Emerging Executive

Nonprofit Development

For a nonprofit organization to successfully serve its communities, it must deliver innovative programs, and in today’s economy be run as an effective business operation. We help nonprofit organizations deliver outstanding results on an ongoing basis. We do this by developing the capacity to learn and use the best, most appropriate business disciplines from the not-for-profit and for-profit sectors to create leaders and organizations capable of serving communities now and into the future.

Our approach combines education and training, practical experiential learning and feedback, and recognizes the importance of both organizational and personal learning in achieving sustainable transformations. We believe change from the “top down” is critical to success and focus our programs on leadership and governance and strategic planning. Whilst we guide and educate organizations, we believe for there to be commitment and ownership and therefore results, as opposed to compliance, it is important for leadership and management to be involved and make their own decisions working together as a team.

Our unique approach addresses the organizational and personal transformations pertinent to your situation to help you:

Improve management and leadership talents
Define and inspire passion around the organization’s vision
Turn vision into action by motivating employees and volunteers
Build more effective relationships with Board Members
Develop more effective fundraising strategies and grant proposals

Please click on the following services for more information

» Board Governance | » Strategic Planning | » Marketing Programs |
» Fundraising and Grant Writing | » Program Development and Evaluation

The board of directors represents the interests of the public, clients, donors and beneficiaries and is financially and legally responsible for the smooth operation of the organization. However, "one size does not fit all" and much is dependent on the local economy, your funding source, mission and how mature you are as an organization. A startup board, for example, will need to balance governance with the need to be a working board to ensure things get done. On the other hand a mature board can focus purely on governance and strategy and leave the day-to-day operations to staff. The challenges faced by each of these boards will be very different. What is true is that effective and well managed board with a good working relationship with the Executive Director leads to well run organization, able to make quick and effective decisions, set strategic direction and raise funds.

Failure to plan is planning to fail. In today’s environment, vision, planning and goal setting are essential components to your organization’s future.

Strategic planning is the process of understanding what your organization intends to accomplish, and how you will get there over the next few months and years by combining resources, programs and developing strategic relationships. A good strategic plan, translated into yearly work plans and budgets, also ensures your organization addresses immediate and long-term goals.

A compelling vision and mission, often developed as part of a strategic planning process, not only has the power to attract donors to the organization, it also positively focuses and energizes staff, board members and volunteers.

Good marketing can help your organization in a number of ways, from ensuring you provide the right programs to meet your community's needs, to integrating with fundraising to raise awareness of your organization and mission. To get the most from your marketing efforts, you must clearly understand your needs and the results you require before taking action and spending money.

We work with you to develop the right marketing plan for your organization based on need, available resources and the budget available. We also address building internal commitment to marketing throughout the organization to overcome any initial resistance to your plan which is often so common in the nonprofit world.

Fundraising is one of the most important tasks for any nonprofit organization. Even if you are fortunate enough to have a full- or part-time development director, fundraising is still a key role for everyone in the organization, starting in the boardroom.

Asking people or organizations for money, however, is not an easy task. Board members and staff who have never been involved in fundraising may be very reluctant or fearful to become involved.

With the complexities surrounding the economy, and government and foundation giving, the ability to develop an effective fundraising plan which diversifies and addresses multiple sources of funding is critical. A good fundraising plan also matches your programs with key funding organizations, and outlines detailed strategies to support the development of winning grant proposals.

Having a fundraising plan also helps motivate and support board members and staff by helping them understand the fundraising goal, and determine many different ways for them to be involved.

Running good programs is one of the most important roles of your organization. It is the reason you exist. Regardless of the size of your organization and the community you serve, to ensure your success in this area you must constantly add or refine programs to address community need, and changes in technology and the political and economic environment.

To create a successful program you must develop a plan which addresses the need for the program and your organization’s capability and expertise to deliver or develop the capacity to deliver the program. It must also take into account future developments in technology. Your program must also fit in with your organization’s mission and long-term goals as determined in your strategic plan. It is increasingly important to you and potential funders to constantly evaluate progress and results, and be able to respond positively to feedback and opportunities or challenges that arise.

We work with you to develop successful programs, to plan and manage program evaluations that will help identify your organization’s successes, improve programs and share the information with your key audiences.