2012 Trainings

Organization Assessment: How are you doing?

Conducting an organization assessment provides you with an overall picture of the current strengths and weaknesses of your organization, and helps you prioritize areas for change. We’ll talk about the role of mission, vision, strategy, strategic relationships, program delivery and impact, internal operations and management, resource development, governance, and leadership all with respect to assessment. You’ll learn the basics of data collection, internal and external stakeholder analyses, and how to determine action steps. To help frame the conversation organization assessment will also be discussed in the context of organization life cycles.

Organizational Sustainability: Furthering your mission

How can your organization start to take a multi-pronged approach to sustainability? In this session we’ll consider multiple components of sustainability including outcomes, programs, and the organization. We’ll explore strategies for sustainability such as organization assessment, finding new income sources, expanding your market, partnerships, and advocacy among others. How different people approach change and the role of leadership in sustainability will also be discussed.

Setting Yourself Apart – Using Measurement to Improve and Demonstrate Performance

How do you talk to stakeholders about your program? How do you demonstrate success to funders? This training will tackle the program and evaluation planning that can help you demonstrate and improve your performance. You will learn how and why to connect these two plans, what makes a good outcome and practice writing them. We will discuss how to use program and evaluation plans to effectively communicate with funders and other stakeholders.

Program Evaluation: How to plan, implement and use evaluations

How can you create an evaluation plan that meets the needs of your funders, other stakeholders, and internal organizational needs? How do you plan an evaluation that is realistic? How can you ensure you’ll collect the right information that you can use to improve your programs? How can you create an integrated evaluation plan that cuts across programs and connects to the organization as a whole? In this training we’ll explore all these issues and present you with clear and comprehensive methods for planning an evaluation, designing the tools, data collection, analysis and reporting, and incorporating the results into your work.

Program Design, Development and Implementation — Doing More with Less

Are you being asked to serve more people with fewer resources? Do you want your program to stand out more to funders, partners, and clients? Have you considered adding continuous improvement strategies into your programming? In this training we will cover the key elements of program planning including connecting the program to a clearly defined need and to your mission. Logic models and alternatives will be explored as a tool for program design, development, and implementation. You will come away from this training with an increased understanding of why what you do works, concrete tools, and processes to strengthen your work with clients.

Board Development Strategies – Engagement, Development, and Recruitment

A great asset of any organization is its board. This training will help you explore how to attract board members who will best serve and lead your organization; how to develop and tap the talents of your board; and how to create opportunities to diversify your board. We will review recent research about board composition and how that applies to your organization and create action plans for board engagement, development and recruitment.

Lead with Ease – Effective Board and Committee Meetings

The enormous responsibilities of the nonprofit board cannot be accomplished at board meetings when everybody is trying to do everything.  This highly interactive training is for individuals interested in gaining a clearer understanding of what constitutes and how to develop and support effective board and committee meetings. Participants will learn to facilitate effective board committee work and the nine techniques to help groups in their decision-making.

Developing Board Leadership in Times of Change

As these challenging times continue to unfold, organizations need their boards to provide leadership. In this interactive training we will look at how staff can manage the expectations of their board, effectively communicate with their board and consider what staff can expect from their board. Using a change management framework to examine these issues we will look at the leadership of boards and their individual members. This training will help you develop an understanding of change management theory and practice, identify issues and concerns in board-staff relations and management related to times of change, and examine strategies to address board-staff communications and align expectations.

Here We Go Again: The Cyclical Behavior of Nonprofit Boards

This workshop is based on Julia Classen’s well received article published in the Nonprofit Quarterly, Spring 2011 issue. We will examine how board behavior is cyclical in its behavior, what moves the board from one phase to another, what are the strengths and challenges of each phase as well as board attributes. This experiential workshop will help nonprofit assess themselves and create strategies to assist the board as it moves through the phases. This workshop is most appropriate for nonprofit board members and executives.

Managing Up, Managing Down: The Board – Executive Paradox

One of the challenges of the board of directors and the executive is to create and maintain a healthy, productive and respectful relationship. This interactive training addresses the challenges and benefits of this relationship, while looking at tools to evaluate the executive and the board, and tips on how to build and strengthen the relationship. Participants will have the opportunity to explore what options will best fit their organization and share their promising practices with each other.

Exploring Governance Models: Looking at the Tried and the True and the New!

So what is the difference between the Carver (Policy Governance TM), Policy, and Generative models of governance? What are some other options? What if I need a “Working Board” – then what? This training will help you have a better understanding of governance, how it relates to your board, and some of the cutting edge thinking about governance. While one model might work best for your organization, we will also examine the contingency approach to governance that ignores a “one-size-fits-all” approach. We’ll examine the role and purpose of the board, the executive, key stakeholders and other organizational factors to focus on good governance rather than a model-based approach.

Board Development Strategies: Building, Strengthening, and Diversifying Boards

A great asset of any organization is its board. This training will help you explore how to attract board members who will best serve and lead your organization; how to develop and tap the talents of your board; and how to create opportunities to diversify your board. We will review recent research about board composition and how that applies to your organization, and create action plans for board engagement, development, and recruitment.

Getting the Most From Your Board: Leadership, Fundraising, and Oversight, Oh My!

It is a rare day that we think the board is engaged enough in fundraising for the organization! We will examine strategies to assist your board in fundraising, clarify their oversight role, and help them strategically lead your organization. Participants will have the opportunity to explore what options will best fit their organization and share their promising practices with each other.

Onboarding- Orienting and Integrate New Board Members for Success

If we want our boards to perform well, we must prepare them for their service. This interactive workshop will cover tried, true and new orientation and integration strategies that nonprofits are using. Areas to be covered include: innovative ways to orient your board, building your board team, and suggestions for your board orientation manual.

Board Leadership Development – How to Enhance and Plan for Leadership Succession

When we talk of leadership transitions and develop, we often think of our executive staff members. Often overlooked and/or only deeply discussed but not acted on is the leadership development of board members. We frequently assume a) all board members are leaders or b) they can learn to be leaders as they serve or c) their leadership is not that critical. This interactive workshop is created to address these assumptions and to discuss approaches and processes in developing your boards’ leadership and transitions from leader to leader.

Assessment! Strategies for Board and Executive Assessment and Why they Matter

We know we should do it, we may even have an idea how to do it, so why don’t we? One common concern by many nonprofit executives is the way their assessment is conducted (if it is done at all!) and finding tools that adequately assess all that they do. Additionally, conducting board self- assessments are not only a useful tool for learning and development but they are a common way to demonstrate internal accountability. This workshop will explore different techniques, tools and processes for assessing the board and the executive that are grounded in research and common practice.

Working with Challenging Boards and Board Members: Gotta Love ‘Em!

Let’s face it, not all board members are superstars. This highly popular workshop is a frank talk about those board members who keep us up at night and drive us crazy, yet we value their contributions. We will discuss strategies for how to redirect, engage and when necessary provide exit strategies for board members.

Train the Trainer – Board Development

This series is designed to help your organization broaden the services it offers to your client organizations. We will cover topics such as common challenges and conflict, governance models, board assessments, the board-executive relationship, leadership development, and other topics that are relevant to the board or organization involved. The series will also help to familiarize trainers with current research, common practices, trends, and diagnostic tools. Through a combination of readings, exercises, and lively discussion we will coach you to develop boards that are ready to lead an organization!

Fundraising and Resource Development for the Board

Are you unsure how to engage all your board members in fundraising? Are you on a board and not sure what role you should play in developing resources? This training will help you engage people in fundraising by finding the right role for each person and preparing them for it. We will cover the components of creating a resource development plan for the board, of assessing your current fundraising situation, the components of a successful request, and how to tailor requests to different sources. Participants will gain tips and tools for ongoing evaluation to help them make necessary changes and adjustments to their plan for improved success.

Grant Writing Strategies for Success

This training is designed for nonprofits that want to write their own grants, or want to know enough about grant writing to successfully hire a grant writer. We’ll take you through the fundamentals of the process of grant writing in the context of the planning, program development, evaluation, research, and relationship building that all occur to support the grant proposal. Grant writing will also be explored in the larger context of funding sources.

Grant Writing Skills: How to Write a Better Proposal

Do you need help figuring out what the funder is looking for? Are you having difficulty deciphering what is really being asked in a complicated RFP? Are you uncertain if you are answering the questions correctly? We have a new approach to grant writing to share with you. This interactive training will let you work with real examples to start putting new approaches to grant writing into practice.

How Funders Read Your Proposal

Have you ever wondered what funders are really looking for when they read your proposal? In this training you’ll learn how to approach your grant writing with the reviewer’s perspective in mind. Through a series of hands-on exercises, including the chance to review pieces of real proposals you will come away with a better understanding of how funder’s read your proposal. We will share with you concrete techniques and tips to improve your grant writing.

Strategic Planning, Thinking, and Acting

In these ever changing times it is important that organizations position themselves for sustainability and growth. A strong plan can prevent an organization from being buffeted by the constantly shifting currents of the policy environment. This training will help you explore how to strategically think and act to take advantage of opportunities and avoid pitfalls. We will review recent research about strategic thinking and planning and how that applies to your organization.

Telling your Story: Using stories to build relationships

Telling stories can help you secure funding, increase access to resources, develop and work with partners, and communicate complex problems effectively. In fact, stories are so important to your organization that we train in two parts! In part one we’ll discuss the elements of good organizational storytelling. From who your audience is to how to actually tell a good story we’ll give you tips and tools you can use. This interactive session will also give you exercises to help get you started thinking about the elements of a good story telling process. In part 2 we dive deeper into storytelling looking at levels of engagement. We’ll also give you criteria you can use to judge your own and the stories of others.

Serving Your Community: How to conduct community needs assessments

Community needs change over time, how can you make sure your programs and organization stay relevant? In this workshop you’ll learn how use a community needs assessment your programs and organization to the community it is intended to serve. You’ll learn how to create data collection strategies and tools, how to use them, and how to analyze the findings and share the results. We will also talk about how to identify key audiences and appropriately communicate with them.

Strategic Partnership and Alliances: How can we work together

Organizations continue to strive to do more with less as demand for services increases and large-scale solutions are needed to address increasingly complex issues. This workshop will explore the continuum of organizational alliances. You will come away with a better understanding of why you might want an alliance, what is needed to be successful and how to get started.

Thriving through Leadership Transitions

Nonprofit organizational leadership is provided by the executive and senior management as well as by the board. This workshop will explore how to plan for leadership transitions and ongoing leadership development to help buffer the impact of a change of leadership. Steps and responsibilities of leadership transitions will be provided to assist an organization in the process of or anticipating a change of key organizational members.

Adaptive Leadership

Today’s nonprofit managers are called to lead in turbulent environments with multiple challenges. With current economic times and budget pressures, more than even it is critical for nonprofit leaders to analyze their work and strengthen their capacity to provide increased efficiencies and innovative approaches to solving organizational challenges. This tailor-made training is grounded in relevant research, practical knowledge, innovative ideas, revealing case studies, and hands-on solutions.