managers in non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to believe they can achieve extraordinary results, and to give practical strategies and techniques for achieving such results."
Leonardo da Vinci wrote: "Small rooms discipline the mind. Large rooms distract it." Drawing upon their extensive experience in working with nonprofits in the United States, Canada, Europe, Africa, and South America, Ross and Segal animate their strategies with persuasive examples that not only articulate the process of "re-tooling" outmoded ways of thinking, they also provide working examples of how different organizations have applied these techniques in order to achieve astonishing results. The discipline they teach is the "small room" eurekas of breakthrough thinking by making learning more creative, more collaborative, and more fun.
Is breakthrough thinking magic? Is it only for gifted individuals? Ross and Segal don't think so: "The lesson from our experience is that many breakthroughs-even if they are apparently from out in left field-are often the result of simple hard work and simple rules applied consistently and methodically...you need to create a culture and business structure that strongly reinforces innovation as well as creativity."
This joy of this book is that it outlines in clear, applicable language how different people are creative in different ways, how to stimulate personal and organizational creativity by simply challenging habits, attitudes, environments and work roles, and why innovation plays a crucial role in turning creative thinking into long-term organizational results. Refreshingly, Ross and Segal's practical strategies are easy to understand, enjoyable to read, and actually do work once you give them a try:
· Second Wave Thinking anticipates organizational decay by restructuring resources in advance of predictable future change and the inevitable decline in results
· Kaizen and Horshin Planning helps you to differentiate between programs that will benefit from incremental growth and programs that will support sudden, exponential growth to create new heights of sustainable development
· Mind Tiles allow you to create a radically new concept simply by building on the combination of two existing concepts
· Gardner's Seven Intelligences conceptualizes individual strengths and weaknesses as being related to physical/kinetic, logical/mathematical, spatial/visual, linguistic, creative/musical, emotional/interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences
· The Learning Cycle relates how individuals and organizations go through a common process of reflection, theorizing, planning, and action before change is possible and how each of these different learning styles needs to change in order to accomplish its own breakthrough
· Creative Mindmapping organically links strategies or issues through creative planning that helps isolate new ideas and opportunities for growth
· The Matrix Analysis helps position your organization against key competitors to assess its direction and the potential fate of its programs
· The Ladder of Implication demonstrates how the same information can be interpreted by different mind-sets to reach different conclusions and strategies
· Reframing is a simple and useful technique for taking a negative mind-sets and restructuring their positive attributes and potential
· The Five C's teaches you how to deal with champions, chasers, converts, challengers, and changephobics in the workplace when your organization undergoes transformational change
Not all of these ideas are new and not all of them will apply to any one individual or organization. But if reading this book gives you one breakthrough technique that leads you to that one amazing idea that transforms your job, your organization, or even your life, then your investment will prove immeasurable.
Throughout their presentation, Ross and Segal talk candidly about both their successes and failures. In fact, they differentiate between failing because of poor ideas and failing because of poor performance. They give a number of constructive tips on how to communicate openly within organizations in ways that allows individuals the freedom to disagree without causing personal recrimination.
My favorite tips are their suggestions to hold "sacred cow barbecues," during which participants are encouraged to articulate the "unthinkable thoughts" about an organization's most cherished beliefs which can then be either "saved or cooked," and invoking "champagne rules" for private group discussions on difficult topics so that anyone can feel free to say what they think, personal attacks are discouraged, and nothing is repeated or recorded outside the group's discussion except by agreement.
Nonprofit organizations face the constant challenge of accelerating rates of change, demand for new services, and competition for scarce donor resources. The key for any organization in meeting these challenges it to answer the following questions:
· Do we know what our organization's mission is and where it needs to go in the future?
· Do our programs and our practices measure up to the needs we serve and the resources we expend?
· Are we, both individually and organizationally, as creative and cooperative as we need to be in order to ensure that our planning can achieve breakthrough results?
Only a poor workman blames his tools. In an age of accelerating change and increasing competition for scare resources, true breakthrough results can only be achieved if we look inwardly at our skills and outwardly at our organizations in new and creative ways. You don't have to be an expert to achieve transformational results: you only have to aim higher, think better, and work smarter.
If you are comfortable with your human toolkit, you can write your own book. If not, buy this one.
GOOD GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE.......2003-02-12
Refreshing perpective about the non profit world. A truly global book. I enjoyed very much!
Average customer rating:
|
Strategic Management in Public and Nonprofit Organizations: Thinking and Acting Strategically on Public Concerns
Jack Koteen
Manufacturer: Abbey Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 General
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Nonprofit Organizations & Charities
| Industries & Professions
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Management
| Management & Leadership
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Systems & Planning
| Management & Leadership
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Public Affairs & Administration
| Government
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Public Policy
| Government
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Public Administration
| Political Science
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Business & Finance
| New & Used Textbooks
| Stores
| Books
ASIN: 0275933237 |
Average customer rating:
|
Should I Become a Board Member?: A Guide for People Thinking of Joining a Nonprofit Board
Dorian Dodson
Manufacturer: Adolfo Street Pubns
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Management & Leadership
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
| Business Ethics
| Consolidation & Merger
| Decision-Making & Problem Solving
| Distribution & Warehouse Management
| Industrial
| Information Management
| Leadership
| Management
| Management Science
| Motivational
| Negotiating
| Operations Research
| Planning & Forecasting
| Pricing
| Production & Operations
| Project Management
| Quality Control
| Risk Assessment
| Statistics
| Strategy & Competition
| Systems & Planning
| Systems Analysis
| Teams
| Total Quality Management
| Training
Running Meetings & Presentations
| Skills
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0963244523 |
Book Description
This is a companion book to "How to Recruit Great Board Members," also by Dorian Dodson. With all of the agencies in need of good board members, most community-minded citizens will be asked, at least once, to join a nonprofit board. Unfortunately, many people say "yes" without really knowing what they are getting into or what it means to be a good board member. They need help in making this important decision. This book is just what they need. It will help readers decide whether or not being a board member is right for them. The book also defines and reviews all of the basic information new board members need to help them get started--it's a crash course on nonprofits! The book makes an excellent addition to any agency's board recruitment package. Humor, illustrations and real-life experiences make this book fun, relevant and easy to read.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from The Non-profit Times, published by Thomson Gale on January 1, 2006. The length of the article is 1368 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Mind the gap: collective thinking avoids tripping.(On Volunteers)
Author: Susan J. Ellis
Publication:
The Non-profit Times (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 20
Issue: 1
Page: 10(2)
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is an article from The Non-profit Times, published by NPT Publishing Group, Inc. on February 15, 2001. The length of the article is 1456 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Thinking Ahead.("assignment-of-income" doctrine and capital gains tax on donations)
Author: Todd Cohen
Publication:
The Non-profit Times (Magazine/Journal)
Date: February 15, 2001
Publisher: NPT Publishing Group, Inc.
Volume: 15
Issue: 4
Page: 29
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Average customer rating:
|
Rent, Resources, Technologies
Alberto Quadrio Curzio , and
Fausta Pellizzari
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Popular Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Macroeconomics
| Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Natural Resources
| Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Real Estate
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Future of Computing
| Business & Culture
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Mathematics
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
All Amazon Upgrade
| Amazon Upgrade
| Stores
| Books
Business & Investing
| Amazon Upgrade
| Stores
| Books
Computers & Internet
| Amazon Upgrade
| Stores
| Books
Science
| Amazon Upgrade
| Stores
| Books
All Titles
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Business & Investing
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Computers & Internet
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Science
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
ASIN: 3540660070 |
Book Description
Rent, resources, and technologies are three crucial issues to the understanding of history and economics. The scarcity of resources, its interplay with technology, and the role of rent in explaining both economic growth and income distribution are investigated by adopting a multi-sectoral and non-proportional model, where scarce resources impose several scale constraints that may slow growth, but may contribute to further development of new technologies. In this dynamic framework the category of rent acquires new dimensions with far-reaching implications for both the system of prices and the distribution of income. The analytical and formal-theoretical perspective of this book could be used as a basis for future historical and quantitative studies.
Books:
- British Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers Since 1960 (Dictionary of Literary Biography)
- Colors of the Vanishing Tribes
- Computable Economics (Arne Ryde Memorial Lectures)
- Cowboy Bebop # 1
- Creating and Implementing Your Strategic Plan: A Workbook for Public and Nonprofit Organizations, 2nd Edition
- Darkness and light: The analysis of doctrinal statements
- Dealing With Difficult Parents: And With Parents in Difficult Situations
- Developing Your Case for Support
- Direct Response Fund Raising: Mastering New Trends for Results
- E-Policy: How to Develop Computer, E-Policy, and Internet Guidelines to Protect Your Company and Its Assets
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Public Relations Writing: Form and Style
- Geisha: A Life
- Banking Strategy, Credit Appraisal and Lending Decisions: A Risk-Return Framework
- Buried Pipe Design, 2nd Edition
- Digital Rights Management: Business and Technology
- Financial Management: Theory and Practice with Thomson ONE
- Grammar the Easy Way
- Carol Yacht's General Ledger and Peachtree Complete 2004 for use with Financial and Managerial Accou
- Bounceback Self-Marketing
- The Broken Places: A Novel
Why Nonprofits Fail: Overcoming Founder's Syndrome, Fundphobia and Other Obstacles to Success
The Executive Director's Survival Guide: Thriving as a Nonprofit Leader
Strategic Planning for Nonprofit Organizations, Second Edition
The Nonprofit Leadership Team: Building the Board-Executive Director Partnership
The Budget-Building Book for Nonprofits: A Step-by-Step Guide for Managers and Boards (Jossey-Bass Nonprofit & Public Management Series)
