It is 1:30 on a Friday afternoon, and Lorna Khawaja is stuck in traffic on a Chicago freeway. She is on her way to visit a client, a woman who recently lost her husband to pancreatic cancer at the age of 63. Ms. Khawaja, 44, founded and heads No Wooden Nickels, a nonprofit organization in nearby…
By Kimberlee Roth
Contributor
An Emphasis on Communications Skills Can Help Charities Survive a Public-Image Crisis
IN THE TRENCHES By Kimberlee Roth The United Way in East Lansing, Mich., broke some bad news in 2003, news that quickly had the rumor mill churning some 45 miles away — in Washtenaw County, where one of the charity’s former staff members owned a horse farm. The East Lansing group reported that the…
By Kimberlee Roth
Contributor
A Love of Science and a Vision to Save Millions of Lives Make Her Day
San Francisco Today is one of only seven days this month that Victoria Hale is in her office, and she has a lot to do. She is trying to save the lives of half a million people. It is an especially busy time for the 45-year-old founder and chief executive of the Institute for OneWorld Health, a…
By Kimberlee Roth
Contributor
Former trustees who serve on emeritus boards can offer a historical perspective to current membersWhen trustees retire from the board of Thurber House, a nonprofit literary center in Columbus, Ohio, many find that ALSO SEE:Creating an Emeritus Board their work is just beginning. Since the early…
By Kimberlee Roth
Contributor
A Veteran Leader Combines Social Services With Civil Rights in Detroit
Detroit
By Kimberlee Roth
Contributor
Behind a Hospital’s Fund-Raising Success: A Man With a Tame Ego
A DAY IN THE LIFE By Kimberlee Roth Cleveland Most people get irritated when sirens and helicopters whir outside while they are trying to work. But for Bruce Loessin, chief fund raiser at the Cleveland Clinic, beating helicopter blades and wailing ambulances help him focus on raising money at one…
By Kimberlee Roth
Contributor
Head of Social-Services Group Embraces Fun –Â and Creative Fund Raising
Farmington Hills, Mich. Joyce Keller smiles sheepishly as she recalls her old teaching days. Although she loved the students she served as a special-education instructor in Michigan schools in the mid-1970s, she grew unhappy with the rigidity of her schedule. It got to the point, she says, that she…
By Kimberlee Roth
Contributor
A Charity Leader Works to Beautify an Inner City
A DAY IN THE LIFE By Kimberlee Roth Detroit Rebecca Salminen Witt, president of the Greening of Detroit, is starting her day a couple of hours earlier than expected. At 7 a.m. on a Friday in June, she arrives at a vacant lot in downtown Detroit to supervise its refurbishing, even though volunteers…
By Kimberlee Roth
Contributor
Advice for Keeping Board Members Motivated Over the Long Haul
After three years of serving on the board of a mental-health center near her home in northern Ohio, Mary Mihaly felt her enthusiasm sputtering. Then serving as vice president and being groomed for the presidency, she was “terrified,” she says. “Most of what I did involved rubber-stamping staff…
By Kimberlee Roth
Contributor
How Charities Learn from Evaluating Themselves, and Tips for Measuring Results
IN THE TRENCHES By Kimberlee Roth When Lisa Brakebill became program director of the Greater Maryland Chapter of the ALSO SEE:A List of Resources to Help Nonprofit Groups Assess Their Programs Alzheimer’s Association, in Timonium, eight years ago, she says, program evaluation meant figuring out…
By Kimberlee Roth
Contributor