248 | How can nonprofit boards be bridges to smarter organizations?

For over a year and a half, David O’Brien and Matthew Craig conducted 60 interviews with nonprofit leaders around the country; and in their new book, Building Smart Nonprofits, they share their thoughts on a range of subjects from sources of capital, the infamous overhead myth, evaluation of program effectiveness, and the telling our story. David explained to me that many of the leaders they interviewed are re-examining what has and has not worked in their favor and how their boards partner with them to overhaul their funding models. David is the quintessential board member; after a successful forty year career, he found himself with a desire to give back. This motivation landed him on lots of boards; and, despite all his experience and education, he admits that he didn’t know what the hell he was doing. David explained to me that his motivation for the book was two-fold. First, an awareness that the efficacy of funding models based on galas and golf tournaments has peaked, and, much like his own understanding, this awareness happened in real-time. Second, David knew that!nonprofit boards be bridges to smarter organizations if they understood that there were better ways.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. If you’d like to buy a copy of David and Matthew’s new book, click here. If you’d like to download the first edition of Responsive’s Carefully & Critically, click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com