Blog

If you’ve worked in the nonprofit world for more than five minutes, you know this scene by heart:

It’s Tuesday afternoon. Someone on the team finds a great grant opportunity. The application is due in ten days. Suddenly, normal operations grind to a halt. The Executive Director is digging through old Google Drives for audit files, the program director is trying to pull outcome metrics off an Excel sheet from 2022, and everyone is frantically drafting copy late into the night.

You hit submit with ten minutes to spare, collapse in relief, and hope for the best.

Sound familiar?

For years, this project-by-project, deadline-driven approach was just "how grant writing gets done." But there's a better way to approach grant seeking: one that replaces last-minute scrambling with consistent planning, stronger funder relationships, and a more strategic approach to securing funding.

More and more successful nonprofits are moving away from last-minute proposal writing and switching to retained, continuous grant management.

Why do organizations struggle with turnover, burnout and employee engagement?
Sometimes the obvious explanation isn't the root cause. High turnover, burnout, low engagement and hiring difficulties can be symptoms of deeper organizational challenges involving leadership, structure, culture, talent strategy, people practices or systems and processes.

The length of a nonprofit strategic plan depends on your organization's goals, resources, and stage of growth. Learn how to determine the right planning horizon for lasting impact.

Written in partnership with Rosetta Eun Ryong Lee.

More than a year has passed since Rosetta Eun Ryong Lee joined the DBD Group team for two learning sessions focused on identity, difference, communication, and building stronger relationships.

The conversations have stayed with us and continue.

That may be one of the best measures of meaningful learning. Not whether we remember every slide or concept, but whether something changes the questions we ask, the assumptions we notice, and the way we approach the people around us.

When we recently reconnected to reflect on those sessions, we kept coming back to one idea: the goal isn’t to arrive at a place where we know everything. The goal is to keep learning.

For nonprofit leaders, that distinction matters.

The right board size can strengthen governance, improve decision-making, and support long-term growth. But size may not be related to success in the way you might expect. Here is what I have learned about finding the ideal number of board members for your nonprofit organization.

In a previous blog by my colleague, Gary Laermer, he explored why it’s so powerful to present donors with a vision that connects immediate impact with long-term change. When donors can see both the urgency of today and the legacy of tomorrow, something shifts in the conversation. It becomes less about a single gift and more about the donor’s lifetime impact.

But many of you may still have this question: How does that conversation happen?

With National DAF Day approaching on October 8, now is a good time to ask a bigger question: Is your organization making the most of this rapidly growing form of philanthropy?

Tonight, I made BBQ Chicken Pizza for dinner.

You might be surprised to know that made me think about cases for support.

Most nonprofits aren’t struggling to raise money because they lack passion or effort. They’re struggling because they’re building on sand.

At a recent planning retreat, the walls were covered with sticky notes. Live polling generated nearly 100 ideas. The energy in the room was incredible. Every idea was worthwhile. Every idea had a champion. But there was one problem.

With so many worthy ideas, no one could clearly identify what mattered most. So, I paused the conversation and asked a simple question: "If everything is a priority, what is actually your priority?"