Managing a Nonprofit: Write Winning Grant Proposals, Work with Boards, and Build a Successful Fundraising Program

This book covers a lot of topics relevant to operating a typical nonprofit organization. None of the topics are covered in much depth, but they are identified and discussed adquately. Just about all the topics covered are what a nonprofit Executive Director really should become expert in BEFORE she tries to found and run a nonprofit of her own. Unfortunately far too many nonprofit leaders try to become Executive Directors, Development Directors, or the like before they are ready. They probably haven't read this book when they should have. This book is split into 5 sections: I. Understanding nonprofit agencies (1-2) II. Guiding a nonprofit to success (3-6) III. Fundraising 101 (7-13) IV. Marketing, public relations, and the Internet (14-17) V. Appendices (18-21) And the five sections are split into 21 chapters: 1. What is a nonprofit agency? 2. Crafting a mission statement 3. Building a nonprofit team 4. Working with a board of directors 5. Improving your day-to-day management skills 6. Paperwork: corporate bylaws and financial statements 7. Making fundraising your best friend 8. Special events 9. Corporate donations: learn the rules & reap the benefits 10. Direct mail 11. Understanding foundations and endowments 12. Obtaining grants 13. The Board's role in fundraising 14. Why market your nonprofit? 15. Using advertising 16. Public relations 17. Making the most of the Internet 18. Nonprofit Board assessement tools 19. Sample bylaws 20. Sample grant proposal 21. Government grants The real beauty of this book is that it identifies topics relevant to managing a nonprofit. After you read the cursory explanations for each, then I highly recommend you do some Google searching on the terms in order to find more in depth coverage. Treat this book like an outline for a research project on how to run a nonprofit and you will be really happy you got this book. I think the book would have been better if it had a chapter on Capital Campaigns and the feasibility studies necessary to have a good capital campaign. And I would have liked to see a chapter on major gift fundraising. And the book would have been more special if it had a resource chapter that listed great books on nonprofit management and fundraising. But none was included. I would have liked the book better if the section on fundraising had been organized a little differently. I think of fundraising as being about (1) annual campaigns, (2) grants, (3) special events, (4) major gift programs, (5) endowment campaigns, and (6) capital campaigns. Direct mail, advertising, public relations and the Internet all relate to annual campaigns. Those chapters probably should have been consolidated. Obtaining corporate donations and grants are close cousins. They probably should have been consolidated in a chapter entitled "grants." I'm going to rate this book high besides its shortcomings because it is still a pretty good book. 5 stars!

This book is a very good primer for getting one's feet wet in the world of non-profit organizations. While it is by no means exhaustive, it is certainly broad and deep enough for anyone to run their non-profit more efficiently and more ethically. It covers excellent project, team and board building strategies, as well as nearly every type of fundraising and solicitation. Additionally, there is good information on employing the internet for communication, engagement and fundraising -- STILL a fairly new field for many. Appendices A-C cover some very good tools and examples. Though the listed government grant sources in appendix D focus mainly upon the Humanities and the Arts, valuable web sources are given for finding grants in other areas.