Many organizations in the nonprofit sector rely on the help of volunteers. Whether this is in office work, stocking inventory or helping to prepare for an event, the volunteers are a highly valuable asset. Skilled volunteers are a special type of volunteer. These volunteers are individuals who volunteer in the capacity of their everyday work or with skills that they are specifically trained in. The difference between a skilled volunteer and a non-skilled volunteer is that skilled volunteers have education, training or abilities that a volunteer from the general population would not have. Often times the skilled volunteer also has skill sets and trainings that most paid staff within the nonprofit do not have. For this reason, skilled volunteers are highly valuable - and as such managing them effectively is essential. 

 Aaron Hurst, founder of the Taproot Foundation, notes that skilled volunteers are essential to helping nonprofits become self-sustaining and they help the nonprofit put forth the biggest impact in the communities they serve. Hurst also explains that nonprofits from a wide variety of backgrounds are looking for skilled volunteers to help their organizations stay active and to grow from good to great in the community. The skilled volunteers provide opportunities for the organization to acquire help and labor that they would not normally be able to afford…

Public Allies Arizona’s 13th class will graduate on June 28, the completion of a 10-month AmeriCorps program that places emerging young leaders at local nonprofits for full-time paid apprenticeships. (Find out how you can get involved as an Ally or a Partner Organization.) In this post, meet Class 13 Ally Samira Amin, who was placed at Mesa Arts Center Foundation.

“A leader must lead, but also be ready to follow. They must be aggressive, but not overbearing. A leader must be calm, but not robotic. They must be confident, but never cocky. A leader must be brave, but not foolhardy. They must have a competitive spirt, but be a gracious loser.” –Jocko Willink

Why did you want to join Public Allies?

 I was seeking an opportunity to gain experience in community development. What made me want to join Public Allies was learning the skills to develop and grow as a leader, which I knew would benefit me personally and professionally. After receiving my bachelor's degree, I knew I needed guidance to figure out what direction I could head in with the skills I have.

What is your favorite part about being an Ally?

How supportive…

Apple, Google and Starbucks all are famous brands in the for-profit sector. Goodwill, AmeriCorps and Girl Scouts are good examples in the nonprofit sector. These are big ones, with big brands. But what about most nonprofits, without national recognition? There are more than one million nonprofits in the U.S. Why is building a strong brand important for them? 

There are some remarkable authors, like Peter Frumkin, who consider that a nonprofit brand is the principal asset of the organization. An effective brand can be a positive influence on an organization’s assets (human and financial). It can impact their capacities to achieve goals, their social impact and their missions. 

A strong brand is important because it facilitates opportunities, resources and results. These nourish the brand to attract more funding, helping the organization become stronger and more successful. Professors Nathalie Kylander and Christopher Stone state that a strong brand is critical to attracting donors and key stakeholders.  

Additionally, having effective branding benefits nonprofits in other ways, such as credibility, authority, recognition and consistency. It helps nonprofits maintain a good reputation with stakeholders. Matthew Schwartz, the founder and executive…

A windfall is fabulous, right? After all, what nonprofit leader wouldn’t want to walk into work one Monday morning to find a pile of money, an unexpected gift, on their doorstep? Think of all that you could do with those extra funds—give your hard-working staff a well-deserved raise, pay off your organization’s debt, replace your cobbled-together computer systems, serve 10 times the number of clients whom you served last month, even provide the employee training and education that you’ve deferred for the past decade. In reality, however, a windfall is often accompanied by a unique set of challenges. Take for example what happened to Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES), a small nonprofit that has been serving immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers in Texas for decades. 

One Monday morning in June 2018, RAICES’ CEO, Jonathon Ryan, awakened to find an email message notifying him that his organization was the recipient of a fundraising campaign to reunite asylum-seeking families who had been separated at the border. The timing was fortuitous, as he had recently learned that the federal government was canceling the primary source of RAICES’ funding, contracts to assist unaccompanied minors with legal representation during their immigration hearings. 

Thinking that the organization would have to…

Have you ever gone through the process of baking a cake from scratch? Pulling out all the ingredients, measuring everything, mixing, scraping the sides of the bowl, mixing again? Pouring the batter into the pan, sliding it into the oven and then just when it begins to rise a little, pull it out of the oven? Before it’s done? No? That is what diversity is without inclusion, a half-baked cake. A cake that will not stand on its own, that would probably make you sick if you tried to eat it. 

How then, can we expect diversity, one-half of a process, to be enough to keep organizations sustainable and relatable? Diversity is great for getting many different experiences and voices in the same room, but inclusion is making sure they all have what they need to be successful. That process would look like hiring someone in a wheelchair but not installing ramps that would make getting inside the building easier or hiring someone who is Muslim but not providing a private, quiet space for prayer. The old method of introducing diversity with outdated trainings and threats for non-compliance have proven to not work well, so what is the new way?

How can organizations institute change that keeps their organizations thriving? According to J. Nortz in an…