The Nonprofit Survival Guide: A Strategy for Sustainability
Formats: E-Book, Paperback
Ages: 16-18, 18+
There are nearly a million nonprofit organizations in the United States vying for funding from an ever-diminishing pool of resources. Whether you're directing or working for a nonprofit or founding a new one, your biggest concern is how to make it sustainable through tough economic times.
This book shows you how to keep your organization working regardless of whether you are successful in securing grants. You'll learn how to obtain space, equipment and tools at little or no cost, how to minimize insurance and legal fees, and how to use volunteers and keynote programs to stay lean and successful. Checklists help you initiate and file paperwork and create a master assets and inventory document that will keep your directors, officers and volunteers up to date on everything you own and lease, including Internet and social media resources. Realistic hands-on strategies are provided that can save your organization significant amounts of money each year and prevent the mistakes that cause so many nonprofits to fail.
Reviews
The Nonprofit Survival Guide: A Strategy for Sustainability, by Geoff Alexander, is everything the title claims it to be. This book provides clear, easy to follow guidelines for anyone interested in starting a nonprofit or improving the long-term sustainability of a nonprofit already in existence. Alexander describes the benefits and shortcomings of different nonprofit structures and uses both real and fictional models to illustrate design aspects, but also dives into every detail from how to word your mission statement and find volunteers to how to set up your computer. Resources and references are provided for anything that isn't specifically described in this book, such as legal advice. As someone who has worked for a nonprofit, run a small private business, and is exploring the options for starting a nonprofit, I have found that this book covers every aspect of the process and most in elaborate detail. Probably the most useful advice is what Alexander shares from experience with his examples of nonprofits that have failed and how to avoid those pitfalls.
Starting and running a nonprofit organization to aid a cause that you truly believe in can be one of the most fulfilling things you will ever do. But if you do not have the knowledge of how to do it and lack the money to hire a lawyer to help, doing so can became totally frustrating. This is the position I found myself in until I got a copy of Geoff Alexander¹s book ‘The Nonprofit Survival Guide: A Strategy for Sustainability.’ It not only guided me to the successful creation of my nonprofit corporation, but just as important, provided critical data on how to keep it running. There are a ton of books out there that can tell you how to start a nonprofit, but none that I read told me how to make it successful after I did. This is where this book is head and shoulders above all the other books I read. It not only gave me the skills to start my organization, but just as important, told me how to make it work. If you have a passion for a cause and want to start and run an organization to aid it, I strongly recommend this book ensure you’re on the right track.
