News

Nonprofits increasingly design programs with input from the communities they intend to serve. 

Now that lived experience finally has a seat at the design table, what about on the evaluation team? Nonprofits are engaging communities to help create impactful programs, but without community members’ partnership in evaluating them, nonprofits may be missing critical feedback. 

Read the latest issue of GC Nonprofit News.

Today’s nonprofit teams are balancing increasing expectations with limited resources. Many fundraising professionals already know what drives donor engagement and retention, but the challenge is finding the time and capacity to execute consistently.  

Find it all here - nnonprofit news, events and jobs in Cincincinnati. 

Few nonprofit leaders would ever intentionally design a fundraising system that exhausts staff, frustrates donors and rewards short-term revenue at the expense of long-term generosity. Yet many organizations find themselves in exactly that situation. That would be less of a problem in a forgiving environment. This is not one.  

Every organization reaches a point where it has to ask whether the way it has always operated is still the best way to serve its mission.

 Over the past several months, OneSource Center for Nonprofit Excellence, Leadership Council for Nonprofits, and Social Venture Partners Cincinnati asked ourselves that very question. Through thoughtful planning, due diligence, and many conversations, our boards and leadership teams explored how we could build on our individual strengths while creating something even more valuable for the nonprofit organizations we serve.

Find it here - all the nonprofit news, jobs and announcements in the Cincinnati region.

Many nonprofits do important work every day. They still struggle to explain that work in a way people remember.  

The problem is rarely a lack of good stories. The problem is often how the organization finds, prepares and shares them. Here are some of the most common communications mistakes I see.

Everything you need to stay up-to-date on all the Cincinnati nonprofit news is in our latest GC Nonprofit News issue. 

A few months ago, I attended a board meeting where a program director carefully walked the board through slide after slide of outcome metrics, retention rates and cost-per-participant figures. By the fourth slide, attention had drifted as eyes wandered and pens stopped moving.  

Then a case manager spent less than two minutes describing a single family the program had helped move from homelessness into stable housing. The room changed. People leaned forward and began asking questions, and the discussion became animated. A few minutes later, no one remembered the cost-per-participant figure. Everyone remembered the family.  

That moment has stayed with me because it captures one of the most important lessons: Effective nonprofit program evaluation isn’t a choice between data and stories. It’s about combining data and stories to show your program’s impact. Strong program evaluation answers three questions: