How I can help
You aren’t sure what you need?
I can help you figure that out too!
Areas of Expertise
What makes a truly high performing organization?
Where do I turn for help?
How to develop and ensure a successful and sustainable fundraising effort
How do you know if your efforts are making the difference you intend?
Organizational Assessment
If your organization is ready to go to the next level, has experienced a leadership change or is emerging from a time of challenge, you’ll want to identify and implement the needed steps to get to where you want to be. Together we will:
Look at each area of programming, its funding sources, financial sustainability and needs
Review board governance documents and procedures
Determine where staff time is being spent, where it is needed, and review job descriptions
Review financial statements and balance sheet to ensure understanding and clarity
Develop an organized and prioritized plan for each area of opportunity
Fundraising Strategy and Execution
Successful fundraising programs have diverse revenue sources. I provide tactical one-on-one training and workshops focused on:
Data: Mining and understanding your historical fundraising data to identify patterns to build on and voids to fill.
Foundations: How to write effective and successful grant proposals and develop relationships with foundation staff.
Individual giving: Many organizations rely heavily on government aid, foundation grants, or special events. But individual giving is an excellent source of unrestricted support that can be sustained and grown year after year. We can work together on ways to expand and improve efforts in this area.
Capital Campaign preparedness: You don’t know what you don’t know. I can help you to examine your capacity and plan steps necessary for your organization to take on the formidable challenge of a capital campaign.
Outcomes Evaluation
Every organization must know how it is doing to invest in what works, tweak what needs improvement, and stop doing what isn’t impactful. Organizations need to be continually evaluating their results and developing systems that make that possible. Continuous improvement relies on it. Together we will look at your goals and peek under the hood to:
Examine the data you are collecting and identify what helpful information is within that data
Determine if you are collecting useless information and stop it
Consider what you could do with data you have, but aren’t using
Identify what data is accessible, but not being gathered or used
Establish mechanisms for collecting and using data to inform planning and decision making
Leadership Support
Nonprofit leaders, particularly those new to their roles, can use help and thought partnership in the daunting process of adjusting to their roles and identifying near-term challenges and opportunities. I could have used it on my long leadership journey! I assist senior staff and CEOs in finding answers to the following questions and more:
Where do I start?
Who can I talk to?
How do I report to a board as both a leader and a follower?
How do I read the balance sheet (and why)?
How do I identify and communicate where dollars are spent and where they come from?
How do I motivate people?
What do I need to do myself and what should I delegate?
How do I handle HR issues at the organizational level?
Organizational Excellence
You know your mission is vital. Its essential and powerful impact deserves nothing less than the best organization behind it. I provide guidance and thought partnership to leaders and boards to improve your capacity to manage a high-performing, sustainable organization including work in the following areas:
Strong and knowledgeable staff and board: Organizational excellence is achieved first and foremost through strong leadership. Good governance practices and procedures are a vital elements of a high performing organization.
Strong financial health and management: Successful leaders must understand and articulate the meaning of “the numbers.” Analysis and ability to communicate about financial performance is vital to sound strategic decisions.
People: Excellence requires stellar, committed staff whose needs and growth are supported and whom you hold accountable for results.
Effective programs: Successful non-profit organizations fulfill an important community need and that service must be well-executed and monitored.
Continuous improvement: Getting better all the time requires learning, evaluation and discipline. Continuous improvement can only work if we stay on a journey of learning about the fields we work in, the people we serve, where we are and where we want to go.
“Principles of nonprofit excellence informed by ‘The Performance Imperative: A framework for social-sector excellence,’ developed collaboratively by the Leap of Reason Ambassadors Community of which Anne is a founding member, licensed under CC BY ND https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/. For more information or to view the original product, visit https://leapambassadors.org/performance-imperative/.”