Lots of nonprofit strategic planning incorporates compass imagery, with the aim of keeping an organization pointed toward its "true north" with respect to mission, values, and impact. Compasses can be useful tools to aid you in your journey.

But a compass can't tell you who you are. It can't define the unique talents, perspectives, skills, experiences, and assets you bring to the journey.

It also can't tell you the best way to get to your destination - just where you are in comparison to it.

Often, what you need first is this essential tool.

As a nonprofit leader, stress and feeling stretched thin can seem like an unavoidable part of your job description.

Nonprofits are dealing with a number of external factors beyond the organization’s control—from global pandemics and inflation to individual funder and board member preferences, technology advancements, and policy changes.

While external factors like these can contribute to feeling stressed—especially for folks in nonprofit leadership positions—the top causes of workplace stress can actually be internal factors that are within an organization's control.

The good news for nonprofit leaders is that it is possible to improve these internal factors. If you’re ready to be less stressed and more strategic, here are four key practices that can help.

Early in my career, I was fortunate to work for a CEO who was transparent about the good, the bad, and the ugly of leading a company or organization. During one mentoring conversation, he shared an important truth I'll never forget.

He said, "when you're the boss, no one ever tells you 'good job.' And when someone does, it can be difficult to pin down their motivations."

As I moved up in my consulting career - and eventually into executive and senior leadership roles within national nonprofit organizations - I saw exactly what he was talking about in almost every leader I worked with.

Which organizations are you watching to see what work they're doing and how they're doing it?

They could be organizations that share your served community, your mission or issue area, your geographic area - or sometimes they could be organizations with an entirely different mission and position than yours.

When I was leading communications and marketing teams, one of my fantastic team members used to call these our "brand crushes." They were brands we tracked and learned from across many areas of our work.

Identifying the organizations you admire and want to learn from is an important part of developing your team's strategic thinking.

it’s time we had a serious talk about our Leadership Infatuation.

Leadership is a huge topic of discussion and exploration in the nonprofit sector. On LinkedIn, #leadership has more than 3.2 million followers. And in industry media sources, leadership is a seemingly constant source of content that gets shared, supported, and celebrated.

Leadership is important. Full stop.

But I fear we’ve fallen so deeply in love with leadership - with the way it’s portrayed across social media and in thought leadership articles - that we’ve nearly abandoned another skill set that is critical to the advancement of our sector.

In the nonprofit sector, change is constant.

And yet, building our skills and capabilities to effectively lead and manage change often gets left off our capacity-building priority lists.

If you've heard the term change management but could use help understanding what that means for your organization, I've got you!

In my first guest contributor piece for Capterra - I'm sharing:

• an intro to change management and how people move through change

• important research and methodologies from Prosci that point to what matters most in managing change successfully

• some of my practical tips nonprofit leaders and team members can start practicing today to boost their chances of managing change well in the future

When was the last time you celebrated?

Maybe it was someone’s birthday, or a friend got a great promotion, or a baby was born.

What did it look like?

A cake and decorations? Gifts and story-sharing? A Zoom dance party?

Whatever the occasion, you did something special to mark it. Something that made it feel like a celebration.

How about at work?

Are you celebrating small and big wins on a regular basis?

Celebration is not frivolous or optional, it’s necessary.

This is especially true in the nonprofit and social impact sectors where we are often inundated with messages about how much work still lies ahead of us to fulfill our missions. And while celebrating can feel difficult in times of crisis or hardship, the psychological benefits of celebration can help us find renewed strength and purpose in recommitting to our work.

In this post we cover 5 tips to make cultivate celebration as part of your team culture.

Strategy gets confused for a lot of things. When some people hear the word strategy, they think of big-picture brainstorming or 40+ pages of detailed, ambitious plans. For others, it’s all spreadsheets, revenue projections, cost analyses, and impact measures. And for others, strategy is seen as THE ANSWER – the singular right path to your organization’s success.

But strategy isn’t any of those things.

At its core, strategy is an interconnected set of choices about what you will and won’t do so you can accomplish your goals. Put another way - it’s a set of decisions you believe will help you achieve your vision.

Smart, well-designed, and well-executed strategy can make a significant difference in whether your organization achieves its desired mission impact, revenue goals, and operational sweet spot.

As a leader, honing your ability to provide a clear vision and direction and to make strong decisions that enable your team to focus and align their time, energy, and resources are essential to increasing the chances your strategy will succeed.