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More nonprofits are now exploring social enterprise as a means to create a sustainable revenue stream in support of their organization’s mission. In large part, this is being driven by a need to replace harder-to-get government and foundation funding and reduced giving from other sources. Besides the financial advantages of a social enterprise, there are also other intangible benefits, as I described in my last blog, Social Enterprise: What is it, exactly?

As a basis for discussion, I will use ...

There is an increasing amount of buzz in the nonprofit world lately around social enterprise as a means to create a sustainable revenue stream in support of an organization’s mission. It seems, though, that this term means different things to different people. A Google search yields a variety of views that differ to some extent, but can be distilled down to this interpretation for nonprofits:

Social enterprises are businesses operated by nonprofits for the purpose of generating income by selling a ...

Over the past decade or so, we have come to recognize the advantages of forming strategic alliances in order to achieve important business objectives. For example to:

• Reach new markets through other channels
• Achieve greater economies of scale through shared resources
• Deliver more of a client’s needs through alliances with other providers, where the partners’ products or services complement one another
• More effectively compete against other providers

Although a potential strategic alliance may appear to make good business sense, its ultimate success will depend on ...

Innovative ways to increase operational efficiencies

Welcome to Part 3 of our conversation which explores how small businesses are creating innovative processes to enhance efficiency.

For small-business owners, innovation used to be about the development of new products and services. Now, it’s about thinking in more adaptive and resourceful ways to improve business performance in key functional areas like operations. Operational innovations provide better efficiency, cost containment, better quality and competitive advantages.

Please join our Linked In conversation at Creating innovative processes ...

Funding Challenges

Many NPO’s are facing both a rapidly changing funding environment and an increasing need for services from the communities they serve. Reduced or more tightly focused government funding is placing greater pressure on this sector, which has also experienced a proliferation of new non-profits during the past decade, thereby increasing competition for a smaller pool of funds. Countless non-profit organizations are feeling the impact of federal reductions to their core funding streams, and at the same time that foundation ...