Get the most out of your grantmaking Authors Paul Connolly (Vice President, Conservation Company) and Carol Lukas (President, Fieldstone Alliance) synthesize the most recent capacity-building practice and research into a collection of strategies, steps, and examples that funders can use to get started on or improve their funding to strengthen nonprofits. Who this book is for: Funders new to capacity building, looking for step-by-step guidance Funders with years of capacity building experience, looking for new approaches and examples of other funders' approaches A range of grantmakers, including venture philanthropists, community foundations, family foundations, corporate foundations, and government funders Funders wishing to expand their work to address community needs locally, nationally, or outside the U.S. Consultants, trainers, management support organizations, and other capacity builders Benefits you'll get: Learn compelling reasons for investing in capacity building Understand the basic types of capacity building activities Find out what other foundations are doing Get a range of costs for various types of support Clarify your roles and responsibilities in using power and resources, developing expectations, and coordinating with others Follow a 4-step process to develop, implement, and evaluate a grantmaking plan for capacity building Choose among 7 widely-used strategies for building the capacity of nonprofits Discover how to coordinate the roles of funder, nonprofit organization, and capacity builder This hands-on guide also includes dozens of examples, worksheets, and contact information for organization assessment tools, capacity building providers, and publishers. Get Strengthening Nonprofit Performance and build the capacity of nonprofits and ultimately, the communities they serve.

Get the most out of your grantmaking Authors Paul Connolly (Vice President, Conservation Company) and Carol Lukas (President, Fieldstone Alliance) synthesize the most recent capacity-building practice and research into a collection of strategies, steps, and examples that funders can use to get started on or improve their funding to strengthen nonprofits. Who this book is for: Funders new to capacity building, looking for step-by-step guidance Funders with years of capacity building experience, looking for new approaches and examples of other funders' approaches A range of grantmakers, including venture philanthropists, community foundations, family foundations, corporate foundations, and government funders Funders wishing to expand their work to address community needs locally, nationally, or outside the U.S. Consultants, trainers, management support organizations, and other capacity builders Benefits you'll get: Learn compelling reasons for investing in capacity building Understand the basic types of capacity building activities Find out what other foundations are doing Get a range of costs for various types of support Clarify your roles and responsibilities in using power and resources, developing expectations, and coordinating with others Follow a 4-step process to develop, implement, and evaluate a grantmaking plan for capacity building Choose among 7 widely-used strategies for building the capacity of nonprofits Discover how to coordinate the roles of funder, nonprofit organization, and capacity builder This hands-on guide also includes dozens of examples, worksheets, and contact information for organization assessment tools, capacity building providers, and publishers. Get Strengthening Nonprofit Performance and build the capacity of nonprofits and ultimately, the communities they serve.

Let's face it, the collaboration process can be a pain in the neck. The Nimble Collaboration: Fine-Tuning Your Collaboration for Lasting Success, shows collaborations how to become leaner, more responsive, more flexible, and ultimately, more productive. In their bestselling book, Collaboration Handbook: Creating, Sustaining, and Enjoying the Journey, Michael Winer and Karen Ray describe how to form a successful collaboration. In The Nimble Collaboration, Ray guides existing partnerships into the next stage: becoming more effective. Part I presents the ""three Rs"" of nimble collaboration: results that are clearly defined, relationships that are deft, and a structure that is resilient. Readers will learn how to determine, describe, and evaluate the specific results everyone wants to achieve—and keep them at the heart of each step they take. The book shows readers how to build trust, reinforce roles, and avoid turf issues and hidden agendas. Part II walks through real-life applications in two typical collaborations: service integration collaborations, and complex problem-solving collaborations. Detailed case studies demonstrate nimbleness in action and give collaborations concrete problem-solving ideas. Throughout the book are samples, examples, and how-tos based on the author's many years of experience consulting with real people in real collaborations across the United States. A special section explains how to write the various documents that bind partners together on paper, including a memo of agreement and a formal governance agreement. Collaborations that involve government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, community-building groups, nonprofits, law enforcement, education, health, housing, arts, social services, business, foundation—you name it—will find hands-on help for making their collaboration satisfying and productive.

Let's face it, the collaboration process can be a pain in the neck. The Nimble Collaboration: Fine-Tuning Your Collaboration for Lasting Success, shows collaborations how to become leaner, more responsive, more flexible, and ultimately, more productive. In their bestselling book, Collaboration Handbook: Creating, Sustaining, and Enjoying the Journey, Michael Winer and Karen Ray describe how to form a successful collaboration. In The Nimble Collaboration, Ray guides existing partnerships into the next stage: becoming more effective. Part I presents the ""three Rs"" of nimble collaboration: results that are clearly defined, relationships that are deft, and a structure that is resilient. Readers will learn how to determine, describe, and evaluate the specific results everyone wants to achieve—and keep them at the heart of each step they take. The book shows readers how to build trust, reinforce roles, and avoid turf issues and hidden agendas. Part II walks through real-life applications in two typical collaborations: service integration collaborations, and complex problem-solving collaborations. Detailed case studies demonstrate nimbleness in action and give collaborations concrete problem-solving ideas. Throughout the book are samples, examples, and how-tos based on the author's many years of experience consulting with real people in real collaborations across the United States. A special section explains how to write the various documents that bind partners together on paper, including a memo of agreement and a formal governance agreement. Collaborations that involve government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, community-building groups, nonprofits, law enforcement, education, health, housing, arts, social services, business, foundation—you name it—will find hands-on help for making their collaboration satisfying and productive.

John Maxwell, America's #1 leadership authority, has mastered the art of asking questions, using them to learn and grow, connect with people, challenge himself, improve his team, and develop better ideas. Questions have literally changed Maxwell's life. In GOOD LEADERS ASK GREAT QUESTIONS, he shows how they can change yours, teaching why questions are so important, what questions you should ask yourself as a leader, and what questions you should be asking your team. Maxwell also opened the floodgates and invited people from around the world to ask him any leadership question. He answers seventy of them--the best of the best--including . . . What are the top skills required to lead people through difficult times? How do I get started in leadership?How do I motivate an unmotivated person?How can I succeed working under poor leadership?When is the right time for a successful leader to move on to a new position?How do you move people into your inner circle?No matter whether you are a seasoned leader at the top of your game or a newcomer wanting to take the first steps into leadership, this book will change the way you look at questions and improve your leadership life.

A WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER Most entrepreneurs start a business seeking freedom but end up in a prison of hundred-hour workweeks isolated from their loved ones. This book is a guide to do entrepreneurship differently—letting go of the hustle and embracing a family-first mindset instead. We all want a comfortable life with plenty of time for family and friends. This vision is what inspired Steve Chou to strike out on his own over a decade ago. But what he found was a nonstop schedule of never-ending work that wore him and his family down. The hallmarks of modern business are making people miserable and preventing them from enjoying life’s greatest gifts. Business owners get stuck on the hamster wheel of hustle only to end up burned out and looking for a better way. For fifteen years, Steve Chou has run two successful seven-figure businesses in twenty hours a week or fewer, leaving plenty of time for family, friends, and leisure. In The Family-First Entrepreneur, he shares profound insights and practical advice on business and life, demonstrating that you can, in fact, pursue your dream without sacrificing what matters most. Chou offers a series of simple principles that can guide every decision you make, helping you establish a solid foundation upon which you can build the life you’ve dreamed of while comfortably supporting those you love.

The perfect resource for your journey to start a business Entrepreneurship For Dummies is the essential guide to becoming your own boss and a successful entrepreneur. We make it simple to learn every step of the process. Identify an opportunity, learn your customers' needs, test your product, protect your intellectual property, secure funding, and get ready for that all-important launch. In classic Dummies style, this book is packed with practical information and useful advice, all in a fun and easy-to-follow format. Take fear out of the entrepreneurship equation and build the confidence you need to make your fantastic business idea take flight. Get up to date on the latest lingo, new ideas for raising money, and the latest ways to do business in the digital age. Understand the process of starting a business, from beginning to end Complete the necessary planning and meet legal requirements, without the headache Get expert tips and tricks on funding your idea and bringing your product or service to market Build the foundation you need to keep your business thriving and growing Entrepreneurship For Dummies supports you as you travel along the road to success.

Over the course of a decade, positive psychology authority Dr. Beth Cabrera has surveyed and interviewed more than a thousand women to gather insight into how to effectively balance career and family responsibilities. Beyond Happy: Women, Work, and Well-Being gathers essential findings and offers women proven strategies for living more authentic, meaningful lives. Through the lens of shared experience, Cabrera thoughtfully examines the challenges women face and presents a simple yet powerful model for enhancing well-being that can both improve and transform lives. Helpful self-assessments guide you toward feeling good and doing good, and each chapter delivers tried-and-true tactics that real women have used to manage the difficulties of fulfilling their multiple, often conflicting, roles. Discover pathways to reducing stress, experiencing greater joy, and finding more meaning in your life by employing Cabrera’s solid strategies for thriving based on personal values, developed strengths, and what matters most–enduring family ties and relationships.

While first person interpretation and historic crafts have long been part of the museum world, current movements in the maker movement in libraries and schools have occurred mostly outside of the museum world. Instead, Makerspace in Museums: Hands-On History in Museums and Historic Sites shows the importance of the Maker Movement for museums and historic sites, and presents a roadmap to building, planning, researching, and using a makerspace alongside more traditional museum programming. It calls for a revitalization of living history, which can be done through makerspaces and the maker movement. Highlights include: oWhy museums and makerspaces are a natural fit together oWays to organize and create a makerspace in a museum of any budget oCreating a makerspace and culture of making that is inclusive and for the entirety of the community oStrategies for researching historic making techniques and adapting them to the modern world oCreating meaningful makerspace-centered programming The processes and methods explored in this book will help produce a sustainable makerspace that will help the museum or historic site that adopts it reach new audiences, creating growth and new museums stakeholders. Likewise, through calling for a recalibration of living history through the language of the makerspace, this project calls for new approaches to living history. Thus, it is a call for a disruption to the status quo and a push towards sustainable and meaningful living history.

Managing people is fraught with challenges—even if you're a seasoned manager. Here's how to handle them.

If you read nothing else on managing people, read these 10 articles (featuring “Leadership That Gets Results,” by Daniel Goleman). We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you maximize your employees' performance.

HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing People will inspire you to:

• Tailor your management styles to fit your people
• Motivate with more responsibility, not more money
• Support first-time managers
• Build trust by soliciting input
• Teach smart people how to learn from failure
• Build high-performing teams
• Manage your boss

Spark provides an unhurried, thought-provoking experience about what drives individuals, teams and organizations to thrive, and how readers can use that knowledge to ignite and direct their own careers. Spark is an unconventional business book. It has been built on the idea that coming from a perspective of 'getting' something is a severely self-limiting position. Instead, a career should be seen as an opportunity to give - to your funders, your team, your customers and the world at large. Doing so, the authors argue, can lead to expansive possibilities. At the same time, however, people should be averse to bloat, bureaucracy, and everything that comes with achieving a certain level of inert mass. So, how can these two positions be reconciled? How can we complain about companies getting too big while presenting a book to help entrepreneurs and leaders think and act more effectively? This is why, unlike most business books, Spark doesn’t use the authors' business backgrounds or personal stories as a launchpad for their views on best practices. It’s not a step-by-step guide to building an empire, and it doesn’t pretend to have all the answers to creating the world’s best businesses. Instead, Spark aims to deliver an unhurried, thought-provoking experience about what drives individuals, teams and organizations to thrive. The 24 concepts in the book are commonplace inside venture capital firms and high-performing private equity firms, but they haven’t yet made their way to the broader marketplace. The authors believe that these ideas should be more accessible to professionals in all industries, at all stages of their careers. And instead of giving overly-prescriptive advice, readers will be encouraged to think about broader concepts in the context of their own experiences, careers and goals. The book is organized into three sections, each containing eight chapters: - Tier One: Ideas you work on within yourself (individual) - Tier Two: Ideas you work on with someone else (interpersonal) - Tier Three: Ideas you work on within groups (organizational). Each chapter introduces a term; gives a specialized definition that challenges the reader to think differently about the term; and offers thoughts and guidance on how to put the idea into practice. Part manifesto, part self-help guide, Spark is for anyone who has to be resilient and tap into the fire (or inferno!) inside of them to overcome a challenge. It’s for those who simply aren’t finding purpose in bloated organizations, who don't like to hold meetings for meetings’ sake, and who want to live each day as their last, instead of just getting through. The goal of this book is to help you overcome whatever obstacles stand between you and the life you want to live.

When you feel that pull to be part of social change, where do you start? How can you ensure that your good intentions create a positive impact? How do you focus your scattered efforts? And how do you sustain yourself throughout? Impact brings you the answers. Drawing on their network and experience as founders of She's the First, Christen Brandt and Tammy Tibbetts show you how to create your own impact strategy, one that fits into your life and allows you to match what you have with what the world needs. Their guidance, paired with interactive activities, will lead you to identify your North Star, find the right partners, and plug into movements for long-term, systemic change. Equally important, you'll learn how to address biases, practice allyship, and shift power to become more inclusive and effective in your journey.

How to raise rabbits for a steady source of meat and income Rabbits are one of the most sustainable, nutritious, and economic meat sources available. They can easily be raised in a variety of locations and climates, and require less space and infrastructure than many other species of livestock. Raising Rabbits for Meat is the how-to guide to help you succeed in starting and running a home rabbitry for a steady source of meat or income. Coverage includes: The history of the domestic rabbit Information on breeding, housing, and harvesting Tools to help you succeed with your program An emphasis on heritage breeds. Raising Rabbits for Meat provides a solid foundation for success in raising rabbits and is ideal for anyone interested in starting a small rabbitry for home use or to market rabbit meat as a business opportunity.

At last A comprehensive guide to the art, craft, and business of consulting with nonprofits and community groups . . . Nonprofit consulting requires specialized skills and knowledge of how the sector works. This guide gives you the resources and tools to help you provide quality assistance throughout your career: experienced consultants will find it an invaluable reference; new consultants will get oriented to the sector and find step-by-step guidance through the entire process; technical specialists will gain insights into the larger processes that shape nonprofit organizations; for-profit consultants and business sector volunteers will discover how to shift their expertise to match the unique culture of nonprofit and community work; students in public administration, organization development, and nonprofit management will find it a useful guide for fieldwork, service projects, or future career search. With this illustrated guide you get: an overview of the nonprofit sector and unique elements of consulting with nonprofits; the six-stage process of consulting with concrete steps and challenges in each stage; the art of consulting, including roles, dynamics, and ethics; lessons from the field--stories from thirty skilled consultants offering sage advice on common challenges from setting up contracts to cross-cultural consulting to choosing a consulting role that matches the client's needs; when team consulting makes sense; key differences between internal and external consulting; how to run your business; marketing your services; setting fees, estimating costs, and billing; managing your career growth; working with funders; nine worksheets, sample proposals, professional standards, annotated bibliography; and much more

La consulenza aziendale come non ve l hanno mai raccontata, dal triplice punto di vista operations/finance/sales-mktg. tutta l azienda in un colpo solo

A handbook created for practitioners working in health and well-being who want to build a thriving, sustainable practice, their way. Whether they are new or have been in practice for years, many find marketing and running a business overwhelming. This book simplifies the process and supports practitioners in making the right choices for themselves. By creating their own recipe for their business based on their values, strengths, and the people they help, they can succeed where others fail. Exercises and action points help them move through the process and address any mindset challenges as they go.

Marketplace complexity and dynamics create an environment that increases the uncertainty of innovation activities. In this context systematic management of innovation and product management are increasingly important for company success. This book presents the fundamentals of innovation and product management and introduces the reader to a holistic process model with particular focus on innovation and uncertainty. This integrated consideration of innovation management and product innovation within an interdisciplinary approach represents a unique characteristic of this book. The book is designed to address the needs of managers who want a practical but well-researched guide to innovation and product management. Graduate and advanced undergraduate students would also find the chapters in this book particularly useful.

This book is devoted to a novel approach for dimensionality reduction based on the famous nearest neighbor method that is a powerful classification and regression approach. It starts with an introduction to machine learning concepts and a real-world application from the energy domain. Then, unsupervised nearest neighbors (UNN) is introduced as efficient iterative method for dimensionality reduction. Various UNN models are developed step by step, reaching from a simple iterative strategy for discrete latent spaces to a stochastic kernel-based algorithm for learning submanifolds with independent parameterizations. Extensions that allow the embedding of incomplete and noisy patterns are introduced. Various optimization approaches are compared, from evolutionary to swarm-based heuristics. Experimental comparisons to related methodologies taking into account artificial test data sets and also real-world data demonstrate the behavior of UNN in practical scenarios. The book contains numerous color figures to illustrate the introduced concepts and to highlight the experimental results.  

In 1958, Ralph E. Gomory transformed the field of integer programming when he published a paper that described a cutting-plane algorithm for pure integer programs and announced that the method could be refined to give a finite algorithm for integer programming. In 2008, to commemorate the anniversary of this seminal paper, a special workshop celebrating fifty years of integer programming was held in Aussois, France, as part of the 12th Combinatorial Optimization Workshop. It contains reprints of key historical articles and written versions of survey lectures on six of the hottest topics in the field by distinguished members of the integer programming community. Useful for anyone in mathematics, computer science and operations research, this book exposes mathematical optimization, specifically integer programming and combinatorial optimization, to a broad audience.

This book offers a timely reflection on how the proliferation of advanced wireless communications technologies, particularly cognitive radio (CR) can be enabled by thoroughly-considered policy and appropriate regulation. It looks at the prospects of CR from the divergent standpoints of technological development and economic market reality. The book provides a broad survey of various techno-economic and policy aspects of CR development and provides the reader with an understanding of the complexities involved as well as a toolbox of possible solutions to enable the evolutionary leap towards successful implementation of disruptive CR technology or indeed any other novel wireless technologies. Cognitive Radio Policy and Regulation showcases the original ideas and concepts introduced into the field of CR and dynamic spectrum access policy over nearly four years of work within COST Action IC0905 TERRA, a think-tank with participants from more than 20 countries. The book’s subject matter includes: • deployment scenarios for CR; • technical approaches for improved spectrum sharing; • economic aspects of CR policy and regulation; • impact assessment of cognitive and software-defined radio; and • novel approaches to spectrum policy and regulation for the age of CR. The book will interest researchers in the field of wireless communications, especially those working with standardization and policy issues, as well as industry and regulatory professionals concerned with radio spectrum management and the general development of wireless communications. Considerable complementary reference material such as power point slides and technical reports that illustrates and expands on the contents of the book is provided on the companion website to the book, found at http://www.cost-terra.org/CR-policy-book

The Business of America examines the complex linking of business and nationhood in post-war United States literature against the backdrop of changing concepts of the nation in the field of American Studies. The first part of the book examines how white male literary culture has been largely hostile to business during this period and how it has represented transnational shifts in the nature of business as threats to supposedly American values like the individual, the family, or freedom. The book charts the way that such an uneasiness towards business relies upon a discourse about America, business and empire that is increasingly untenable in the post-war world. By way of comparison, The Business of America looks at how literature by women and by writers from different racial, ethnic and sexual groups often deals with business from the more localised angle of work. Graham Thompson shows how this attention to work provides a less abstract and more oppositional approach to the connection between business and America.

The future of management is here! Traditional management was invented for very different times and is today in serious trouble. The level of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity in business environments is record high. People s expectations towards their employers and leaders have also radically changed. A number of organizations are exploring management innovation that can help them not just coping but thriving and out-performing in these new and different realities. Beyond Budgeting may be the most important new idea out there addressing these radical changes, due to its broad scope and coherent approach. Abolishing the traditional, detailed annual budget is necessary, but not sufficient. Organizations on the journey are questioning their old leadership beliefs and are tearing up their old command-and-control management models, with agile and human as the foundation for a new start. Implementing Beyond Budgeting is both a theoretical introduction and a practical guide to bringing such a more empowered and adaptive management model to life. Drawing on the author s twenty years of Beyond Budgeting experience, this book not only demonstrates the serious problems with traditional management through numerous practical examples. It also follows several companies on their Beyond Budgeting journey, including Scandinavia s largest company Statoil where the author has been heading up implementation since 2005. You'll get a first-hand glimpse at the reality of transitioning a large multinational company, and gain a real-world perspective on what successful implementation entails. This new second edition has been significantly revised and expanded. It covers the amazing development of the Beyond Budgeting movement and how the Statoil implementation journey has continued since the first edition of this book was published in 2009, sustaining major events like for instance the 2015 oil price crash. A new chapter on Beyond Budgeting and Agile has also been added. New implementation experiences, great new case stories, new management innovation examples and management metaphors (traffic controls!) are introduced, as well as the author s latest reflections on a range of management issues including target setting, forecasting, performance evaluation and incentives.