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501(c)Files | Nonprofit News

Archive for the ‘For-profit’ Category

April 11th, 2008

Nonprofit Profile | A Bold Attempt to Link Nonprofits, Corporations, the Media, and People

Talk about ambitious. Greg McHale thinks he’s found a win-win-win-win way for:

Nonprofits to reach greater numbers of donors, volunteers, and event participants
People to discover new ways to contribute to the causes they believe in
Media companies to earn more advertising revenue
Corporations to increase the visibility of their giving programs

McHale is the founder and CEO of good2gether, […]

By Tom Durso -- 0 comments

April 7th, 2008

How to … Make the Switch from the For-Profit Sector to Nonprofits

The "Career Couch" column in yesterday’s New York Times Business section offered a Q&A for for-profit employees considering a switch to the nonprofit sector. There was some terrific advice in there, which I’m adapting here and to which I’m adding my thoughts as well as a suggestion of my own:

Be clear about your motivations. Working […]

By Tom Durso -- 0 comments

March 28th, 2008

A Question Nonprofits Don’t Want to Hear: Is It Cynicism If You Have Good Reason To Be Jaded?

Cynics that we are, we expect people in business to look out only for themselves, and we are not surprised at revelations of misconduct by government officials.
Nonprofits appear well on their way to joining that dubious list. And they have only themselves to blame, according to troubling results contained in the just-released National Nonprofits Ethics […]

By Tom Durso -- 0 comments

March 22nd, 2008

Why Run Your Nonprofit Like a Business When Most Businesses Are Simply Average?

Management expert Jim Collins, the author of the New York Times bestseller Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don’t, spoke recently with Contribute editor Marcia Stepanek about his thoughts on what he calls the "social sector." A couple of years back Collins wrote a 36-page monograph applying the topics […]

By Tom Durso -- 0 comments

March 20th, 2008

Google: A Ubiquitous, Omnipotent Corporation a Nonprofit Could Grow to Love

"You are changing the world," notes Google on the home page of its new nonprofit portal. "We want to help."
I have to confess that initially I felt a touch of cynicism about the move. Most Google applications are already free, after all, so offering them for free to nonprofits hardly seems like the company is […]

By Tom Durso -- 0 comments

March 8th, 2008

A Nonprofit Leader Goes the Other Way

There was something of a man-bites-dog story in the Philadelphia Inquirer, my hometown paper, this morning:
Attorney and prominent social services advocate Alba Martinez said yesterday that she is resigning as president and chief executive of the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania to take a position overseeing college savings accounts at the mutual-fund giant Vanguard Group.
Martinez, […]

By Tom Durso -- 0 comments

March 2nd, 2008

Notes, Follow-Ups, and Reminders | Leadership Succession, For-Profit Arrogance, Nonprofit Flaw, Hoops and the Big Easy, RSS

“No longer is the crisis of executive leadership turnover looming; it is already upon us.”
“[N]onprofit leaders … are fed up with the arrogance of the business community that they can ‘do it’ better and are willing to come down from on high to give their more inept colleagues in this pathetic little branch of the […]

By Tom Durso -- 0 comments

February 28th, 2008

Pity the Poor Nonprofit, a Damsel in Distress if E’er There Was One

Calling it “A Capitalist Jolt for Charity,” the New York Times breathlessly told the story on the front page of its Sunday Business section of a pair of married philanthropists who took the nonprofit they were supporting and transformed it into a for-profit venture because, shock of shocks, what they were funding was costing them […]

By Tom Durso -- 6 comments

February 26th, 2008

Missing the Mission | Maryland Nonprofits Take a Gamble

The older I’ve gotten, the more libertarian I’ve become. In general, people should be able to do what they want, I believe, especially in their personal lives, as long they’re  not misled about the risks involved and as long as their behavior doesn’t harm others. Gambling, for example, I’m fine with: I play poker every […]

By Tom Durso -- 0 comments

February 26th, 2008

Nonprofits and For-Profits, Like Dogs and Cats Living Together

“Operational excellence.” “Revenue streams.” “Differentiation.” “Cross-selling.” “Quantitative and qualitative research.”
Having learned well from their for-profit brethren, nonprofits now have much to teach, according to a Boston Symphony Orchestra official and a communications consultant. Writing in the current issue of Forbes, Mark Volpe and Roger Sametz argue persuasively a point I’ve been making since starting this […]

By Tom Durso -- 0 comments