Resources

Since our mission is helping you achieve your mission, we strive to offer you resources that are both proven and easy to use. Following are a selection of resources from the Fieldstone Alliance and other web sites. Sandy Jacobsen wrote or contributed to many of these tools.

Tough Times

185 Cutback Strategies
Offers real-life strategies nonprofits use to address financial challenges.

20 Cost Cutting Ideas for Nonprofits
Beyond staff cuts—ideas and examples for cutting or controlling costs when faced with cutbacks.

20 Emergency Funding Sources for Nonprofits
These are revenue sources that can be accessed quickly. While not all will be right for you, the list is thought-provoking.

A Board Leads an Organization Out of the Ashes
A board chair’s story of the board as a safety net.  Many other short articles relevant for nonprofit boards, management and staff can be found on the Blue Avocado website.

Adapting to Change: 22 Structural Strategies for Nonprofits
When major external change happens, revisit and, if necessary, revise your mission and approach.  You’ll find information and examples of the three main types of structural strategies.

Tough Times Strategies: Moving Beyond the Bake Sale
Advice on diversifying your pool of strategies plus special tips for collaborating in a recession.

When Times are Tough, Get Creative and Strategic
A logical, practical process to help you think through options and arrive at the best strategies to help your organization’s mission survive in tough times.

Capacity Building

Convergence: How Five Trends Will Reshape the Social Sector
In addition to describing key trends, this monograph identifies core competencies for those nonprofits that will be best equipped for the future.

NonprofitNext
Explore the key trends shaping the future of the social sector and join in the conversation at this blog from La Piana Consulting.

Collaboration

Engagement Strategies: Making the Most of Working Together
Specific examples on how to work together, from simple engagements all the way up to a merger.

How to "Nimble-ize" a Collaboration
Ten principles for creating a resilient collaboration structure and why they're critical to success.

Steps for Considering and Creating an Alliance
How to decide if an alliance is right for your organization and if so, how to go about creating one.

What Makes Collaborations Succeed
Describes The Wilder Collaboration Factors Inventory and how to use it to see if your collaboration has the necessary ingredients to succeed.

...and for Fun

25 Random Things That Make the Nonprofit Sector Great
A reminder of the many good things accomplished every day in the nonprofit sector.

Books

(Click on covers for details and to order)

Collaboration Handbook: Creating, Sustaining, and Enjoying the Journey

The complete guide to putting together a collaboration that gets results. You'll see how to get a collaboration going, define the results you're after, determine everyone's roles, create an action plan, and evaluate the results.

Collaboration: What Makes It Work

What makes the difference between your collaboration's failure or success? Find the answers in this up-to-date and in-depth review of collaboration research. This edition includes The Collaboration Factors Inventory.

Nimble Collaboration: Fine-Tuning Your Collaboration for Lasting Success

Help your collaboration become leaner, more responsive, more flexible, and ultimately, more productive.

Fieldstone Alliance Nonprofit Guide to Forming Alliances: Working Together to Achieve Mutual Goals

Collaborations aren't the only way to work together. This guide will help you understand and strategically form alliances that work at a lower level of intensity.

Coping with Cutbacks: The Nonprofit Guide to Success When Times Are Tight

You'll find a six-step process for coming up with solutions to problems—financial or otherwise—plus 185 specific cutback strategies you can put to use right away.