I was shocked to find out that Volunteer San Diego shut its doors and laid off seven staff members.  I don’t know much about the details of this closing other than they ran out of money.  This is disappointing..for many reasons. First, VSD had very little competition and served a legitimate need in the community [...]

One of the first things I did when I worked as an Operations Manager for nonprofits was to review the organizational database.  In some cases, I spent six months to a year cleaning the database making sure the records were up to date and accurate. This is exactly what the IRS has been doing — [...]

It is important that nonprofits keep an inventory of technology products and a log ofwhat goes wrong with each product as well as what is done to fix the problem. This inventory is helpful for the technology consultants or volunteers who come in a fix your computers and this inventory is important for insurance purposes [...]

Many times I’ve blogged about the importance of nonprofit operations. Ever so often accounting, human resources, and technology practices get pushed aside in a nonprofit organization because program work is prioritized as being more important. This is fine and dandy until a crisis occurs, like someone embezzles money from the organization or a disgruntled employee [...]

With the current economic downturn, nonprofits are findings ways to be innovative, save money and streamline their operations. I say — its about time!! I know that its hard for many nonprofits to prioritize their operations, because they don’t have the time or the money. However, speaking from personal experience, if you make the effort [...]

Shelly Cryer an amazing researcher and consultant who works for American Humanics and NYU just came out with an awesome nonprofit career guide. She has a contest to give away one of her free books if you tell your story about working in the nonprofit sector. Her blog post- 6 key trends that could make [...]

Here’s the link to article I wrote for the Philanthropy Journal Online about working with vendors and consultants. Here’s a couple of tips that are included in the article: It is good to verify that prospective vendors have many nonprofit clients and that those clients are happy with their work. Never make a decision about [...]

My husband is pursuing his MBA and he happens to be taking an Operations Management course this semester. He was reading a chapter in his text book yesterday and he told me, “hey honey, this chapter says why people don’t prioritize operations–it isn’t sexy like sales or advertising.” Wow, that is so true. I’ve known [...]

I am sitting back and reading the commentary about Holden at GiveWell and I’m thinking to myself why? Why do these websites exist to tell donors what the best charity is to donate to? Do donors even use these websites? I remember reading research a couple a months ago about how very few people actually [...]

I took a big step and decided to resign from my position as Director of the Jenna Druck Foundation after January. This was a very tough decision for me because I really thought I could do it all, but I can’t. I came to San Diego to pursue my PhD, however my work at the [...]