Running and working in nonprofits can be incredibly rewarding and also exhausting. Managing grant budgets, creating systems, filing 990s, and supervising staff all while running programs and serving your mission, requires wearing multiple hats and can leave you bleary eyed and tired.
But having greater impact isn’t about working harder, it’s about working smarter.
Explore the below resources to help you work more effectively and efficiently and join the Nonprofit Management and Operations Discussion Group to connect with your peers around this topic.
Featured Resources
| Title | Author | Summary | Year | Tags |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VCC Evaluation Template | Wallace Center | The goal of this template is to help Value Chain Coordination (VCC) professionals quickly build an evaluation plan based on best practices in the field. This template was developed by the Wallace Center’s Food Systems Leadership Network team with input from Value Chain Coordination professionals and consultants with expertise in evaluation and racial equity. | 2023 | Monitoring and Evaluation, Value Chain Coordination |
| Value Chain Coordination Evaluation Guide | N/A | This guide and the accompanying evaluation template are designed to help Value Chain Coordination Professionals design and implement an evaluation plan that is aligned with your values and unique role in your community. The guide includes prompts for reflection and space to write out your values, your unique role and activities, and includes an accompanying template where you can build your evaluation plan. Prompts are included throughout to illuminate how a given activity contributes to racial equity or perpetuates inequalities. Regardless of where you are in your journey, these questions can help you align your work and impact with your values and intentions. | Monitoring and Evaluation, Value Chain Coordination | |
| Problem Trees & Objective Trees | Wallace Center | A problem tree can be a useful tool that allows you to analyze a problem and determine its causes and effects. This resource includes a problem tree, along with resources on problem tree overviews and how to use it. | 2023 | Management |
| Stages of Board Development | N/A | … | Nonprofit Management and Operations | |
| Board Self-Assessment Tool | McKinsey and Company | … | Nonprofit Management and Operations | |
| What are the Basic responsibilities of Nonprofit Boards? | BoardSource | … | 2009 | Nonprofit Management and Operations |
| Milestone Example Budget | N/A | With sample project budget, income & expenditure budget, cashflow forecast, capital budget, and consolidated … | Business Operations, Finance, Nonprofit Management and Operations | |
| Nonprofit Chart of Accounts with Food and Farming Notes | Poppy Davis | This is a sample chart of accounts for nonprofits which can offer guidance on how to track and manage your … | 2002 | Farms, Finance, Nonprofit Management and Operations |
| Finance and Related Matters Reference Book | MAF Europe | … | 2006 | Business Operations, Finance, Nonprofit Management and Operations |
| Agenda template for staff meetings | National Farm to School Network | Agenda template for staff … | Nonprofit Management and Operations | |
| Nonprofit Budget Template | N/A | Nonprofit Budget … | 2018 | Finance, Nonprofit Management and Operations |
| Nonprofit Earned Income Strategies-Where to Start | Social Enterprise Associates | From the Social Enterprise Associates, this brief is for non-profits interested in new methods of generating revenue for organizations via earned income. It’s purpose is to assist organizations, its leaders, and its staff, as they tackle social enterprise and begin taking the necessary steps to form an action … | Finance, Nonprofit Management and Operations | |
| Supervision-Partnering for Success | Marla Cornelius | … | 2018 | Nonprofit Management and Operations |
| Strategic Planning Filter | Farm to Institution New England | … | 2019 | Nonprofit Management and Operations |
| Defining Racial Equity and Food Equity Assessment Questions | N/A | Draft set of questions that can be asked when planning or rethinking a project to ensure an equity … | Nonprofit Management and Operations, Racial Equity | |
| Racial Equity Toolkit: An Opportunity to Operationalize Equity | Government Alliance on Racial Equity | Racial equity tools are designed to integrate explicit consideration of racial equity in decisions, including policies, practices, programs, and budgets. It is both a product and a process. Use of a racial equity tool can help to develop strategies and actions that reduce racial inequities and improve success for all groups. The Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE) – a joint project of The Haas Institute and the Center for Social Inclusion – has developed this Tool for community-based organizations, elected officials, government staff, and other interested individuals to understand and analyze how proposed and existing projects can incorporate equity throughout the development, implementation, and evaluation phases of … | 2016 | Nonprofit Management and Operations, Racial Equity |
| Peer Coaching Group Process | Otto Scharmer and Peter Senge | Step by step guidance for conducting a peer coaching … | 2016 | Facilitation, Management, Systems Leadership |
| Evaluating VCC Convenings | Sarah Rocker | Convening groups of stakeholders is an important facet of value chain coordination work. Meetings offer an opportunity to capture diverse stakeholder perspectives and surveys can be an effective way to understand relationship connectivity in the group. This quicksheet offers two survey approaches that can be used to track VCC relationship-building efforts through convening events. Each approach includes explanations of data collection, examples of results, and pros and cons of each approach, to allow you to choose the best method for your organization’s … | 2019 | Monitoring and Evaluation, Value Chain Coordination |