Professional Development Archives - Spokes

For smaller nonprofits, having an efficient and knowledgeable team is vital to your organization’s impact. According to Nonprofit Hub, providing opportunities for your staff to grow professionally leads to increased employee engagement and fosters a culture of learning, which can keep your team focused on your mission.

With the challenge of a small budget, extensive or elaborate education may not be an option. However, there are many opportunities for your nonprofit’s team to grow and develop professional skills without spending a large portion of your budget. Taking advantage of resources such as free webinars, workshops, and websites can take your nonprofit’s impact to the next level.

Here are five low-cost development resources for your organization.

Candid offers free live and on-demand workshops on important topics such as proposal writing, fundraising planning, and starting nonprofits. They also regularly offer training on how to navigate the Candid site and utilize its resources.

NonprofitReady is a free learning library for nonprofits that offers guidebooks and courses on diversity and inclusion, volunteer management, board development, and more.

CharityVillage offers free webinars, articles, and podcasts for industry professionals. Their resources offer insight on topics such as volunteer engagement, marketing, and job searches.

TechSoup provides low-cost courses and webinars on topics such as engaging donors, grant writing, and mastering new databases.

Nonprofit Learning Lab offers online trainings and free webinars on a variety of topics such as data visualization and social media for nonprofits.

Imagine starting a job where you have 5 or more bosses with whom you meet once a month. They are thrilled to have you on board – relieved, really – because they haven’t been intimately involved in the day-to-day operations of the organization and they know that there is lots of work to be done. Staff is glad to have you on board, too, and is anxious for direction. Where do you start? How do you make sound strategic decisions when you’re still trying to figure out where the bathrooms are located and remember everyone’s name?

This scenario may seem like a bit of an exaggeration, but, sadly, it replays in nonprofits of all sizes again and again, year after year. The “costs” of replacing a key executive in any type of organization are costly because of the requisite learning curve. Flattening that learning curve is especially important for nonprofits – both because they are working with fewer resources than their for-profit counterparts and because the services they offer are critical to clients who rely on them. Ironically, right at the moment that the board of directors sighs with relief after hiring a new executive director, that’s when the real work needs to begin.

In their article, “Boosting Nonprofit Board Performance Where it Counts,” published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, July 16, 2014, Lisa Walsh, Libbie Landles-Cobb and Leah Karlins offer 5 specific strategies for nonprofit boards to employ to help a new executive director transition more successfully to your organization:

Do your homework in order to hire well.
Collectively set the new leadership agenda.
Get clear on goals.
Go slow on orientation to go fast on the job.
Make performance management routine.

For more specifics about each of these recommendations, read the entire article here.

Low-Cost Professional Development Opportunities for Nonprofits

Hardest Part of Board Member’s Job?: Orienting a New Executive Director

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