Non-profit organisations matter – some fill the cracks left by local authority budget cuts and shrinking public services. Others bring together local groups around a common interest – building cohesion, enhancing community welfare and providing individuals with a sense of belonging.
From food banks to housing associations to national care providers and dementia cafes – non-profits come in all shapes and sizes. In Making a Lasting Difference, Graeme Reekie explores the challenges facing the non-profit sector and identifies the capabilities every non-profit needs in order to ensure it can fulfil its mission and purpose.
Why this book matters:
- The voluntary sector in the UK has a total income of £50.6bn and contributes £17.1bn to the UK economy
- There are more than 167,000 not for profit organisations in the UK
- Finances in the sector are shrinking, demand is growing and capacity is overstretched
- It has never been more important for non-profit organisations to protect themselves and ensure they are able to meet new challenges
- Making a lasting difference by Graeme Reekie focuses on action, setting out the main challenges to survival and growth facing non-profit organisations
- Packed with the practical models, methods and tools needed to ensure non-profit survival.
Reekie addresses one of the most common challenges for non-profits – saying ‘yes’ too often. Although this is often done for the best purposes – an attempt to help more people or obtain additional funding – it can often end in undermining of the health of the non-profit as their mission becomes diluted and their resources exhausted.
Making a Lasting Difference provides clear guidance and practical tools to help every non-profit organisation assess and understand their strengths and challenges, through ensuring they have strategies around each of the five essential capabilities:
- Involvement – how to generate buy-in from people, communities, staff, board members and partners
- Income generation – how to ensure you take a holistic approach to raising revenue
- Innovation – how to nourish and encourage incremental innovation
- Improvement – do your systems and structures inhibit or encourage improvement?
- Impact measurement – how to monitor, evaluate and measure the difference you are making.
These five core interrelated capabilities are the foundation stones of a healthy non-profit and help ensure non-profits have the capacity to fulfil their mission, remain sustainable, and make a lasting difference.
The author:
Graeme Reekie is a leading non-profit consultant with 30 years of experience in the UK public and voluntary sectors. Based in Scotland Graeme’s business (Wren and Greyhound) specialises in helping non-profit organisations devise long term strategies and plans for organisational sustainability and success. Graeme is particularly expert at helping organisations find their way through complex challenges relating to survival and growth.
Graeme has become synonymous with the topic of non-profit sustainability since launching the Lasting Difference toolkit in 2016. A respected consultant, facilitator and speaker with a growing international reach and reputation, his ideas are changing the way we think about and act on sustainability.
- Making a Lasting Difference
- By Graeme Reekie
- Out Now
- Paperback Version: £14.99
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Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.