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Meg's Picks : The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization

Wed, 16/12/2009 - 12:17pm — megk

The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization. Edited by: Peter F. Drucker Publisher: Wiley

Probably the best $16 you or your organization could ever spend. It asks five simple questions: What is our Mission? Who is Our Customer? What Does the Customer Value? What are Our Results? What is Our Plan?

This book challenges organizational leaders to make it the business of every staff member from the most junior to the most senior to be able to answer these questions. On first glance it seems these are simple questions with simple answers. Take just 30 seconds on each question, we might sheepishly realize that there are crucial gaps in organizational knowledge. If not, kudos to you and your organization for closing the loop. Want to get to the point where the answers are at hand? This book provides you  with facilitation questions for either personal study or group work.

Tech Tool: Keeping track of passwords Keepass

Tue, 15/12/2009 - 1:12pm — megk

Tech Tool for December 2009: Keepass

Do you have trouble keeping track of all your passwords? Log in here, register there, everything online these days requires a log in and password. Then you probably have some for work, some for home, etc.

Recently, I've been using a free password filing system called Keepass, it is essentially an electronic filing system for all your user names and passwords.

Meg's Picks - Review of "The New Federal Policy Agenda and the Voluntary Sector: On the Cutting Edge."

Wed, 02/12/2009 - 4:47pm — megk

The New Federal Policy Agenda and the Voluntary Sector: On the Cutting Edge. Edited by: Rachel Laforest Publisher: McGill-Queen’s University Press. McGill-Queen’s University pres

http://mqup.mcgill.ca/book.php?bookid=2151

This text is a must for those of us looking to understand current Canadian federal political agenda and the role of the voluntary sector.This edited text of eight papers, is from an academic perspective while being very accessible in helpfully outlining the shift of federal funding policies and priorities from the former liberal government to the current conservative “Harper” government.  For readers, the stage is set with a great context of voluntary sector policy over the last 15 years with a perspective paper “The Harper Government and the Voluntary Sector: Whither a Policy Agenda?” (pp. 7-34, Susan D. Phillips).The additional papers build on the broader points by honing in on topics such as: Financial sustainability (Andrew Graham), social economy (Luc Thériault), “the Urban Agenda” (Neil Bradford), “Childcare Advocacy” (Grant Holly) and “Citizenship and Immigration” (Jehad Aliweiwi & Rachel Laforest).

Foundation responses to the current economic climate in Canada.

Mon, 26/10/2009 - 10:48am — zachk

I am putting together a presentation of Foundation responses to the current economic climate in Canada.

Can anyone point me to data on annual foundation giving and/or all charitable giving numbers in Canada?

Thanks

Non-Profit Start Up - Steps to Follow

Sun, 04/10/2009 - 12:00am — daveowen

I am working with 5 other people to create a non-profit (not a charity) organization in BC, and looking for guidance or a guide on the steps we should follow.

 

Some of the basic questions we have are:
- are we required to create a registered business name?
- are we required to register with the CRA. If not, should we anyway?
- should we create a constitution, and bylaws, and if so, are there guidelines and examples?

Do you have some guidance on the steps we should follow, or perhaps can point us in the direction of a guidebook?

Many thanks in advance!
Dave Owen, Comox Valley

Non-profit thinking of starting a separate revenue-generating business

Mon, 21/09/2009 - 12:00am — dmclean

 

Hi

Im currently working for a non-profit in Ottawa and with the lack of funding for non-profits these days we are thinking of starting a separate revenue-generating business, which we will charge a service to our members, and the profit will go directly to our non-profit.  We are wondering how close a link we can make these two separate entities? For example, will new business be able to take advantage of any of the tax benefits we currently receive? Or will it benefit from any way by the non-profits status, or be treated as a completely separete normal Business? And as far as liability goes, if this operation goes bankrupt, will the Non-profit board be held liable? thanks very much for any insight on this?

Dave