Tools and Resources
- LightPDF is a free online tool. You can use it to convert to and from PDF as well as OCR, merge documents, sign, and more (see the image, right).
- What better source of free, quality images than professional communicators? Here's a list of sites from Progressive Communicators of DC members:
- Canva now offers printing. That's right. You can print flyers, post cards, business cards, and more! When you're done designing, select "Order prints."
- Journalist's Toolbox provides a wealth of resources even for those who are not journalists. Examples: Vennage (infographic maker), Social-Searcher (search engine for social), Bit.ly (link shortener, tracker), and Census.Ire.org (census data access made easier).
At work
- The Leadership Development Deficit: How to Build Your Talent Pipeline, June 6, will explore
- How effective leadership development can make a difference in reducing leadership turnover
- How to define what your organization needs in future leaders, and how to help your current management team cultivate those talents
- Best practices, tips, and tools to support leadership development among your executive team
- The Power of Listening in Helping People Change (Harvard Business Review)
- New Guide to Best Practices for Onboarding (Bridgespan)
- Why Office Friendships Can Feel So Awkward (New York Times)
- Changes to the Microsoft Program:
On April 4, Microsoft announced a number of changes to its nonprofit discount and donation program. The reason for the shift is a desire to optimize its offerings to better serve smaller nonprofits. The shift also reflects a larger, global trend to move IT infrastructure to a cloud-based model.
This shift has affected what TechSoup offers to nonprofits. - Digital Adoption in 2018:
The internet is truly a required service for any organization to be successful in 2018. But what if your programs are meant to serve people who are among the 60 million Americans who don’t have internet access at home?
The Digital Adoption survey seeks to understand how organizations are making decisions and addressing the challenges of internet access and use by both staff and the communities they serve. The good news is digital adoption is increasing, but there are still gaps or needs among specific communities that digital inclusion programs have the opportunity to address.
Learn something
- Turf, Trust and Collaboration: Practical Tools for Building Trust: For anyone interested in traveling to Canada, this Tamarack training is sure to be powerful.
- Getting to Impact: Lessons Learned from Vibrant Communities Canada, June 7:
Since 2002, the Tamarack Institute has convened cities across Canada and the United States to engage in place-based poverty reduction efforts. This network is now 61 members strong, and represents more than 175 communities.
Vibrant Communities Canada was launched before the Collective Impact framework but builds many CI features into practice. In this webinar, our presenters will discuss the lessons they are learning about getting to impact. They will reflect on the results of the When Collective Impact has an Impact report and the implications this evaluation might have on the future design of Vibrant Communities Canada. - Building Community Into Neighbourhoods, June 21:
Neighbourhoods are one of the foremost opportunities available to us to foster a sense of belonging. Neighbourhoods are home to an abundance of people with shared experience, while at the same time offering great diversity in personalities, experiences, gifts, cultures and backgrounds. But, without regular, intentional connection, our sense of belonging to the place and to each other can be eroded in favour of more polarizing identity-based communities.
This webinar will feature two top thought leaders in community building and engagement – Jim Diers, author of Neighbor Power: Building Community the Seattle Way and Paul Born, author of Deepening Community – in discussion on how we bring ‘community’ back into neighbourhoods, and create more vibrant connections in the places where we live. - Human-Centred Design, Design Thinking, and Community Change, June 26:
Human-Centred Design and Design Thinking, popularized by innovation firms such as IDEO and institutions such as Stanford’s d.school, are rapidly being adopted as approaches to innovation across the private, public, and voluntary sector. The promise of these approaches is alluring – that seeking to deeply understand the perspective of those impacted by a service, program, or system, and adopting an iterative, prototype-driven approach to problem-solving will result in revolutionary changes that will benefit all. But, is that promise always possible?
In this introductory one-hour webinar join Galen MacLusky, Tamarack’s Director of Community Innovation, as he explores Human-Centred Design, Design Thinking, and their relevance for community changemakers. - The most interesting through-June-15 webinars listed in Wild Apricot's 50 Free Nonprofit Webinars for June 2018: Creating a Culture of Volunteer Engagement (June 6), Successful Volunteer Interview Strategies (June 7), and Writing Accurate and Useful Volunteer Position Descriptions (June 13).
Good reads
- Refusing to Forgive Is Terrible for You, According to Science: "All of us get hurt from time to time--but when we forgive, we often feel better about ourselves. As it turns out, recent scientific research indicates forgiveness improves our physical health as well." (Thrive Global)
- The One Thing I Wish I Had Known At 22 That Would Have Changed My Life (Thrive Global)
- These New Suits Are Good for the Planet—and Your Wardrobe (Esquire)
- Adam Grant's May Wondering feature: Middle management gets a bad rap as the armpit of administrative jobs. How can we change it? Why do jerks sometimes succeed? and I'm inviting some colleagues to create a "user manual" for how to work effectively with me. What questions should I ask them?
