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Dealing Effectively with Board Conflicts
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, December 7, 2005)
Board conflicts are among the most challenging conflicts a nonprofit executive faces. Here are tips for handling these conflicts effectively.

Eleven Cool Ideas for Finding Hot New Board Members
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, November 1, 2007)
Simple, inexpensive ideas for finding people to join your board.

Collaboration Bibliography
A free list of resources dealing with the topic of collaboration. This list is useful to collaborations and collaboration consultants.

Collaboration Factors Inventory
Use this tool to help you assess your collaboration's strengths and weaknesses.
(Excerpted from Collaboration: What Makes It Work).

Four Keys to Collaboration Success
An article by Carol Lukas, consultant to more than 50 collaborations in the past 10 years. Carol has identified four keys that—while not a guarantee to success—are essential to a well-functioning collaboration.

How to "Nimble-ize" a Collaboration
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, July 25, 2007)
Ten principles for creating a resilient collaboration structure and why they're critical to success.

Lower Intensity Alliances (Part 1)
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, August 23, 2005)
Don't waste time on complex partnerships when simpler alliances can be more effective.

Lower Intensity Alliances (Part 2)
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, September 13, 2005)
What to do when your partnership is on the rocks.

Six Best Practices for Complex Collaborations
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, September 12, 2006)
Practices for helping collaboration with a large number of partners and a long time frame succeed.

What Makes Collaborations Succeed
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, January 26, 2005)
Describes The Wilder Collaboration Factors Inventory and how to use it to see if your collaboration has the necessary ingredients to succeed.

28 Factors for Successful Community Building
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, April 6, 2006)
Several years ago, we commissioned the Wilder Research Center to delve into the studies on community building. They found 28 factors that influenced the success of any community building effort. Excerpted and adapted from our book, Community Building: What Makes It Work .

Creative Uses of Community Forums
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, February 6, 2008)
Describes the three common types of forums and shows you ways that they may be useful in your work.

Four Pivot-Points for Rebuilding Local Economies
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, August 8, 2007)
Identifies four strategies, or “pivot points,” and shows how community-based organizations can turn them into economic engines for community impact.

Helping Communities Succeed: Community coaches and what they do
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, March 21, 2007)
An overview of what community coaches do and how communities are moving forward with their help.

Tapping Local Arts and Culture to Revitalize Communities
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, July 27, 2006)
Lists ten economic and social capital development strategies and highlights one example of how a strategy played out. Get started thinking about ways you can help strengthen your community.

Three Keys to Being an Effective Community Leader
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, February 8, 2006)
The leadership principles described here are useful whether you are galvanizing your staff, your organization, a collaborative, or an interstate coalition.

Working with Refugees— Tips for Dealing with Three Major Challenges
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, November 2, 2006)
Practical advice for dealing with 1) language barriers, 2) lack of cultural competency, and 3) lack of experience working together.

185 Cutback Strategies
A list to help you think creatively about your organization, its mission, its future, its response to immediate financial crises, and its long-term preparation for a changing culture.
(Excerpted from Coping with Cutbacks.)

Building a Better World—One Balance Sheet at a Time
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, March 29, 2005)
How to use finance as a tool for protecting and growing your nonprofit's assets, so that you can accomplish as much mission as possible with those resources.

Two Guiding Principles for Effective Budgeting
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, December 19, 2007)
Two guiding principles that will help you lead a successful budgeting process that results in a useful tool for your organization.

Financial Terminology Demystified
Definitions of key financial terms.
(Excerpted from Financial Leadership for Nonprofit Executives.)

Financing for the Long-Term
(Field Tip direct mail card, January, 2008)
Beyond the bake sale: innovative long-term sustainability options.

Have You Hugged Your Bookkeeper Lately?
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, March 8, 2005)
Why the bookkeeper's role is so important and what managers and bookkeepers need to know to stay out of trouble and keep the organization on track.

Managing the End of a Funding Relationship
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, January 24, 2008)
Recommendations for creating an effective funding exit that adds value to a project and leaves grantees in a strong position.

Six Signs That It's Time to Consider Going Out of Business
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, April 23, 2008)
A summary of six nonprofit dissolution indicators: financial crisis; mission accomplished; organizational problem; board apathy; staff apathy; mission no longer applicable; legal crisis; lack of community support. Download The Nonprofit Decline and Dissolution Project Report (172K PDF)

Things to Do When the Budget Squeezes
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, February 16, 2005)
Discusses strategies that are often overlooked when a nonprofit is struggling or expanding. Yet they can be the keys to long lasting mission success.

Tips for Getting Technology Funding
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, October 4, 2005)
How many times have you struggled to get funders to support something you know is essential to your mission, but they see as irrelevant, uninteresting, or both? Here are tips to help you inspire as much passion for a mysterious and costly database as you do for the humans who will populate that database.

Advocacy Success: Know How Laws Are Made and Who Controls What Decisions
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, April 9, 2008)
You can’t advocate successfully without a basic understanding of the structures, systems, and people that make laws happen. This issue gives you an overview of the process and specific tips for gathering information about your area.

Harnessing the Power of Public Policy
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, January 10, 2007)
A summary of legal rules for private and community foundation involvement in public policy and civic activity.

Policy and Advocacy Resources for Grantmakers and Nonprofits
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, April 4, 2007)
A list of key resources related to all aspects of public policy participation.

Stakeholder Analysis Tool
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, March 15, 2006)
The Stakeholder Analysis tool is used not just by people involved in lobbying, but by any group wishing to understand, influence, and mobilize its constituents.

Three Ways to Involve Foundations in Public Policy
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, January 31, 2007)
Foundations have ample opportunity to be part of advancing policy to benefit the causes they serve. This tool outlines three phases of policy work and suggests ways foundations can be involved at each phase.

Avoiding Knee-Jerk Reactions to a Crisis
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, September 5, 2007)
Checklists of things to do and questions to ask when times suddenly get very bad.

Benchmarking 101 for Nonprofits
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, April 26, 2005)
The basics of benchmarking including what it is, how it can be useful, and how it differs from evaluation.

Capacity Building Defined and Demystified
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, June 20, 2006)
The term "capacity building" is well-worn and used by many. But what do we mean by it? What are we doing when we build capacity?

Consultant Survey Results (197K PDF)
Professional Development Needs of Consultants Serving the Nonprofit Sector
La Piana Associates, Inc. and Fieldstone Alliance jointly conducted a survey of 322 consultants from around the U.S. The objective was to learn about the types of professional development opportunities available, how useful consultants considered them to be, and what opportunities consultants would like to have.

Create a "Culture of Evaluation"
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, June 20, 2007)
Creating a culture of evaluation is the surest way to improve services. Here's how to help everyone in your organization see the benefit of evaluation.

Diagnosing Problems to Avoid “Ready, Fire, Aim” Syndrome
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, January 9, 2008)
A step-by-step process for defining a problem in such a way that people can do something about it.

Five Life Stages Bibliography
Resources related to organization developmental stages.
(Excerpted from The Five Life Stages of Nonprofit Organizations.)

Five Secrets for Managing Rapid Growth
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, July 11, 2007)
Tips from the experiences of CaringBridge.

Four Impacts of Generational Change
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, March 7, 2007)
Four impacts what they mean relative to your work. See also, Six Trends that Will Affect Your Nonprofit.

Four Ways to Create a Compelling Vision
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, May 2, 2007)
How to create a truly inspiring vision.

Getting the Most from Evaluation
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, June 6, 2007)
How one organization leveraged its evaluation findings in a variety of innovative ways.

How to Run Useful, Inexpensive Focus Groups
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, December 5, 2007)
Describes the ten steps for doing focus groups—without a lot of money or special expertise.

Leading Through a Change Without Losing Your Mind
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, October 6, 2006)
Ten myths, mindsets, and motivators you'll find indispensable when guiding an organization through change.

Logic Models: What are they and why would anyone except Spock care?
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, July 26, 2005)
Explains what a logic model is and how they are useful for understanding why your nonprofit gets the results that it does.

Managing at the Intersection of Generational Change and Policy
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, May 16, 2007)
This issue profiles one organization that—in planning for coming generational changes—saw the need for public policy changes in order to fulfill its mission.

Nonprofit Life Stages Assessment
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, January 10, 2005)
(See also: Nonprofit Life Stage Assessment online)
Describes how the Nonprofit Life Stage Assessment can help you anticipate some of the challenges you'll face, and plan for some of the changes you’d better make. Includes links to other useful resources.
(Excerpted from The Five Life Stages of Nonprofit Organizations.)

Nonprofit Life Stages: Knowing What's Normal and What's Next
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, October 17, 2007)
This is an overview of Judy Sharken Simon’s organizational life stages model from her book: The Five Life Stages of Nonprofit Organizations. Armed with the knowledge of nonprofit life cycle stages, staff, management, boards, and funders can project future needs, make decisions proactively, and anticipate challenges. (It’s also comforting to know that the stress staff and organizations are experiencing is normal and inevitable—not a sign of incompetence or impending disaster!)

Organization Assessment: Stepping Back...Taking Stock
Organization assessment is a data gathering and diagnostic process in which you step back from the day to day details of life in the organization and try to see the bigger picture, the trends, patterns and dynamics that have made the organization what it is today. This article gives an overview.

The Organization-Consultant Relationship: Making It Work
A brief article with tips on how to hire the right consultant, at the right time, for the right reason.

Real-Time Strategic Planning in a Rapid-Response World
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, March 20, 2008)
An overview of the Real-Time Strategic Planning Cycle a revolutionary alternative to traditional strategic planning. Also includes a more in-depth look at the critical first portion of strategy—understanding your organizational identity.

Six Components of Organizational Capacity
Six components of organizational capacity that are critical for high performance.

Six Keys to Successful Organizational Assessment
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, January 10, 2006)
These factors have implications for the approach you choose and the resources you will need to do assessment well.

Six Steps to Deal with Generational Change in Your Organization
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, April 18, 2007)
While there are many things you might do to prepare for the huge generational changes coming, six stand out. Author Peter Brinckerhoff calls these the “Six Big Actions” because taking them will smooth your ride through the coming transition.

Six Trends that Will Affect Your Nonprofit
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, February 21, 2007)
Six critically important generational trends you need to know about in order to keep your nonprofit relevant and able to meet the changing needs of your staff, volunteers, donors, and the community you serve.

Stewardship Helps Nonprofits Get More Mission for their Money
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, May 24, 2005)
What it means to be a nonprofit steward and how this helps you make decisions that are best for the people your organization serves. Includes Peter Brinckerhoff's Stewardship Decision Tree and a link to the stewardship self-assessment from Nonprofit Stewardship: A Better Way to Lead Your Mission-Based Organization.

When to Consider a Merger
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, November 15, 2007)
Is a merger right for your organization? This issue describes what mergers can and can't do and gives you tools to help you decide if a merger is the best option given your nonprofit's goals.

Why Traditional Strategic Planning Isn't Strategic
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, March 5, 2008)
Strategic planning is still a useful tool—just not for setting strategies. Here's a look at the problems with traditional strategic planning.

Assessing Your Communication Goals
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, October 3, 2007)
Two assessment tools which will help you determine what your organization needs from a strategic message development process and how to ready itself to undertake the development of a core message that captures the intersection of your goals with what your market actually wants. Also includes the free Message Matrix, an interactive PDF that you can use when crafting your messages.

Five Keys to Motivating Messages
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, September 19, 2007)
What exactly makes for a message that motivates people to fund you, vote your way, participate in your program, buy your service, volunteer for your organization, quote you, adopt a best practice, or take other specific actions.

Four Key Roles Your Supporters Can Play in Fundraising and Marketing Campaigns
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, April 26, 2006)
This tool describes four roles your staff, volunteers, board members, and other supporters can play to promote your mission.

Marketing Magic Turns Lackluster Event into Record-Breaking Success
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, February 20, 2008)
How a natural history museum used marketing to increase attendance at their annual event from 60 people to 1,087 the following year.

Positioning Your Organization for Success
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, October 25, 2005)
Defines positioning and walks you through six steps that help you craft a positioning statement for your organization.

Reputation Builders
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, November 15, 2005)
Steps every organization should take to claim and maintain its position. These should be helpful whether you already have a well-established position or you are still struggling to formulate your position strategy.

What Makes for a Good Nonprofit Salesperson?
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, May 18, 2006)
Seventy-four of our subscribers responded with their insights of people who are good at "selling" a nonprofit's vision.

Does Your Organization Have What It Takes to Start a Business Venture?
(Tools You Can Use e-newsletter, August 22, 2007)
11 questions you should answer before embarking on a social venture.

Five Nonprofit Trends and Their Implications for Capacity Builders
Bryan Barry identified trends that will affect how capacity building work is done in the future and the implications for capacity builders (i.e., how might we respond?).

Collaboration Factors Inventory
Use this tool to help you assess your collaboration's strengths and weaknesses.
(Excerpted from Collaboration: What Makes It Work).

Nonprofit Life Stages Assessment
Use this assessment to see how your organization is doing in seven areas of development - governance, staff leadership, finance, administrative systems, staffing, products and services, and marketing.
(Excerpted from The Five Life Stages of Nonprofit Organizations.)

Little Book of Peace, English (167K pdf)
We developed this booklet to help people think about violence and talk about it with their families and friends. Over 250,000 copies are in use in schools, homes, churches, businesses, and prisons. We hope it will be a tiny start toward making the world a more peaceful place.

Little Book of Peace, Spanish (769K pdf)

Little Book of Peace, Hmong (861K pdf)

Take Care! booklet (112K pdf)
A free booklet for caregivers on how to “take care” of themselves and avoid burnout.