Governance Resources for Australian Not-for-Profits
The Institute of Community Directors has a comprehensive collection of resources to support good governance by not-for-profits. Check out these links to get started.
Tag
Organisational effectiveness
Detangling Digital: Has the concept of a centralised digital department outlived its usefulness?
Instead of a centralised place for all things digital, here’s a model for integrating digital skillsets back into every department of an organisation.
Purpose Driven Campaigning: 40 key principles for Growing Social Movements
Australian Progress has prepared this 40-point summary of Pastor Rick Warren’s bestselling book The Purpose Driven Church. The resource is based on Rick Warren’s experience of growing his church, Saddleback, from scratch to 20,000 members attending every week. Saddleback is now the eighth biggest church in the United States.
Being Purpose Driven
Nothing precedes purpose. The starting point for every organisation or movement should be the question ‘Why do we exist’? A number of tips for focusing an organisation on vision and purpose. An excerpt from Purpose Driven Campaigning, based on Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Church.
Levels of Commitment from Community to Core
Rick Warren focuses on five ‘circles of commitment’ – community, crowd, congregation, committed and core, and argue that it’s important to recognise where your supporters fall in these categories, and develop processes to move them from the outside in. An excerpt from Purpose Driven Campaigning.
Work less: You’ll get more done
Overwork has heavy costs. Working longer hours is dangerous and ineffective. But poor management, the subconscious, workplace culture, and work volume, can each be a barrier to better workplace practices. Thankfully though, these barriers can be overcome.
Retain volunteers with intrinsically motivating work
Civic associations depend upon volunteers to get their work done. Joel Dignam distils insights from Ruth Wageman and Richard Hackman’s “Designing work for individuals and for groups” from Perspectives on Behavior in Organizations.
How to Structure Teams for Organising
Joel Dignam reviews Marshall Ganz’ treatment of structure as a craft of organising. As Ganz notes “Developing leadership requires structuring the work of the organization so it affords as many people as possible the opportunity to learn to lead.”
On Conflict and Consensus
Making collective decisions and navigating conflict and are core activist skills. Conflict is usually viewed as an impediment to reaching agreements and disruptive to peaceful relationships. However, it is the underlying thesis of Consensus that nonviolent conflict is necessary and desirable.
Maintaining Group Morale and Motivation
Group morale is a key contributor to the success of a group, increasing cohesion, reducing burnout and preventing activist turnover. Build team relationships; resolve conflicts and improve communication; and celebrate success.
The Happy, Healthy Nonprofit: Strategies for Impact without Burnout [Book review]
Nonprofit organisations can be prone to encouraging overwork, simply because they know their employees are emotionally invested. Alexandra Lamb analyses Beth Kanter and Aliza Sherman’s argument that nonprofits should transform their workplace culture to have more productive and happier workers.
The Mobilisation Cookbook: A Greenpeace Guide to cooking up People Powered Campaigns
The Mobilisation Cookbook is a guide to answer (almost) everything you wanted to know about “people-powered” campaigns at Greenpeace but were afraid to ask. Developed for Greenpeace staff, volunteers, and allies, this guide will help anyone cook up effective people-powered campaigns.
Better Activist Meetings
Here are some simple tips for getting the most out of meetings, relevant to collectives, committees and action groups.