Welcome to 2024! If you’re anything like me, you might be spending these first few weeks of the new year dusting off the cobwebs and coaxing your brain back into “work mode.” I always find that perusing my favorite nonprofit blogs and news sites helps me get back into the swing of things. This year in particular, spending time catching up on industry reading feels like it’s giving me a spark of inspiration that’s propelling me to charge ahead into a new season, which I need more than ever as I return from parental leave.
So I’d love to hear, what are you reading this week? What’s getting you fired up about your nonprofit work in the year ahead?
In the spirit of sharing, I’ve rounded up Prosper’s 10 most popular articles from 2023, as well as three of my favorite articles we wrote in the last year, and the three best I read elsewhere. Let’s dive in.
Your 10 Favorite Prosper Posts in 2024
50 Strategic Plan Examples to Inspire Your Nonprofit
This massive roundup of strategic plans from a wide range of organizations shows that a nonprofit’s strategic plan can be as unique as the organization that creates it. If you’re embarking on strategic planning in the year ahead, this post will help you develop an inspired vision for the final product.
Seven Nonprofit Core Values Examples
In addition to concrete values examples from organizations like Feeding America, The Human Rights Campaign and the Natural History Museum of Utah, this post walks step-by-step through an effective process for developing core values that move your nonprofit forward in alignment with its mission and vision.
The 51 Best Nonprofit Consultants
We’re in good company. There are so many amazing consultants who have devoted their careers to working with nonprofits, and this post will help you zero in on the best fit for your upcoming project or collaboration.
How to Create a Case for Support for Your Nonprofit
A case for support is one of the most important documents in your nonprofit’s toolbox. This post includes a Q&A that clears up common misconceptions about how a case should be used, as well as a step-by-step process for developing a compelling case.
Nonprofit Vision Statements: The Ultimate Guide
Developing and centering on your nonprofit’s vision statement may just be the most transformational part of strategic planning. This post shares everything you need to know about effective and inclusive visioning.
Nonprofit Communications vs. Marketing, Fundraising and Storytelling
The nonprofit sector is full of jargon, silos, and the confusion that both create. Nowhere is this truer than in the nonprofit communications, marketing, storytelling and fundraising arms of organizations, which seem to blur together and overlap more than almost any other area. This article plays the much needed role of distinguishing these disciplines, while acknowledging how they can and must work together.
Creating a Logic Model: Everything Your Nonprofit Needs to Know
What is a Logic Model? How is it different from a Theory of Change? What purpose does it serve? How do you develop a Logic Model for your nonprofit? This post answers these questions and many more.
The Theory of Change: Everything Your Nonprofit Needs to Know
Many nonprofits find themselves deeply confused about the concept of a Theory of Change, probably because there are dozens of conflicting definitions for “Theory of Change” and its components, and an unfortunate lack of clear best practices for developing and using this valuable strategic tool. This article aims to change that.
7 Nonprofit Marketing Budget Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
This post, which we originally wrote way back in 2017, got a big update last year to acknowledge the ever-growing complexities surrounding marketing budgeting. Yes, your nonprofit CAN develop a results-oriented, data-driven marketing budget, and this post explains how.
What is Strength-Based Communication? And What is it NOT?
Strength-Based Communication (and other, related practices) have taken the nonprofit sector by storm in the last few years, as more organizations have begun to center equity in everything they do. But do you really understand what Strength-Based Communication is, and just as importantly, what it is not? If not, consider this post your must-have primer.
My Favorite Prosper Articles from 2023
Breaking Down Silos Between Marketing and Fundraising
I can’t remember the last time we worked with an organization that was not in some way challenged by the silos and territorial politics that can exist between marketing and fundraising functions. This article begins the hard work of examining how those silos can be dismantled.
Sharing Power Requires More than Sending a Survey
Over the last year, I’ve been heartened to hear more nonprofits talk about their desire to “share power” with the people who use their programs and services. Typically, they’re referring to a desire to involve their communities in shaping their strategies and ways of working. But when we probe a bit deeper, many nonprofit leaders don’t yet have a clear vision of what it could look like to go beyond simply involving their stakeholders, and progress toward offering their program and service participants an opportunity for true decision making. This post offers a range of powerful ideas for going deeper into shared decisionmaking, from stakeholder advisory boards to hiring program and service participants as paid staff.
What Keeps Nonprofit Leaders Up at Night?
Ok, let’s get real: running a nonprofit is HARD. If it ever feels like you’re the only leader who is tossing and turning worrying over the challenges your organization faces, or if you’re convinced that you’re the only one just barely holding it together, this post is for you. If you take nothing else into 2024, remember this: you’re not alone.
The Best Things I Read in 2023
Tips and tricks for dealing with bizsplaining trolls who think nonprofits are inferior to for-profits by Vu Le, NonprofitAF
Doesn’t the title say it all? If you felt like you were going to throw up last time someone suggested your nonprofit should “think more like a business” this article is everything. The whole post had me nodding and snapping at my desk, but this suggestion for dealing with trolls really got me LOL-ing: “Pretend they’re being extremely satirical and witty: ‘Greg, that was an amazing impression of the type of ignorance we nonprofits have to deal with! I was crying, I was laughing so hard! You’re hilarious! So glad we have for-profit allies like you.’”
The Business Case for DEI Reinforces Anti-Black Sentiment by Amira Barger, Nonprofit Quarterly
This is the article every nonprofit leader needs to read before moving forward with DEI efforts. If we keep centering the business case for DEI, we’re simply going to perpetuate white supremacy.
Why Empathy is the Key to Outstanding Leadership in Nonprofit Organizations by Beth Kanter
We talk a lot about sharing power with our nonprofit’s stakeholders, but this article opened my eyes to what needs to happen on an individual, leader level before power can be shared. Leaders must cultivate their capacity for empathy. I think that’s a resolution we can all get behind in 2024.
Happy New Year!
