Leap Ambassadors Community

07/23/2020

In this month's Leap Update, Mario Morino urges nonprofit leaders to "rally your team with an unrelenting focus on the here and now." What does that look like in practice?

Mario offers some concrete suggestions to help get you started:

▪ Bring together 6-9 of the best thinkers from your team, board, and stakeholder groups. Pick people who are truth tellers, who will help you face the brutal facts, and who have a diversity of experiences and backgrounds.
▪ Pinpoint what in your organization needs immediate treatment, what can be queued for priority treatment, what's non-urgent for now, and what's stable or just fine.
▪ Don’t make this a big to-do project. Devote up to a half-day for a brisk, focused review of 15-20 of your most critical elements.

By doing a quick scan of each aspect of your organization, you’ll know which areas are steady state, where immediate triage is needed, where you need to dig further to know what to do, and where you might even find new opportunities.

I grew up in an immigrant family of blue-collar workers in Ohio and coal miners in Pennsylvania. My family experienced plenty of anti-immigrant bigotry—and, of course, we saw Black families getting far worse treatment. Even so, I grew up in a household with deep faith in America. If you were from ...

07/20/2020

In search of some positive inspiration for your week? Listen to this episode of the Larger Than Yourself podcast, featuring Leap Ambassador Sarah Hemminger. Sarah co-founded Thread with her husband to provide young people with the strong social fabric they need to thrive and reach their full potential. She talks about the personal connection that inspired her to start Thread and what she has learned about inclusivity, collaboration, and community in the past 16 years of the organization's existence.

Sarah Hemminger’s work weaves a support network that helps young people reach their full potential. The organization she founded, Thread, connects Baltimore City teenagers in the lowest 25% of their high school class with volunteers who do whatever it takes to help them prepare for their future.

07/13/2020

"Will alter the way nonprofits operate in perpetuity? How will fundraising – the lifeblood of most nonprofits – be affected by shrinking government budgets and shifting priorities among foundations and individual donors?"

Leap Ambassador Greg Berman recently asked a dozen nonprofit leaders these questions. The responses he received confirmed that there are no easy answers to the complex challenges nonprofits are facing today. At the same time, many of the nonprofit leaders also expressed "a strong current of optimism" for the future. Read their responses, then let us know in the comments what yours would be.

07/09/2020

Leap Ambassador Jeremy Kohomban, President and Executive Director of The Children's Village, recently shared some of the creative ways the organization is now supporting the families they serve, including strict protocols for sanitizing, distancing, and staggered scheduling at their residential facilities.

After connecting remotely for a time, they also reverted back to in-person visits wherever possible, because, as Jeremy put it, “Children need the love and touch of the people who care about them.” In recognition of the extra risks the organization’s dedicated staff were facing, Children’s Village instituted a 25% pay increase from March to June for their 800 frontline staff members.

Learn more about what Jeremy says the organization has learned as it has continued to serve during the ongoing pandemic -- and what kinds of support the Children's Village needs most right now.

Jeremy Kohomban is the president and executive director of The Children’s Village.

07/02/2020

Many nonprofits doggedly pursued loans through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) over the past few months. For many organizations, getting the loan was necessary so that they could continue providing critical services and programs. But if your organization landed one, the loan itself was just the first step. Here's what you need to know now:

🔸 There is still a lot of uncertainty around loan forgiveness, so it's important that you stay on top of the latest information from the U.S. Small Business Administration
🔸 Remember that your lender is also an important source of information and guidance.
🔸 Don't be afraid to reach out if you need more resources or assistance. Organizations like FMA have put together toolboxes for nonprofits looking to navigate PPP. FMA is even hosting public webinars and Q&A sessions where you can bring your questions.

See more of our ambassadors' thoughts on PPP in the full Ambassador Insight, available here:

There’s no question that measurement is complicated, but necessary for continuous improvement. In a recent conversation, Leap Ambassadors David Bonbright, Brad Dudding, and Sophie Sahaf discussed ways to add constituent feedback to more traditional methods of monitoring and evaluation in support o...

06/29/2020

💻𝐖𝐞𝐛𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐫 𝐓𝐨𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐰 🖥 Join us tomorrow afternoon for a conversation around the big picture of performance measurement and management in the nonprofit sector. Several Leap Ambassadors will share their thoughts on equity considerations for performance measurement and management, take a look at performance management from a funder's perspective, and offer their answers to the question: Why should nonprofits care about performance management during a pandemic?

The free webinar is hosted by American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) National's Center for Accountability. Register to join us here: https://bit.ly/2CvYfHT

06/25/2020

This year has been just as hopeful, despairing, and pivotal as the era Same Cooke described in his powerful 1963 song, "A Change Is Gonna Come". As Mario Morino and Lowell Weiss write in this month's , "with each spin of our planet, brave souls all over the world are carving deep grooves in the album of human history."

They describe the actions they're seeing at this moment in history that give them credible hope that meaningful, lasting change is gonna come. Actions like dramatically increased payouts from major foundations, large contributions from wealthy donors in support of those fighting against racial injustice, and people of all colors, all around the world, marching together to make it clear that enough is enough. They admit it's impossible to predict the future, but they make a compelling case for hope--if we can all do the necessary hard work.

Take a few minutes to read their full update:

Sam Cooke composed “A Change Is Gonna Come” in 1963, shortly after “I Have a Dream,” the Birmingham church bombings, and his own imprisonment for “disturbing the peace” after he was refused a room at a Holiday Inn because of his race. The song is considered one of the greatest of all tim...

06/23/2020

Next week, Leap Ambassadors Mary Kopczynski Winkler, Isaac Castillo, Julie Russell, and Alnoor Ebrahim will address the timely question: Why should nonprofits care about performance management during a pandemic?

In sharing their answers, they'll tackle issues like:

1️⃣ Equity considerations for performance measurement and management
2️⃣ Performance management from a funder perspective
3️⃣ The big picture of performance measurement and management in the nonprofit sector

Register for Tuesday's free webinar hosted by the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) National: https://bit.ly/2CvYfHT

06/16/2020

Our community is made up of nonprofit experts, leader practitioners, and instigators. When they share their thoughts, experiences, and resources on important issues, we do our best to compile and share them through our Ambassador Insights. The three most recent Ambassador Insights address:

1⃣ How to respond to COVID-19 in an equitable way
2⃣ The details of the Paycheck Protection Program
3⃣ Survival resources for nonprofits

Take a look through the archive to see if one of our Ambassador Insights can help you and your organization in this moment.

"Ambassador Insights" are curated from the online discussions. While they do not represent the views of all ambassadors, those who offered input have vetted and approved their contributions. Each “Ambassador Insight” has also been presented to the full Leap of Reason Ambassadors Community for re...

06/10/2020

The absence of a courageous, adaptive board can be particularly painful in times of crisis. Whether you’re adapting to deliver more services with less funding in the face of a global pandemic or doing the work to figure
out how to be more effective in your efforts to advance equity and fight racism, a strong, engaged board is absolutely critical.

We've heard this question come up quite a bit: “How do we build a board made up of strong, assertive governors and stewards, not just tacit supporters and fundraisers?”

One answer is to help your board learn to view their role as stewards of mission effectiveness as a core responsibility. Leap Ambassadors offer their insights for starting these important conversations with your board:

🔹 Ensure mission effectiveness is a regular part of board meeting agendas and discussions, not a “separate” topic discussed by a select few.

🔹 Find the right reporting tools for your organization. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to incorporating data into your planning and decision making.

🔹Center diversity, equity, and inclusion at every level of the organization, including your board. A wide array of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives contribute to an organization’s creativity, empathy, and effectiveness.

The Leap Ambassadors Community believes that boards should view becoming stewards of mission effectiveness and performance as a core responsibility. Here are some tips for getting there, no matter where your board is starting from.

06/01/2020

How large is the racial funding gap between white-leaders and leaders of color? What are the most pervasive barriers to capital driving this disparity? These are important, timely questions.

Tomorrow, Leap Ambassador and The Bridgespan Group's Jeff Bradach, Echoing Green's Cheryl Dorsey and digitalundivided Kathryn Finney will discuss these questions and more, encouraging participants to "reflect on their role in both perpetuating and addressing funding disparities". Particularly if you work at a foundation, consider registering to participate in this complimentary webinar hosted by Stanford Social Innovation Review.

In this complimentary SSIR Live! webinar, panelists will share original research that identifies the major drivers of racial disparities in funding in the social sector. The presenters will discuss the racial funding gap and share their first-hand experiences about what has and has not worked, in ad...

05/28/2020

Leading an organization through a crisis is 𝙚𝙭𝙩𝙧𝙚𝙢𝙚𝙡𝙮 challenging. That's why this month's update shares five lessons about crisis leadership that Mario has learned from both his successes and failures as a CEO, director, advisor, investor, and donor:

Lesson 1️⃣: Lead with Passion for Mission
Lesson 2️⃣: Come Together Around Purpose
Lesson 3️⃣: Be Clear About People’s Jobs
Lesson 4️⃣: Survival > Strategy
Lesson 5️⃣: Adapt in Real Time

We know many leaders are making some of the hardest decisions they've ever had to face. We hope the lessons in this month's Leap Update are helpful. As Mario and Lowell say to close this month's update: "We know you’re losing sleep. Hang in there. With courage and humanity, we’ll get through this!"

This month, we’ll get right to practical advice for social-sector leaders trying to captain ships through the dark, stormy seas of this pandemic. We’re by no means leadership experts. But Mario is a longtime student of crisis leadership and has been forced to navigate—as a CEO, director, advis...