This summer we've been looking at how cultural nonprofit organizations are running arts festivals across the country. In June, we spoke with the organizers of Toronto's Luminato festival about their strategic partnership with The New Yorker magazine. In July, the...
"Nonprofit principles can be applied to a business. I don't think of myself as an entrepreneur but a community organizer." Lisa Moore, joint founder of the Rhizome Café, Vancouver "After my presentation another delegate took me aside and said 'You...
"At some point in the not too distant future, policy makers and leaders in philanthropy will need to decide what role they prefer for themselves in a world reshaped by social enterprise: visionary enabler or sidelined naysayer." Peter Dietz, Managing...
"Like Dr Dolittle's Pushmi-Pullyu, the animal that had trouble moving because its two heads could not agree on a single direction, the hybrid model for non-profits is proving problematic. On occasion, the need to generate returns for investors overwhelms the...
Still sloughing off the effects of their 2008 banking meltdown, Iceland was in the news again recently when its government decided to amend their constitution by way of suggestions posted by citizens on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Otherwise known as...
The relationship between communications and fundraising in many organizations is a strained one. The friction arises over a variety of things: resources, turf, approvals, competing plans, different visions. The question many organizations are asking is whether fundraising and communications should...
A close friend of mine frequently makes significant gifts to her favourite causes. I sit on the board of a charity; how do I get her to support mine? Ask and you shall receive is a good place to start!...
Last month in our series about summer arts festivals run by nonprofits, we looked at the partnership between Toronto’s Luminato festival and The New Yorker Magazine. This month, we head way up north, to the town of Inuvik on the...
What should my charity focus on over the summer to strengthen our fundraising program? July and August are good months to refocus your fundraising strategy so you can hit the ground running come the autumn. While June is often taken...
Marilyn Struthers, province-wide program manager for the Ontario Trillium Foundation, speaks largely in nature metaphors. "I sit at the top of the high tree overlooking the sector," she says of her job overseeing millions of dollars of grant applications each...
