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Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck – Why Some Thrive Despite Them All

by Jim Collins

The author of the renowned worldwide bestseller Good to Great is at it again. And, again, he produces a work worth reading. Great by Choice is based on nine years of research by a team of over 20 researchers, distinguishing itself from Collins’s other books “by its focus not just on performance, but also on the type of unstable environments faced by leaders today.” With all the talk about vision, innovation, and risk-taking, it may surprise readers that those factors don’t seem to be as important as discipline, empiricism, and even paranoia in making great leaders. In a nonprofit world determined to be more business-like yet often equally determined to be led by many who enjoy speaking abstract gobbledygook, this book offers a lifesaver. If you, like many nonprofit leaders, are tired of navigating rough waters and fear being sucked away by a theoretical vortex, you need to read this book. Check it out.

Continue reading »]]> Did you miss our Social Media conference last week? You may want to read one, or several, of the following books to help you shore up your social media savvy! Check them out.

30 Days to Social Media Success by Gail Z. Martin

Content Rules by Ann Handley & C.C. Chapman

The Digital Handshake by Paul Chaney

The Dragonfly Effect by Jennifer Lynn Aaker

Flip the Funnel by Joseph Jaffe

The Social Media Bible by Lon Safko

Social Media for Social Good by Heather Mansfield

This is Social Media by Guy Clapperton

Twitter for Good by Claire Diaz-Ortiz

We First by Simon Mainwaring

Continue reading »]]> The No Complaining Rule: Positive Ways to Deal with Negativity at Work by Jon Gordon

Jon Gordon, author of the bestselling The Energy Bus (coming soon!) has written another winner. Written in story format (you’ll meet a great gal named Hope who is working on complaining less) you’ll fly through this book and be glad that you did. By the end of 137 pages based on a real-life company that implementing the No Complaining Rule, you will have learned all sorts of innovative ideas and down-to-earth solutions to move your organizational environment from complaining to positive. Check it out.

Continue reading »]]> A Guide to Non-cash Reward by Michael Rose

Most nonprofit organizations are operating on especially tight budgets these days. This brief, easy-to-follow book will show you how to learn the value of recognition, reward staff at virtually no cost, and improve your organizational performance. You’ll learn why recognition is important, what, when, and how to recognize people, and all about using non-cash awards. This book will help you set up recognition plans for staff, board members, and volunteers. Check it out.

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Everyone’s talking about leadership so it follows that many people are writing about it. Are leaders born or made? Can you lead regardless of where you are placed within an organizational hierarchy? Is leadership better learned in a classroom (have you noticed how degree programs in leadership are proliferating at lightning speed?) or by doing? Read for yourselves what the authors of five books think, and then let me know.

Apples are Square: Thinking Differently about Leadership by Susan and Thomas Kuczmarski. This book lists six critical values that they believe are changing the way people lead, and then, succeed. Those values are humility, compassion, transparency, inclusiveness, collaboration, and values-based decisiveness. After discussing these values, the authors describe how to activate the “seven steps to change.”

Comebacks: Powerful Lessons from Leaders Who Endured Setbacks and Recaptured Success on Their Terms by Andrea Redmond and Patricia Crisafulli. You’ll read the profiles of several world-known leaders who fell from grace and rebounded, among them JPMorgan Chases CEO Jamie Dimon, HP chair Patricia Dunn, Ford Motor CEO Jacques Nasser, and many more.

Dynamic Strategy-Making: A Real-Time Approach for the 21^st Century Leader by Larry E. Greiner and Thomas G. Cummings. More of a strategic planning book than a leadership one, this book provides a no-nonsense approach on building a strategic system, assessing your organization, using guided involvement, and leading in “real time.” Many nonprofit executives and consultants will find the chapter on facilitating real-time strategy (a “new role for consultants”) particularly helpful.

Leadership is Dead: How Influence is Reviving It by Jeremie Kubicek. If you choose one book to read from this list, make it this one. Kubicek will show you how to break down the wall of self-preservation, build your credibility, and work to use your influence rather than power in order to move you and your organization forward. You’ll find the book useful on a personal as well as professional level.

Leading in Times of Crisis: Navigating through Complexity, Diversity, and Uncertainty to Save Your Business by David Dotlich, Peter Cairo, and Stephen Rhinesmith. We are most certainly living in complex and uncertain times. The authors urge leaders to destroy and rebuild their business models, focus and simplify their organizations, build for innovation, and lots more. My favorite part of this book is the final part (Part 3) where you’ll read about aligning your organization’s talent around “whole leadership” in order to navigate the stormy times.

If you like to read about leadership, you’ll love these books. If you need to grow your leadership skills (or help grow those in others), you’ll learn from these books. Check them out.

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Okay, “Information Expo” may be a bit far-reaching, but 1.5 hours of your time spent at the Hopewell Library on Thursday morning will yield you:

• Fundraising tips and trends from one of the Commonwealth’s most in-demand consultants, Mary Ellen Stumpf
• Hot-off-the-press foundation updates from co-owner of The Directory of Virginia Foundations (Grants Connection), Maggi Strouse
• The most important things to know about Cameron Foundation’s Technical Assistance grants from Athan Lindsay, Cameron’s new Director of Capacity Building
• Insider  tips and tricks on navigating GiveRichmond and GiveSouthside by Give Richmond Coordinator, Michael Jones
• Hands-on help with making the most of your ConnectSouthside profile and use by Rebecca Eisenman
• Guided tour of the hottest new resources with Shari Henry
• Lots of take home lists, including funding research how-tos, must-read titles, don’t-miss nonprofit blogs and MORE!

All served up with complimentary breakfast.

Event is FREE (Can you believe it?) but registration is required. Click here to register.

Continue reading »]]> As I mentioned here a couple of weeks ago, we have ordered over 100 new titles that we’ll be bringing to you as they are processed. Plans are also underway for a grand sneak peek at the enhanced Nonprofit Resource Center, so stay tuned.

A lot goes on behind the scenes to make these books available to you free of charge! Carol Farmer and Joan Fleshman work tirelessly “launching carts” (placing orders with vendors after librarians make our selections), double-checking arrivals and invoices, tracking budgets, cataloging, and tagging each and every book that appears on the library shelves, including all those in the NRC.  Tammy Meadows helps by constantly “shelf-reading” (making sure the titles are in order) and straightening the NRC. I couldn’t do my job without their support, and I know from your feedback that you enjoy having access to the great resources. So, if you ever see these ladies in the library, be sure to take a moment to say thanks. Then be sure to browse the new titles. Check it out.

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If you missed hearing Peter Brinckerhoff talk on working across generations last year at the Nonprofit Learning Point conference, you can catch him at the VAFRE workshop on Tuesday, September 13. He’ll be discussing the principles outlined in his book, Mission Based Management: Leading Your Not-for-Profit in the 21^st Century. He is an intelligent and entertaining speaking, always full of information audience members can take away and put to use. The NonprofitResourceCenter carries several of Brinckerhoff’s titles. Check them out!

Continue reading »]]> Would you like to preserve and share your family’s Civil War-Era History memorabilia? If you have items within your family collections that document the Civil War, bring them to us for scanning and digitization! The Appomattox Regional Library System is partnering with the Library of Virginia (LVA) in a Commonwealth-wide American Civil War History digitization project.

The LVA is sending teams of archivists to scan privately-held manuscript material for inclusion on both the Library of Virginia and the Virginia Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War Commission websites. You can contribute and have your items become part of this important collection. Suitable materials include letters, diaries, photos, claims for damages, hand-drawn maps, sketches, military papers,  pension materials, and more.

For more information or to schedule your scanning session, contact Reference Librarian Shari Henry at shenry@arls.org or 458-6329 X 1018.

*Items must be owned by the individual presenting the materials for digitization. Materials that are photocopies and or subject to United States copyright law may not be submitted for digitization.

Saturday, September 10

10 am to 6 pm

Hopewell Library

Call today to schedule your free session!

To read more about the Library of Virginia’s CW150 Project, click here.

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We love your feedback because it makes us better at what we do! Many of you have told us that it is sometimes a burden to travel to Hopewell from outlying areas in Southside, so we’re responding by working to bring Foundation Directory Online and Grants Connection to you. Stay tuned for the exact locations, launch dates, and on-site trainings.

If you’ve not yet used either of these funding tools, you are missing two of the best resources available to grant seekers. Foundation Directory Online, brought to you by the Foundation Center, is considered the gold standard in funding databases and houses information on over 100,000 of the nation’s grantmakers. Southside Community Partners is a Foundation Center Cooperating Collection, meaning that we are in a formal partnership with them and have access to a high level of access and training in the materials the Foundation Center offers.

The Grants Connection, aka Directory of Virginia Foundations, is a must-have resource for local and regional nonprofit organizations in the Commonwealth. The directory maintains information on over 1000 of Virginia’s foundations, is easy to navigate, and simple to understand.

Access to both of these databases is FREE on-site at the Hopewell Library. Intimidated? We offer several free Find Funding workshops each year and also provide one-on-one instruction. We are expecting to expand to at least two more sites by the year’s end. Let us know where you are so you can be sure to hear when we come your way!