To-Do Lists: Top Nonprofit Organization Tool (according to the 501cfiles.com unscientific poll).

In the neverending workload of nonprofit professionals, staying organized is a challenge. What measures do you take to organize your projects?

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Do you really support the missions you work for?

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Not everyone in Beijing right now is there to marvel at Michael Phelps. As MSNBC reported the other day, a healthy nonprofit enterprise has sprung up at the Games, with a plethora of Olympic pin collectors set up outside the Beijing Exhibition Center to obtain as many pins as they can through “barter, exchange and trade.” One Canadian collector, who claims to have 40,000 to 50,000 pins in his portfolio, noted that he wasn’t in it for the money:
“I could sell [pins] for a couple hundred bucks,” he said. “But I spent thousands to come here. That’s not what it’s …read more

A very visible, if somewhat basic, call to arms. | The Huffington Post
The sad state of nonprofit jargon. | The Chronicle of Philanthropy
New Jersey’s Blue opts to turn green. | NJBIZ
It’s wicked easy to subscribe to 501(c) Files feeds: Just click here and follow the simple instructions. As always, thanks for reading! | 501(c)

Bad news, Generation X, Generation Y, Millennials, and whatever the hell else they’re calling anybody under the age of 50 these days: The Baby Boomers are coming to the nonprofit sector.
Yesterday New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote breathlessly about the coming trend of retiring Boomers who are shelving their golf clubs in favor of “encore careers” that involve “giving back”:
Some 78 million American baby boomers are now beginning to retire, and one survey this year by a research institute found that half of boomers are interested in starting such new careers with a positive social impact. If we boomers …read more

The inaugural effort of Pro Publica, a new, nonprofit investigative journalism initiative funded by a California philanthropy, gets a thumbs-down from a journalism ethics professor. Writing in the Miami Herald, Edward Wasserman of Washington and Lee University points out that Pro Publica’s collaboration with 60 Minutes on a piece detailing the many flaws of a U.S.-funded Arab-language news network in the Mideast is hardly the kind of independent-minded investigation originally envisioned.
First, Wasserman notes, having to link with CBS’ flagship newsmagazine dilutes Pro Publica’s brand, and second, at almost the same time that the 60 Minutes piece was airing, the Washington …read more