When it comes to networking, what happens at the IS Conference doesn’t stay at the IS Conference. It can impact your work well into the future.
A recent study from the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network titled “Stepping Up or Stepping Out” revealed an alarming statistic for those concerned with the future of the nonprofit and philanthropic sector: 45 percent of the most skilled and experienced respondents plan to leave the nonprofit sector, citing frustrations over burnout, career paths, and professional development.
Guest post by Phil Buchanan, president of The Center for Effective Philanthropy
This is the fifth in a series of six blog posts, which were originally featured on the CEP Blog.
In my last several posts, I have described what I regard as worrisome
trends: the way many (inside and outside the nonprofit sector) push for
a “blurring of boundaries” between sectors, disparage the term
“nonprofit,” and equate “business thinking” with “effectiveness.”
But, many go further still, arguing – or at least strongly implying –
not just that nonprofits could benefit from an infusion of “business
thinking” but that, in fact, nonprofits are increasingly irrelevant
because it is companies that will solve our most vexing social problems.
To this growing chorus, the private sector is now where the action is.
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Guest post by Phil Buchanan, president of The Center for Effective Philanthropy
This is the third in a series of six blog posts, which were originally featured on the CEP Blog.
Beating up on the label “nonprofit” has become an almost reflexive habit of those speaking and writing about the sector.
“Anyone
who has thought about it for more than a nanosecond agrees that
‘nonprofit’ is about the worst possible summary we could give of
ourselves and our work,” writes
Harvard Business Review blogger Dan Pallotta, crediting Harvard
Business School (HBS) Professor Allen Grossman for noting that the
sector “suffers from the distinction of being the only sector whose name
begins with a negative.” (I had Professor Grossman as a second-year MBA
student at HBS and he is an outstanding professor, who I respect
greatly and stay in touch with to this day. But I disagree with him when
it comes to the way he views the sector and the comparisons he draws to
business.)
In a much more constructive spirit than Pallotta’s, Peter Hero, former president of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, has also argued that the term “nonprofit” is problematic because of what it conveys.
