Many organizations plan state of the organization presentations for the early part of the year. These are a great opportunity to share high level information with all-staff audiences — but don’t overlook that the greatest value is in the dialogue, and the follow up.

Especially in the current economic environment, we need to unbutton the formality and actively seek out conversation, input, and sharing. This is usually the opposite of what most executives expect, and are comfortable with.

More tips on this topic:

• From Melcrum, How Not to Conduct a Town Hall Meeting
• My November enews - Communicating in Hard Times (you might also want to read September and October 2007 articles in the newsletter archive)

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation has released a report on how to harness the power of innovation for philanthropic purposes. It looks at commonly-held concepts and practices more often used in the private sector and adapts it as “a commodity for social good.”

Much of the report talks about building and nurturing an Innovation Culture and the need for it to be systematic and outlines the five stages that are required:

• Setting the conditions required to support innovation
• Identifying the problem or opportunity about which you want to innovate
• Generating ideas to solve the problem or capture the opportunity
• Experimenting and piloting those ideas to test how well they work in practice
• Sharing the innovations with a broader set of stakeholders

Read the rest here.

Do you want to learn more about building a culture? Check out my new resource on Building a Better Fundraising Team.

New from Make It Count: The Think Rich! Entrepreneurial Thinking for Nonprofits seminar is now available. You can buy it now, choice of ebook or audio with transcript directly from my secure shopping cart. Just follow the links from the page.

A while ago I wrote about the HR Council of Canada and their survey of the nonprofit sector. New resources are now available on the Council’s revamped website, including toolkits and links. Best of all information is clearly identified starting at first click - you can choose from manager, employee or board member resources.

The Association of Fundraising Professionals is seeking nonprofit organizations to participate in its survey which closes soon.

Canadian nonprofits are urgently needed — there was not enough data collected in past years to publish viable findings. Please participate so that Canadian information is available.

TechSoup Stock has GiftWorks fundraising software available now for a low cost. Offers are subject to change so if you are a small organization that needs software, don’t delay.

A popular article in many magazines and newspapers is a peek inside a celebrity’s purse. It’s always fun to see what people carry around in the name of being prepared. I’ve often thought it would be equally revealing to look inside the filing cabinets and desks of top professionals.

I have a tried and true list of staple items I’ve used when I start a new job or project. I follow this list faithfully and it has not let me down. It works equally well in government, private and non-profit sectors. Spend some time developing these items before you need them, and your life will become easier. You or someone else in your organization needs to have this information available to be able to respond quickly when you get a media call, need to whip together a promotional package for an event or project, develop a proposal or speak at a conference. Here’s my list of must-haves:

A key messages document - short 1-3 sentence statements on topics like mission, operations, key projects or services, history, recognition or honours, support in the community

Biographies - one-page biographies of the executive members, senior personnel, board members

Head shots - professional quality headshots of key personnel and well as board chairperson

Organization profiles - short (less than 200 words) and full-page profile on the organization, program and services and geographic area served

Fact sheet - a bulleted list of relevant statistics and historical information about the organization and key projects

Logos - organization logos, in black and white and colour, in a variety of formats, e.g. lower resolution .jpg for web use or online, higher resolution like .eps or .tif for print

Photos - a selection of good quality photos that illustrate the mission in action, with a corresponding caption and identification of people, if applicable

Lists -  gather and update periodically lists of media, political representatives in your area, public service announcements and free community billboards

Testimonials - maintain a file of compliments and thanks

Allies and competitors - have a basic understanding of your partners and allied organizations, as well as your competitors

Contact lists - email, telephone, addresses for staff and board members. Print it out for the days your server goes down! This is guaranteed to happen when you need to get into your database in a hurry.

If you ensure you have these items you’ll never be caught unprepared. The next time an unexpected opportunity comes up, you can spend your time making the most of it instead of doing the eleventh hour dash.

This week’s issue of Carnival for Nonprofit Consultants is guest hosted by Harold Jarche in Atlantic Canada. Do you have favourite, all-Canadian sites you visit? Share here.

Canadian Press Style Guide is the definitive source for writing and editing in the Canadian style. It is the guide used by journalists and public relations professionals. English majors be warned: CP style sometimes differs from the style you were taught; however this is the standard for media and business writing today. Canadian Press also publishes a Caps and Spelling guide that includes accepted spelling, abbreviations and how to use punctuation, capitalization etc. I highly recommend both for anyone who does a lot of writing, especially if you are writing publicity material. You can pick up copies at better book stores or order from them online. If you’re interested in receiving my own cheat sheet of commonly mispelled words email me.