As a member of the board of YNPN (Young Nonprofit Professionals Network) Phoenix, I have been fortunate to cross paths with some extraordinary emerging leaders, facilitators, mentors, and nonprofit sector thought leaders. As YNPN Phoenix's annual member retreat approaches, I am reminded of a powerful experience from last year's retreat that still resounds with me today.

At the 2010 retreat, we benefited from the guidance of two fantastic facilitators in Raquel Gutiérrez and Cassandra O'Neill, who asked participants to bring with them an object that represented the reason they became involved with the nonprofit sector. As we sat in a circle on that first evening and shared the stories of our objects, I was struck by the themes that emerged as to how and why each of us had pursued work or volunteer service in the nonprofit sector, and also to what kept us committed to that service. At the conclusion of hearing everyone's stories, we were each asked to pick up an object that represented the story that had resonated with us the most and to silently return it to its owner.

Several people were inspired by passion for a cause that sprang from personal experience. Take me, for example — my object was a tin whistle (a more portable representation of…

Do you know the first steps in telling your organization's story? Do you have a strong sense of effective marketing campaigns to propel your organization to the next level? Do you feel your stakeholders and constituents truly know what your mission and goals are? Are your donors truly vested in the mission of your organization? If you answered "no" to any of the above questions, then this blog is for you.

First off, today's post will be a first in a series of get-to-know the Lodestar Center staff. As the Manager of Marketing, Communications, and Stakeholder Relations, I work to advance the Center's mission to ensure that our portfolio of research, education, technical assistance, and convenings are known by our stakeholders. I have been fortunate to work at a few nonprofit organizations, and there is always a critical need to effectively tell the story. Ready to dive into how to convey messages using specific marketing channels, and ultimately, how to measure the results of your work? Keep reading...

Use Your E-mail Signature.

A fast and super easy way to market your organization's mission and upcoming events/programs is to make the most of your e-mail signature. Quite simply, email signatures can be a no-cost, high-return marketing tool for your organization. Think about this: if your organization has 25 employees, each of whom sends 15 emails per a day to people outside of the organization,…

Welcome to Research Friday! As part of a continuing weekly series, each Friday we invite a nonprofit expert from our academic faculty to highlight a research report or study and discuss how it can inform and improve day-to-day nonprofit practice. We welcome your comments and feedback.

Recruiting volunteers is one of the most important jobs in most nonprofit organizations. But doing it right? That can be tricky. But, as it turns out, one of the most effective ways to reel them in is also the simplest: asking.In fact, the majority of people volunteer for an organization in response to being personally asked, as opposed to "walking in."

A professor I know stated it beautifully: "I don't want to go to my HOA meeting because they will ask me to do something, and I might say yes." This is exactly why I avoided my daughter's school PTA meetings for months, despite a nagging little voice in my head urging me to go. Well, the voice eventually talked me into it (parental involvement is so important!), and I showed up for a meeting. You know how this story ends: Now, I'm the Treasurer!

In the Arizona Giving and Volunteering Report, we at the Center report the differences in the rate of volunteering across race, gender, educational attainment, and income. Consistent with other research on volunteering, being better educated,…

This topic gets trotted out a lot, so maybe that just means it's worth having again. We discuss it in one of my graduate seminars, but a blog post is probably a good place to gather up people's reactions in the comments section. Really, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

In my last blog post, I suggested that the idea of "sector" has taken hold, which means that we need a way to refer to all the organizations that fall inside such a sector. Clearly, to me anyway, the frontrunner is "nonprofit organizations" operating in a "nonprofit sector." The word nonprofit is in the Lodestar Center's full name, it's in my job title, and it's in the name of my professional association. If our goal is to communicate clearly, then nonprofit sticks because most people know what we mean when we use it.

The problem is that this isn't always the case. At a dinner party, when you tell somebody that you work for a nonprofit organization, there's a fair chance that your drinking buddy will react something like, "Oh, yeah, a nonprofit organization. Those things that can't make a profit." Well, no... the defining characteristic of the nonprofit organization is that it returns all of its surplus income ("profit") to furthering its…

A passion of mine for the last 13 years has been working with high school teens through my church youth group. During my last year as a student at ASU, I completed a youth ministry internship at the All Saints Catholic Newman Center on the Tempe campus. After that, I was released into the "real world" and went on to pursue a career as a youth minister. I spent the next six years coordinating youth ministry programs for two different churches within that time.

I loved my job and felt so fed by the work I did and the teens I encountered — which made my next step feel more like a step backward rather than a step forward. Almost exactly one year ago, I resigned as Coordinator of Youth Ministry for St. Vincent de Paul Church in Phoenix. Why? Well, mainly because I wanted more for the teens of St. Vincent de Paul. It wasn't that I felt inept to perform the duties of the job; I felt like I was being held back. And what was holding me back? Myself. I was afraid of burn out.

See, early on in my career I was made well aware of the high turnover rate for youth ministers. It's not uncommon for many to only last two years before they burn themselves out. This phenomenon was explained more fully in an article from the Catholic Sun in April 2007. At that time, I found myself nearing the end of my third year in the profession and being a mother to a 7-month-old baby…