Nonprofit employees matter Truly skilled nonprofit staff, like Olympic athletes, can make their work look easy. Calm in the face of crises, keeping in check inclinations to jump in and “fix” everything, and defying commonly held prejudices, they willingly engage and work with people of all backgrounds. In a mission-driven social service nonprofit, the staff…
Contents: Volume 24, Issue 2 (2011)
This morning, a new generation of Community leaders awoke to a fundamentally new reality than that of the generation that came before them. Our climate is changing. Our economy is in the midst of a fundamental transition. The roles of government, civil society, and the private sector are in a state of flux, as are…
Imagine Canada’s National Engagement Strategy document (Imagine Canada, 2011) states that improving conditions to attract and retain paid staff is one of four priorities. Issues related to human resource management are not new in the nonprofit sector. In a seemingly endless cycle, every few years we identify our strengths and our challenges, as we have…
I hate dinner parties. Actually I hate a certain moment during dinner parties—that moment when two people who have just met reach that inevitable point in conversation where the question comes up: “So what is it that you do?” “I work for a nonprofit,” I respond—with audible reluctance. In my mind, I am preparing myself…
Peter O’Donnell, president of Healthy Futures Group, recently asked, “Do today’s nonprofits really want volunteers/an engaged community?” (O’Donnell, 2011, para. 1). For a number of years, I have been asking the same question, but not so succinctly or so directly. Like O’Donnell, I believe it to be a truly important question. He goes on to…
Imagine Canada, which was founded in 2005, is a national bilingual charitable organization that supports and strengthens charities and nonprofits so they can, in turn, support the Canadians and communities they serve. Over the last two years, as part of an initiative entitled “A National Engagement Strategy,” we have had the privilege of facilitating a…
Point : Bob Wyatt I am frankly well beyond frustrated by the media coverage of Canada’s voluntary sector. Or perhaps it might be more appropriate to call it non-coverage. Oh, sure, there are the “fluff ” stories—so-called human interest stories, usually featuring children or small animals. And there are, of course, the so-called scandal stories—somebody…
Time and time again we hear the claim: “ The nonprofit, charitable, community sector helps to build resilient, healthy communities—in fact, we are leaders in doing so!” As a practitioner in the sector for many years, I myself have made this claim. There is truth to it. Indeed, it is a firm belief in this…
Introduction From 2005 to 2009, Canada’s roughly 85,000 charities reported that their collective revenues increased by roughly one quarter, equivalent to an annual growth rate of over 4%. Given this high rate of growth and the economic turbulence of the last few years, it is timely to look more closely at how charities are financed….
Understanding The Social Economy: A Canadian Perspective by Jack Quarter, Laurie Mook, & Ann Armstrong, Toronto: University of Toronto Press; 2009. isbn: 978-0-80209-645-6 CIRIEC: The Worth of the Social Economy. An International Perspective edited by Marie J. Bouchard, New York: Peter Lang Pub. Inc.; 2009. isbn: 978-9-05201-580-4 These two books represent milestones in defining, explaining, and describing…