Books for Nonprofit Leaders
Here are some books we recommend for fundraising, understanding wealth, managing a nonprofit and team, professional writing, and the inner workings of how power impacts society and philanthropy.
Our team at Purpose Possible is comprised of highly experienced professionals in nonprofit leadership, fundraising, philanthropy, business, and much more. This wealth of expertise is gained from years of hands on experience with a wide range of organizations as well as continual self development. Here are some books we recommend for fundraising, understanding wealth, managing a nonprofit and team, professional writing, and the inner workings of how power impacts society and philanthropy.
Fundraising & Understanding Wealth
Fundraising for Social Change
Fundraising for Social Change is the preeminent guide to securing funding, with a specific focus on progressive nonprofit organizations with budgets under $5 million. Used by nonprofits nationally and internationally, this book provides a soup-to-nuts prescription for building, maintaining, and expanding an individual donor program.
Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance
Edgar Villanueva looks past philanthropy’s glamorous, altruistic façade and into its shadows: white supremacy, savior complexes, and internalized oppression. Across history and to the present day, the accumulation of wealth is steeped in trauma. How can we shift philanthropy toward social reconciliation and healing if the cornerstones are exploitation, extraction, and control?
How We Give Now:
A Philanthropic Guide for the Rest of Us
In this book, Lucy Bernholz shows that philanthropy is more than writing a check and claiming a tax deduction. For most of us--the non-wealthy givers--philanthropy can be a way of living our values and fully participating in society. We give in all kinds of ways--shopping at certain businesses, canvassing for candidates, donating money, and making conscious choices with our retirement funds. We give our cash, our time, and even our data to make the world a better place. Bernholz takes readers on a tour of the often-overlooked worlds of participatory philanthropy, learning from a diverse group of forty resourceful givers.
Train Your Board (and Everyone Else) to Raise Money
Tapping an expert team of fundraising trainers across the U.S., Andrea Kihlstedt and Andy Robinson have produced an extraordinary how-to book of easy-to-use fundraising exercises for boards of all sizes. Some activities are as brief as 15 minutes, others require an hour. And everything you need to conduct any of the 51 exercises - step-by-step instructions, handouts, even questions to pose to participants - is included in the book.
Nonprofit & Team Management
Managing a Nonprofit Organization: Updated Twenty-First-Century Edition
Dr. Wolf's update of Managing a Nonprofit Organization includes material that tackles the demands and challenges faced by nonprofit managers as a result of the legislative and policy changes enacted after 9/11 and in the wake of the economic collapse of 2008. Highlighting the generational issues facing many nonprofits, as current management ages and a younger generation prepares to take the reins, Dr. Wolf suggests ways for organizations to best manage these transitions and adapt to a rapidly changing world.
Creative Trespassing:
How to Put the Spark and Joy Back Into Your Work and Life
Peppered with stories of her own shenanigans--from organizing a wrestling match in the middle of an art museum to staging a corporate culture intervention via post-its--and lessons from the rule-breaking exploits of artists, change-makers, and totally legit business leaders alike, this book is a rollicking, uninhibited guide to using creativity as fuel for a freer and more joyful life.
Writing
How to Say It:
Choice Words, Phrases, Sentences, and Paragraphs for Every Situation
For anyone who has ever searched for the right word at a crucial moment, the revised third edition of this bestselling guide offers a smart and succinct way to say everything
* Apologies and sympathy letters
* Letters to the editor
* Cover letters
* Fundraising requests
* Social correspondence, including invitations and Announcements
On Writing Well:
The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction
Whether you want to write about people or places, science and technology, business, sports, the arts, or about yourself in the increasingly popular memoir genre, On Writing Well offers you both fundamental principles as well as the insights of a distinguished practitioner.
Power & Philanthropic Change
Winners Take All:
The Elite Charade of Changing the World
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The groundbreaking investigation of how the global elite's efforts to "change the world" preserve the status quo and obscure their role in causing the problems they later seek to solve. An essential read for understanding some of the egregious abuses of power that dominate today’s news.
"Impassioned.... Entertaining reading.” —The Washington Post
The Tyranny of Generosity
The practice of philanthropy, which releases private property for public purposes, represents in many ways the best angels of our nature. But this practice's noteworthy virtues often obscure the fact that philanthropy also represents the exercise of private power.
In The Tyranny of Generosity, Theodore Lechterman shows how this private power can threaten the foundations of a democratic society.
Busted! The Overhead Myth by Laura Hennighausen, Director of Funder Relations
It’s November. The leaves are turning, the days are getting shorter, and you know what that means in the world of fundraising - the return of people on social media crusading against making year-end donations to nonprofits with “high overhead”.
It’s November. The leaves are turning, the days are getting shorter, and you know what that means in the world of fundraising - the return of people on social media crusading against making year-end donations to nonprofits with “high overhead”.
The Overhead Myth, a name coined by GuideStar, BBB Wise Giving Alliance, and Charity Navigator in 2013, is the misguided notion that nonprofit effectiveness can be measured in part by the ratio of budget dedicated to general operating expenses including rent, utilities, benefits, and *gasp* salaries. Believers declare that they want to see their donations going to directly serve a charity’s clients or programs. But how do they imagine the work actually happens?
General operating support dollars are the most important to a nonprofit and often the hardest to come by. Operating support funds what is unsexy but necessary - how can a shelter or art gallery operate if there are no lights to turn on, or no one to turn them on?
It’s important for nonprofits to be honest about what it takes to accomplish your work in order for the public to truly understand the need. I am a big proponent of telling our clients to ask for what they really need - don’t adjust your fundraising goal so it sounds less intimidating, be transparent. And don’t subscribe to the idea that you have to keep your overhead as low as possible to be fundable. We must all advocate for competitive salaries in our industry in order to retain top talent and touting how little we pay the people in charge of achieving our missions does nothing to address these inequities.
We should be promoting how great general operating dollars are. Donors often ask what is most needed, and this is it! Nonprofits need funding that is flexible and can be used to support these most essential needs. And why shouldn’t an Executive Director or Education Coordinator make a reasonable salary? Without their time and talent, these life-saving programs wouldn’t happen in the first place.
So this end-of-year giving season if you see someone posting on social media saying not to donate to a certain nonprofit because of overhead, speak up! Vu Le has some great suggestions on How to deal with uninformed nonprofit watchdogs on his NonprofitAF blog.
We can all do our part to educate donors and advocate for what we really need.