The future belongs to the curious.

Welcome to the CauseMic blog, where we share insights to help nonprofit leaders scale your organization.

Posts about strategy:

Productive and Memorable Nonprofit Offsites

Productive and Memorable Nonprofit Offsites

First of all, what is a “nonprofit offsite” and why have one?

Held outside the usual workplace, a nonprofit offsite (or, nonprofit retreat) is an event at which all members of a nonprofit come together to achieve specific objectives.

Duration is up to you, but it can run anywhere from a single day to a full workweek.

Leveraging Capacity Grants for Your Nonprofit’s Digital Transformation

Leveraging Capacity Grants for Your Nonprofit’s Digital Transformation

Traditionally, for one reason or another, nonprofits have long suffered the tail end of technology.

For example, most fundraising goes toward programs or services. And many nonprofits are forced to air their low percentage of donations used for infrastructure as a badge of honor.

Moreover, some also believe that using more than rudimentary technology reduces a personal touch with their donor base.

However, if you have any desire to grow, none of this should be.

Planning an Engaging and Productive Board Retreat for Nonprofits

Planning an Engaging and Productive Board Retreat for Nonprofits

After we facilitated a one-day nonprofit board retreat, here’s what one attendee shared with us:

"We all enjoyed the retreat immensely. I’ve heard nothing but great things from our board."


In this article, I’ll share what made this board retreat both productive and enjoyable, including engaging icebreakers, a well-defined agenda, and interactive activities so you can have a successful offsite.

Looking For a New Way to Grow Your Nonprofit? Go Retro!

Looking For a New Way to Grow Your Nonprofit? Go Retro!

If yours is like most nonprofits, virtually all mission-related tasks are handled by your in-house team.

In effect, your organization is an internal agency, a service group much like an ad agency or a law firm. Except instead of billable hours, you deal in productive hours (see Chapter 13 in my free book).

Your team does its best to ensure those valuable hours are used wisely for, say, a specific donor campaign or a live fundraising event.

Tune In: Talking Exponential Nonprofit Growth with Author Matt Scott

Tune In: Talking Exponential Nonprofit Growth with Author Matt Scott

If you’re a nonprofit leader looking for real growth, drop in on Dan Bruton’s PDX Executive Podcast with CauseMic leader Matt Scott as they discuss Matt’s free book, The High-Growth Nonprofit.

Along with experiences from his pre-CauseMic days, Matt’s book captures 10+ years of tips, successes, and lessons learned helping cause-worthy groups achieve exponential growth. Dan and Matt discuss some of the contents, beginning with the all-important high-growth mindset.

Finally! A real page-turner for rapid growth

Finally! A real page-turner for rapid growth

I’m happy to say my new bookThe High-Growth Nonprofit is hot off the press.

I kicked off the book’s launch on the Nonprofit Radio yesterday by noting why reading the book makes sense for nonprofit leaders everywhere:

  • It features proven steps to quickly double your revenue and drive impact
  • It includes tips plus the mistakes, lessons learned, and successes of others
  • It’s guaranteed to be worth the cost (it’s free)

The High-Growth Nonprofit, by Matt Scott: Get your free copy!

The High-Growth Nonprofit, by Matt Scott: Get your free copy!

Nothing centers your focus on things you’ve learned in your career like writing a book about them.

Unless you launch into some stream-of-consciousness, rambling mumbo jumbo, it forces you to categorize your knowledge into specific chapters that make sense.

But within each chapter, it’s easy to succumb to the notion that future readers will hang on your every word, even if it’s Gone With the Wind, Volume II. They won’t.

So you have to be succinct enough to get to the actual heart of the matter, even if there seems to be many hearts of many matters. I had to follow my own advice: Be decisive—pick something and run with it! (Thank you, page 49).

I learned these things (and others) while writing my book, The High-Growth Nonprofit.

Efficient Strategic Planning: Make it Exclusively Inclusive

Efficient Strategic Planning: Make it Exclusively Inclusive

Boiling it down to two  

  • Along with people who dominate conversations, bias exhibited toward particular groups in meetings impedes the flow of good ideas, motivation, buy-in, and productivity.  
  • Inclusive strategic planning sessions that also feature effective, facilitated structure are good tools for creating a great plan.

Grow Faster and More Effectively with a One-Page Strategic Plan

Grow Faster and More Effectively with a One-Page Strategic Plan

All nonprofit executives recognize strategy is important. But it’s a safe assumption that most also find the creation of their organization’s strategic plan to be daunting, sometimes scary. When making decisions on the path ahead, you will cut off other possibilities and opportunities. Those choices become a reflection of you as a leader and what if they don’t pan out?