There are many ways to increase productivity at your nonprofit, so get ready to benchmark new achievements to share with your donors and supporters. Alex Neuhoff and Robert Searles, who appear in the Stanford Innovation Review, offer some helpful tips to put you on the right track. Standardize Best Practices—Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, perfect what you already know works and produce results. Invest in Critical Activities and Staff—Determine which activities are most important and critical to the success of your organization. Invest more time, energy and manpower in those specific tasks. Manage Costs Effectively—Monitor administrative and personnel costs more closely, and remember to include major costs like salaries or stipends. Continuously look for ways to keep your costs low or even cut expenses that may no longer serve your mission. Measure Your Progress—Create a system that allows you to track your progress and the results of your work. If you do this, you will be most effective at implementing best practices. This is also a great time to fine-tune and revisit tasks that may need a little more attention. Jane D. Callahan, who has more than 25 years of experience as a tax attorney and represents a…

If you—or your employees—dread performance reviews, then there is something very wrong with the way they are being conducted. When the right questions are asked properly, the exercise can actually increase both your organization’s impact and employee engagement. The nonprofit sector accomplishes some amazing things on a daily basis. While attempting to solve the problems of the world, the minutia of setting up practical business processes can often get pushed to the back burner. But, attention to this detail pays off. Increasing Impact Could you possibly deliver on this mission by yourself? Of course not! It takes a team, working well together, to accomplish your goals. Rather than leading with heart only, lead with your brain. “Identify, track, and document” is the very best approach to having more impact—as an organization, and as a member of the team. Increasing Employee Engagement A well-planned and well-executed performance review can bolster employee engagement in a number of ways. Start by clearly defining expectations and setting clear goals and benchmarks. It’s neither productive, nor fair, to blind-side employees during a review. Having clearly stated goals allows you and your employees to check progress informally between reviews and monitor progress. This allows for identification…

It’s that time of year when vacations start to kick in gear—spring break for the kids, holiday travel, or, just time out of the office. And although the vacation itself is fun, the stress of preparing the office for your absence may not be so delightful. Fortunately, good planning can put most fears to rest. Don’t be tempted to put off vacation or worse yet, to take a vacation that really isn’t a vacation because you are taking calls and answering emails. Kadi McDonald penned an article for Third Sector Today that gives some real-life reasons to get out of the office now. Why You Absolutely Need to Take That Vacation Your team needs you to take a break. In stressful or high-demand work environments, it can sometimes become overwhelming to have to present to a manager all the time. When you’re not there, this gives your team some time to focus. Not only that, it gives them a confidence boost that they’re able to hold down the fort when you’re not around. Your brain will work much better if you give it some time to clear. Full time employment is stressful. And that’s not even including what it takes…

The hit TV show, Mad Men, aired its final episode on May 17, 2015 after a seven season, 92 episode run. It’s taken a little longer for the proverbial “Kelly Girl” image of temporary staffing to complete its run, but we’re almost there. Today, nonprofit organizations rely on temp or contract workers for just about everything, including event management, donor data, field ops and HR. These individuals are career-driven with high skill sets and are adept at networking. The American Staffing Association reported in December that 3.32 million temporary employees and contractors found work through an employment agency, an increase of 1.8% from 2014 and the highest third quarter since 2000. “Staffing employment continues to grow as the demand for talent increases, and, with 5.4 million job openings in the U.S., there are lots of opportunities for job seekers looking for flexible or permanent positions,” ASA president and CEO Richard Wahlquist noted. Granted, many of the 3.32 million are not serving in the nonprofit sector. However, nonprofit organizations are increasingly utilizing temps to fill not only temporary short-term vacancies, but to fill high demand, short term projects such as fundraising event management, data entry, 990 filings, and more. For many…

Skype has been around for quite some time – long before FaceTime and Google Hangouts. It was a lifesaver when I was interning in the United Kingdom in college and it was especially handy when I wanted to see my dog while I was away at school. But one of the most innovative – and expense reducing – Skype uses is the job interview. With several video chat programs out there, it’s possible to use virtually any device with a camera to conduct an interview these days. And you absolutely should. The obvious plusses: You don’t have to worry about being onsite. You can interview people from all over the world in the same exact way. And, from the perspective of a Millennial, this makes you look like an incredibly cutting edge company. There are obviously some disadvantages to a digital interview. But here are a few ways to set expectations, eliminate those disadvantages, and get everything you need out of the Skype interview. Test your connection…and the software. You’ve got to know the software and the hardware and you need to make sure that everything works properly. Nothing screams “YOU DON’T WANT TO WORK HERE” louder than a 10-minute…