"This groundbreaking resource offers a set of guiding principles to help nonprofit leaders navigate the transition from top-down organizations to a networked approach enabled by technology. The book contains specific strategies for implementation and secrets to success from nonprofits who have used
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new social media tools effectively themselves. It also offers effective exercises and how-to's for implementation. A key element of this book is interviews with current nonprofit managers who have learned how to jump into the social media fray without a net and thrived because of it." (Publisher description)
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"Explores the application of systems ideas to investigate, evaluate, and intervene in complex and messy situations. The text serves as a field guide, with each chapter representing a method for describing and analyzing; learning about; or changing and managing a challenge or set of problems. The boo
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k is the first to cover in detail such a wide range of methods from so many different parts of the systems field. The book's Introduction gives an overview of systems thinking, its origins, and its major subfields. In addition, the introductory text to each of the book's three parts provides background information on the selected methods. Systems Concepts in Action may serve as a workbook, offering a selection of tools that readers can use immediately. The approaches presented can also be investigated more profoundly, using the recommended readings provided. While these methods are not intended to serve as "recipes," they do serve as a menu of options from which to choose." (Publisher description)
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"This book presents practical ways to build financial management capacity in an international development context (although much of it applies to any non-profit organisation). It describes best practice in the specific tasks of financial management – for example, planning and budgeting and financi
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al controls. It gives examples of how groups and organisations build their own capacity. It also considers what leadership teams can do to guide their organisation’s long-term direction (an activity sometimes called ‘governance’) and it describes other financial management aspects that can be built into an organisation’s structure. It is written for non-government organisations (NGOs), larger community-based organisations (CBOs), and charities." (Introduction)
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"Media centres around the world are facing the same challenges in ensuring long-term sustainability after “start-up” funding from donors ceases. In order to overcome these challenges, a number of centres have pioneered innovative approaches for ensuring financial and institutional viability and
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credibility, thus allowing them to successfully evolve into stable expert institutions within their media landscapes. It is in this context that in October 2006 International Media Support (IMS) invited a number of media centres and other institutions from Southeast Europe, West and East Africa, South and Southeast Asia and the Middle East to a workshop to share lessons learnt and identify approaches for addressing common challenges. These centres were asked to join the workshop because they represent perspectives and experiences from all over the world, thus offering the chance to pool diverse knowledge and experiences. In undertaking this workshop, it was recognised that all media centres are unique. The participating institutions represented media centres at differing stages in their development and performing varied roles, from lobbying for media policy reform to providing training opportunities and producing media publications. Nevertheless, despite these differences, there are considerable similarities and therefore scope for sharing knowledge. As an outcome of the workshop, the best practices discussed and defined by the participants have been collated in this handbook, which is being published jointly by IMS and the participating media centres. I hope that this publication is a useful tool for media centres of all designs and orientations, in further strengthening their options for achieving financial self sustainability." (Introduction, page 5)
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"The idea of capturing, storing and sharing knowledge so as to learn lessons from the past and from elsewhere – overcoming the boundaries posed by time and space – is far from being a new one. In recent years, a growing movement has emphasised the improved application of knowledge and learning a
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s a means to improve development and humanitarian work. The movement has led to the widespread adoption of learning and knowledge-based strategies among the range of agencies involved in such work, including donor agencies, multilaterals, NGOs, research institutes, and the plethora of institutions based in the South, including national governments, regional organisations, and indigenous NGOs. This guide is aimed at staff working in all such organisations. There are 30 tools and techniques contained here, divided into five categories: i) Strategy Development; ii) Management Techniques; iii) Collaboration Mechanisms; iv) Knowledge Sharing and Learning Processes; and v) Knowledge Capture and Storage. Many of these tools are simple and trying them out requires nothing more than the desire to try something new, and the drive to ‘get on and do it’. Undertaking them effectively requires effective – sometimes advanced – facilitation and communication skills. Here, we have aimed to provide comprehensive accounts of how to apply such techniques, with a focus on the requirements of potential facilitators." (Introduction, page 2)
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"The community radio sector is experiencing a time of rapid growth in Australia. While community broadcasting participants generally welcome the sector’s growth, they have expressed concern over the lack of proportionate funding increase from the Federal government. The key issue is the need to fi
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nd ways to enhance community radio’s sources of funding without imperilling its status as a not-for-profit sector, and as one main option, the deregulation of sponsorship time presently limited to five minutes per hour may enhance income generation for community radio. This paper argues that there is no inherent conflict between entrepreneurial principles and not-for-profit principles." (Abstract)
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"This book tells how four busy executives, each coming from a different background, each with a very different perspective, were surprised to find themselves converge on the idea of narrative as an extraordinarily valuable lens for understanding and managing organizations in the 21st century. It ref
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lects a conversation that took place under the auspices of The Smithsonian Associates in April 2001 and the effects that this conversation has stimulated since then." (Preface)
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"This book brings together key readings in the NGO managment literature, focusing on NGDO's working on issues of poverty and injustice in developing countries and on a global scale. The contributions which are drawn from a wide variety of sources ranging from books and journal articles to agency pub
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lications." (D + C 5/2002)
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"Development is not a question of project-based interventions, or of quantifiable inputs and outputs, but a complex process of negotiation over meetings, values, and social goals within the sphere of public action. This collection of papers, from the journal 'Development in Practice', draws on The O
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pen University's ground-breaking work in the field of development management. It includes in-depth accounts by academics and development managers that range from civil society organizations in Brazil to NGO workers in Egypt, government departments in Tanzania and Poland, donor agencies in Bangladesh, and black feminist activities in the UK." (Catalogue Intermediate Technology Publications 2000)
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