Recommended Books

This book will guide your organization through a six-step process that results in a mission statement, vision statement, or both. The author explains how clarified mission and vision lead to more effective leadership, decisions, fundraising, and management. Tips are given on using the process alone or in conjunction with an in-depth strategic planning process. Includes sample mission and vision statements, step-by-step instructions, and worksheets.

Evaluation with Power transforms evaluation into a powerful tool nonprofits can use to help their organizations progress and change in ways that lead to greater achievement of mission. It is a practical, comprehensive handbook for turning program, process, and organizational evaluation into a positive learning experience that connects performance to mission. The book focuses on the needs of the nonprofit and reveals the sort of evaluation that is most appropriate to and helpful for nonprofits.

In Begging for Change, Robert Egger exposes the startling lack of logic, waste, and ineffectiveness he has encountered during his years in the nonprofit sector, and calls for reform of this $800 billion industry from the inside out.

He asks for nonprofits to be more innovative and results-driven, for corporate and nonprofit leaders to be more focused and responsible, and for citizens who contribute their time and money to be smarter and more demanding of nonprofits and what they provide in return.

Enlightening and provocative, engaging and moving, this book is essential reading for nonprofit managers, corporate leaders, and, most of all, any citizen who has ever cared enough to give of themselves to a worthy cause.

Fundraising consultant Ken Burnett has updated his classic book, Relationship Fundraising, to offer fundraising professionals an invaluable resource for learning the techniques of effective communication with donors in the twenty-first century. It's filled with illustrative case histories, donor profiles, and more than two hundred action points.

Raising money in the competitive nonprofit world means building strong, lifelong relationships with donors through effective, appropriate marketing and communication. Fundraisers everywhere know the importance of developing effective marketing and communication skills, but the right tools and advice are often hard to find. Now, Relationship Fundraising offers an accessible, timely guide to the benefits of applying relationship marketing methods in the fundraising arena.

For nonprofit organizations to prosper, it's essential for the organization and the community to work together for a common good. In order to do that, those involved in nonprofits must adjust their attitudes about fundraising, nonprofits, and community partnerships, and that's exactly what Fundraising for Non-Profits is all about.

This book shows you not only why nonprofits should become partners with the communities they serve but, even more important, how they can do it. It shows you how fundraising can be about more than just money and how to look through the money you're raising to the people behind it, those involved in fundraising campaigns and events.

Whether it is the TV commercial that breaks into our favorite program, or the telemarketing phone call that disrupts a family dinner, traditional advertising is based on the hope of snatching our attention away from whatever we are doing. Seth Godin calls this Interruption Marketing, and, as companies are discovering, it no longer works.

Instead of annoying potential customers by interrupting their most coveted commodity - time - Permission Marketing offers consumers incentives to accept advertising voluntarily. Now this Internet pioneer introduces a fundamentally different way of thinking about advertising products and services. By reaching out only to those individuals who have signaled an interest in learning more about a product, Permission Marketing enables companies to develop long-term relationships with customers, create trust, build brand awareness - and greatly improve the chances of making a sale.