Welcome to our monthly e-newsletter! Feel free to contact us at info@enomad.net with any comments or questions; For our previous enewsletter, click here for May 2007   Recruiting the RIGHT Board Members The right talents Expertise areas – You need to find people with skills and abilities that relate to nonprofit management. These include at least one CPA or financial expert, an attorney or legal expert, a marketing / pr person, someone with fundraising experience, someone with human resources experience, someone with experience in your program area, someone with a technology background and someone with some overall board / nonprofit experience. This can be a tall order but if you don’t get a mix that meshes with the typical activities a board encounters, you can end up with major gaps in your strategic plan, programs or other processes. I’ve seen boards with no legal experts that have left themselves open to lawsuits because of improperly worded contracts or other documents; boards with no program expertise that have strategic plans that don’t address any programs or program needs; boards with no human resources expertise that continuously make poor choices in hiring and evaluating executive directors; Boards with no technology expertise that don’t understand the importance of a website or how software can help them pursue their mission. The list goes on and on and people tend to not see the gaps, what is missing, until some problem arises.   Fresh Blood another important component of board development is to shake up the status quo. Setting term limits and constantly recruiting new people keeps the board from stagnating which often prevents growth for the nonprofit – these nonprofits are easily recognizable – they have board members that have been on for a very long time and even when the board changes – it’s just the same small group of people shuffling around to new positions.   CLICK HERE FOR FULL STORY

The Philanthropy Journal Changes in Marketplace spur planned giving (a March 2007 article)   GuideStar.org Strategic Planning: Cutting through the buzz   July 3, 2007 IdealWare Getting Started with Online Donations, Online Webinar   Help fo rNonprofits 10 Stop Signs on the Road to Board Recruitment   July 8-10, 2007 Direct Marketing Association and AFP of Washington, D.C. 2007 Bridge to Integrated Marketing and Fundraising   Philanthropy Journal Fired Up Fundraising: Turning your board members passion into ACTION! Webinar

The Top 5 Strategic Planning Mistakes 1. Listing too many goals without any throught to who will actually be accomplishing the tasks to reach the goals and/or not prioritizing the goals so there is a logical approach to getting started. 2. Ignoring the webiste or other technology that can hugely benefit the organizaiton 3. Developing a fund development plan that focuses more heavily on time-consuming staff functions i.e. special events and not enough attention to baord involvement in major gift development. 4. Not doing any research to backup goals, getting real feedback form the community or constituents. 5. Not setting up a process for ongoing review of the strategic plan throughout the year (preferably at every board meeting) to directly track progress.   The Jarrett Meeker Foundation The Jarrett Meeker Foundation website is a perfect example of how the overall look of the website is more important than the logo in terms of an identifying brand. The foundation helps disadvantaged kids experience nature and was founded in memory of a boy who loved nature. All of this needed to come across in a design. The old site (below-left) did not convey their brand well. the new site, done in warm earth tones reflects their nature focus, shows visually what they do with smaller icons on the side and makes the old logo a focal point as it is a drawing depicting Jarrett Meeker and his love of nature. Before Makeover After Makeover