Author Archives: David Harris

In today’s world, change is a constant for nonprofits. This is especially so in crises such as the current Covid-19 pandemic. As staff leaders and nonprofit board members, your approach to change can be more consistent. The ACES framework, developed by Interim Executive Solutions, provides some guidance: Assess the situation – where are you now? […]

Nonprofit 411: Using Board and Staff Surveys to Drive Continuous Improvement SEPTEMBER 4, 2020 BY ADMIN By Davis Harris, Interim Executive Solutions Representing all voices, and hearing from all voices, are not the same thing. Nonprofits have become acutely aware of the need to bring diversity to the staff and to the board, but that does not necessarily […]

Crisis situations, such as the current Covid-19 pandemic, demand that a nonprofit board and the executive leadership work together far more closely than would normally occur. This is because the circumstances can impact: Mission and vision (what you do), Funding and budgets (the resources available), Governance processes (decision-making authority and documentation), Stakeholders (impact on staff, […]

By Brian Krehbiel Times of disruption and uncertainty are times in which organizations tend to seek help from interim executives. I’ve noticed this phenomenon over more than two decades of providing interim executives to hospitals and health systems. When the future is cloudy, organizations are often reluctant to fill open positions with permanent hires, and […]

Dateline 3-19-20: The next few weeks are going to test us all and will require very challenging decisions we would never dream of having to make under normal circumstances. For many nonprofits the initial instinct for survival may mean minimizing unnecessary costs, no matter how unpleasant such decisions may be. On the other hand, this […]

Part one of this blog attempted to make the case for nonprofit resiliency. Here Steve Stanton shares a diagnostic model for organizational resilience based on seven core elements. A Clear Organizational Identity: Are we aligned as to who we are? Do we have continuous and aligned focus and flexibility on core issues? Relevant Mission: Is […]

Some nonprofits need to improve their marketing, and others have to focus on building up their boards, but ALL nonprofits need to improve their resiliency. Resiliency means the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. This ability extends beyond flexibility and encompasses far more than “capacity building”. A resilient organization is able to find ways to […]

Every nonprofit we encounter has different strengths and weaknesses but there are a few common challenges and blind spots that many of them share. Here are just a few: The first rule of a nonprofit is that you actually have to make a profit or a surplus (what you call it doesn’t matter but you […]