Skip to main content

Nonprofit mergers becoming popular

There's a pretty good piece in yesterday's Globe about the rising popularity of merging nonprofits. The article focuses for the most part on small, regional human-servicy types of organizations, and it points to the increasingly challenging environment for nonprofits. Of course times are challenging when everybody and their pet llama has started one, and so many organizations' main contribution to society is reckless waste (albeit on a small scale) and fuzzy thinking. To quote the article:
Interest in mergers and alliances among nonprofits has become so hot nationally that a California firm specializing in the issue, La Piana Associates, Inc., has seen inquiries on the topic increase more than 50 percent over the last two years, said Bob Harrington, a senior manager who specializes in strategic restructuring.
I think this trend is definitely something we should within the 501-c community. Nonprofits are great, voluntarism is great, but people need to do their research and not create crappy redundancies that sap resources from the system. That's my bit of venting for today.

Popular posts from this blog

Never Eat Alone

Okay, I've reached the height of laziness. I'll explain later. My excuse is that I'm on the road. I came back to BYU for a homecoming reunion since I'm the treasurer of an alumni chapter (very easy job, since we have no money). And of course we trashed UNLV at the game! Also, I've wrapped a bunch of work into the trip out west so I'm doing Utah, Idaho, Arizona and possibly Nevada if I get time. Here is a picture of campus. The Y is on the mountain, and they light it up at special occasions such as homecoming. The reason why there is only a Y is that they started to put BYU up there and they ran out of money or something. So now it's just the Y and that's what we call the school for shorthand. Okay, so now to the lazy part. I brought a jillion books with me and I'm trying to plow through them and send them back media mail. I read the book Never Eat Alone , by Keith Ferrazzi. The book treats the topic of networking, and does it really very well--and re...
Read more

An Army of Davids

So, I've been spending some time with Glenn Reynold's book (Glenn being of course the seminal and highly influential Instapundit ), and I must say that it gives me lots of language I can use to talk about phenomena that are easily observable right now. I think you could say that Glenn Reynolds has done for technology what Virginia Postrel did with design topics . Which is to say, they beat the drum and say, hey, look at what this democratization of knowledge can do for you! In that vein, the book is really pretty visionary, pointing out the magic of the internet age. And I for one see it as magical. You know how Laura Ingalls Wilder's Pa in Little Town on the Prairie said to Laura that it was an amazing time to be alive (that was in the 1890s)? I've been actively thinking that to myself for the past few years, and An Army of Davids gives me ample evidence to back that up with its talk of citizen empowerment and the "comfy chair revolution." The theme of ...
Read more

Conference Website + Musings

Hey all, I found this website on TechCrunch that association peeps need to know about. It's called ConFabb , a site that claims it's the biggest database EVAR of conferences. Anyhoo, I'm beginning to think about a new direction for NBB that would bring me more into a true association blog space. I started this blog focusing on my business reading. It has been a great learning opportunity, but now that I'm back headlong in association management, I need to refocus my energies. For my faithful readers (all like, four of you or something), throw your feedback out to me . Thanks.
Read more