Starting a social enterprise is a powerful way for non-profits to diversify revenue, strengthen impact, and reduce reliance on grants. But let’s be honest — launching one isn’t as simple as flipping a switch. Many organizations underestimate the complexity, and that can lead to costly mistakes. As a non-profit strategist for over 20 years, I’ve seen it. I’ve seen non-profits dive in before they’ve done their homework, only to find themselves failing, with no concrete plan to

Host a memorable and engaging AGM that inspires your stakeholders.

As with most AGMs, the ones I’ve attended often follow a standard agenda: updates on what’s happened throughout the year, progress made toward goals, presentation of financials and financial audit, voting in of new board members, and awards to recognize key volunteers, staff, or leaders. It’s standard fare, and this can be a little mundane for those active in the non-profit sector. So, how does a non-profit add excitement to its AGM agenda to make it more attractive an

Stakeholder Engagement planning is easy. Getting people to show up and share ideas is more challenging.

Planning is required to run successful campaigns. Learn how to craft a community engagement plan to discover stakeholder needs.

Choose who to invite to stakeholder conversations, by defining the purpose (WHY) of the conversation and what it is you want to learn.

Stakeholder engagement empowers our community share their ideas about our future and enables our agency to remain responsive to local needs.

In “Mastering Non-Profit Board Recruitment: 6 Steps to Success”, we identify Board Recruitment as a core board function. A function made easier when the board communicates well, makes informed decisions, and oversees operations reasonably and responsibly. In other words, acts as a healthy board. Before starting your recruiting journey, there are a number of pre-planning activities to complete. Do you know what they are?

Before recruiting new Board of Director members, doing an internal Board Evaluation to assess your Board's strengths and areas of improvement is helpful. Knowing how effective your board is, what strengths it brings, and the areas of improvement to focus on in the coming months, provides potential recruits and existing members with confidence that the board is self-aware and committed to ongoing learning and improvement.

When a non-profit Board has limited time for strategic planning, choosing the right priorities matters. Three or four clear strategic goals can create more focus, accountability and impact than a long list no one can realistically achieve. Clustering and prioritization help Boards connect goals to their vision, mission and values. The question is: Are you choosing the goals that matter most—or simply the ones that are easiest to agree on?

What does true non-profit collaboration look like? It’s more than sharing a table—it’s putting community needs ahead of organizational interests. When non-profits collaborate, share resources, build partnerships and make decisions together, limited funding can create greater collective impact. We saw firsthand what’s possible when organizations choose cooperation over competition. What could your community achieve if organizations stopped competing and started collaborating?