As we celebrate Black History Month, questions about its purpose will inevitably arise in the public discourse as they do every year. People who buy into the erroneous idea of a post-racial America believe that it’s irrelevant or even harmful. Others argue that setting aside one month ends up diminishing the 400-year old historical legacy of Black Americans.

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This February, EPIP is highlighting the Measuring a Leader Strategic and Analytical Skills. Social change leaders: Anticipate future needs and trends; Create competitive strategies and plans; and Think broadly when analyzing an issue or presented with a challenge...

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In this interview, Beth Kanter provides readers with an opportunity to gain leadership lessons from a career that she has been passionate about for twenty years.  Helping nonprofits make effective use of technology, Beth also shares best practices for nonprofits to consider. 1.  Could you provide a brief professional description of who you are and what you do? You can find that here: http://www.bethkanter.org/about-beth/ My work is as a trainer – for the past 20 years that has been around working with nonprofits to build capacity in using the Internet and Web and social media for their missions and communications strategies and for building staff knowledge and capacity. 2. What drew you to your current work and how did you get your start? It’s a long story and I’ve written about my career path here: http://www.bethkanter.org/whats-your-calling/ To sum it up, I’ve always had a desire for life long learning – that’s my passion.    So, if you can follow your passion, curiosity, and keep learning – AND get paid for your work – you’ve hit the sweet spot. 2a. What skills have been most useful to you in your work with nonprofits? As a trainer, I work constantly at improving my skills in instructional design and delivery.  I think having good facilitation skills so you can help groups of people to learn and gain insights.      Also,  I do a lot of coaching, so listening skills are important.    And, for developing curriculum and training materials, understanding content curation, attention training (being able […] Read more

May 21, 2014

EPIP Webinar: Strengthening Nonprofit-Funder Partnerships 

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In an effort to help EPIP members gain value from the experience of professionals in the field, EPIP has started a new interview series. Blog readers will be able to learn valuable lessons from leaders in the field.

The second interview in this series is with Johanna Morariu. Johanna is a member of EPIP in Washington, D.C. and a Director at Innovation Network.  In her position, she works with her colleagues to help funders and nonprofits collect data about their work and improve their results. 

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By William Fenn, Innovation Network and EPIP-DC 

“One page, that’s all you get,” I was told the first time I presented to the board. How is that possible, I thought? I had been running due diligence on this project for months, collecting several hundred pages of budget and proposal information with multiple rounds of revisions. Now I understand the one page limit. I was only working on one small grant out of hundreds that the board would debate – and that wasn’t even considering the documentation the board had to digest about larger strategic planning and operational issues...

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