Question: Should We Sign a Contract With Our Grant Writer? What Should Be in the Contract?
Answer: To avoid disappointment and a futile waste of time and money, you should indeed sign a contract with a professional grant writer. Here is what to include:

a detailed list of the tasks you expect the grant writer to perform.

the effective date of the contract and when it expires.

a cancellation clause that either the consultant or your nonprofit can use with appropriate notice. That notice period is usually not less than 30 days nor more than 90 days. For instance, you or the consultant would need to give the other from 30 to 90 days notice in order to cancel the contract.

a statement that stipulates that your nonprofit owns the resulting proposal.

how much the grant writer will be paid and when. You may want to have portions paid when certain tasks are accomplished.

how reimbursement of out-of-pocket expenses will be paid. Will they be reimbursed after documentation? Or will there be an advance? Will they be included in the final payment?

signatures by both the grant writer and by an officer of the nonprofit.

If possible, have your legal counsel develop the contract or, at least, review it.

Source: About.com

In my many years of observing leaders, I have noticed a number of signs that a person has high potential for corporate leadership. A wide cognitive “bandwidth” - the capacity and inclination to see things in a broader context - is an earmark of a CEO who anticipates how changes in the external environment will affect the business or of a marketing vice president who sees how marketing relates to overall company direction.

High-potential Leaders Seek Information and See the Broader View
Leaders aren’t born with the phenomenal breadth and scope of thinking that characterizes successful leaders of big companies, but those with a drive to constantly search for more information and see things from a broader view have the potential for it. Some young leaders exhibit a conceptual ability to rise above the details, to see a broader context than their peers, and to place themselves and their immediate accomplishments within that broader context. Look for actions that reveal such thinking. I know of one instance in which a high-potential executive was asked to add two more divisions to her portfolio of responsibilities. She demurred, pointing out to her boss that while she would welcome the additional responsibilities, the two divisions would be better placed with one of her colleagues because they were complementary to businesses already under him. Her willingness to put the company’s interests above her own ego reflected not just a great personality trait but also her ability to think strategically and from the viewpoint of the overall business.


High-potential Leaders Exhibit Drive and Aggression

Drive and aggression are common criteria for identifying leaders and are conveniently easy to observe even in very young people. What boss wouldn’t notice the young sales rep who pushes hard to win more and more business and outshines his seasoned peers in hitting targets? But a rep who does her job to a tee and also seems to have a handle on what her sales manager does - and even what the regional sales director does - is demonstrating something more than drive: a desire and ability to see the bigger picture.

High-potential Leaders Put Their Business on the Offensive
Leaders must also be able to make sense of all they take in and set a clear course of action. After gathering information from multiple sources and shaping several alternatives, they have to be able to sort out what is important, make a decision, and act on it. Even at lower levels, information is often muddled and the right path is often unclear, but leaders with high potential find clarity and act decisively despite the uncertainty and ambiguity that stymies others. They take disparate facts and observations and connect the dots to create a clear view of what they think is likely to happen before it actually does. Because they see the hazy outlines of change coming before others do, they put their businesses on the offensive.

High-potential Leaders Synthesize Data for Decisions
Most high-potential leaders will show an uncommon ability to analyze and synthesize large amounts of data and make a decision based not only on the data but also on intuition. They have a way of clearing the fog. They frequently use the “80-20 rule,” which states that 20 percent of factors account for 80 percent of value. They sift, sort, and select information based not only on its content but also on its source. They think in second, third, and fourth orders of consequence, are extremely clear about goals and constraints, develop alternative paths, and have a backup plan in the event a decision proves wrong.

High-potential Leaders Balance Inherent Tensions
Business leaders make judgment calls on a daily basis as they balance the inherent tensions between the short term versus the long term, between shareholders and customers and employees and external constituencies, and between opportunities and aspirations versus real-world realities and constraints. Some people are simply not decisive or tough enough to lead the business. They let opportunities slip away, powerful personalities dominate, and other people set the course. These people are not leaders, regardless of the depth of their thinking.

High-potential Leaders Passionately Pursue Learning and Growth
Another sure sign of a high-potential leader, and one that is especially important in today’s environment of tumultuous change, is the leader’s passionate quest to continually learn and grow. High potentials seize the opportunity to take “stretch” assignments that tax their abilities precisely because they are stimulated by the challenge and the opportunity to increase their knowledge base about the business, people, and the external world.

High-potential Leaders Are Intellectually Honest and Dissatisfied With the Status Quo
They are intellectually honest and have the self-confidence to acknowledge when they don’t have the answers, knowing they can find them. They are dissatisfied with incremental progress and the status quo. They continually search for new ideas and different ways of seeing things. This insatiable thirst for learning tends to make them more contemporary than their bosses, more aware of leading-edge technologies and trends.

High-potential Leaders Have Integrity and Tell the Truth
Don’t forget to look at integrity and drive to screen out those who fall short. Leaders must tell the truth at all times fearlessly and without weighing the consequences. When confronted with a moral or legal quandary, they must always choose the ethical course of action. Leaders must also radiate a sense of urgency. In the course of being tested, over the years a high-potential individual will be given increasingly broad and difficult jobs. Without relentless drive and near-total immersion, he will find it difficult to maintain the endurance necessary to master tasks.

Reprinted by permission of the publisher, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., from Leaders at All Levels: Deepening Your Talent Pool to Solve the Succession Crisis, by Ram Charan. Copyright (c) 2007 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

The 18- to 25-year-olds just entering, or poised to enter, the workforce aren’t likely to be satisfied with shared “hotel-style” desk assignments, drab cubicles or windowless spaces that have characterized offices in the past, according to new research that could strongly influence space and energy efficiency strategies in the corporate world.

Based on a new study by Johnson Controls Inc.study, employers can also expect that Gen Y:

Wants their jobs to be located in an urban area within an easy commute by foot, public transportation or by car. In the U.S., 79 percent said they prefer to work in an urban setting, 51 percent they’d get there by car (and for 34 percent that would be a hybrid vehicle) 18 percent would walk,15 percent would use public transit and 9 percent said they’d use a motorcycle or scooter.

Doesn’t want a home-based work environment, although the group is highly connected via the Internet and high-tech gadgetry and could easily tap into work from home. “They want a place to go, and once they’re there, they want their own desk and they want to be able to personalize it,” said Puybaraud, noting that a large vast majority of Gen Y’ers want a desk they can call their own and less than a fifth would be happy sharing.

Wants office space to support collaboration, productivity and creativity. Forty-one percent said they’d prefer access to a team space, such as an area dedicated to their work group, and 32 percent said they prefer breakout spaces over conventional meeting rooms that are used by various work groups and usually need to be booked. Sixty-one percent want to work in natural light or with a combination of natural and artificial lighting.

Wants to be able to “see and feel the greenness in their workplace and mere compliance isn’t enough,” Puybaraud said.

Although 26- to 35-year-olds and 36-to-45-year-olds edged out Gen Y’ers on some environmental questions, Gen Y responses were strong on environmental issues. Ninety-six percent said they want an “environmentally aware or friendly workplace” and 57 percent said they want their employers to perform well above regulatory compliance. For the two previous 10-year age bands, 98 percent said they want “environmentally aware or friendly workplace” and 67 to 74 percent said they want their employers to be overachievers in compliance.

The study provided further data on the green elements Gen Y wants to see at work: 70.3 percent said there should be recycling bins, 47.4 percent want water-saving fixtures and devices, 52.7 percent said stand-by modes or devices are musts for all electrical equipment, 71.6 percent said office printers should be shared, and 47 percent said solar panels should be on site.

“[Gen Y] preferences for an environmentally focused working environment are very strong; not only in the physical aspects of the workplace, but also in their way of working: flexible working, travel patterns, etc.,” said the report.

Noting that all generations are looking for a “green deal at work,” the report recommended that employers:

Go beyond minimum environmental compliance.

Provide ample evidence of green solutions in the workplace.

Embrace green policies in day-to-day operations as well as through initiatives.

The findings are both interesting and challenging in that virtually every data point touches on steps and strategies related to sustainability, even though the survey questions aren’t obviously posed as green subjects.JCI Gen Y Chart - Green Question

Bottom line, the report said, Generation Y is “full of contradictions … They think like entrepreneurs and value relationships, are tech savvy and creative, and are environmentally conscious and mobile. They will in the future place a high premium on job security and they apparently currently job-hop. They are value driven and money-grabbing (due to being saddled with high student loans). They are conservative and non-conformist.”

For businesses looking for constant point in interpreting Gen Y at work, Puybaraud said: “At the end of the day, the thing to remember is that for them going to work is an experience … and extension of themselves … and part of their overall life experience.” And smart employers will find ways to integrate that contemporary view into a traditional workplace.

Source: GreenBiz.com

Salaries for CEOs and program officers at community foundations are growing much faster than for their counterparts at private foundations, a new report says.

Between 2005 and 2009, salaries for CEOs and program officers at community foundations grew 25.3 percent and 21.5 percent, respectively, compared to 15.9 percent and 13 percent at private foundations, according to the 2009 Grantmakers Salary and Benefits Report from the Council on Foundations.

That data, not adjusted for inflation, reflects salaries reported to the Council on Foundations over five years by a panel of foundation.

Adjusted for inflation, salaries for CEOs and program officers at community foundations grew 13.5 percent and 9.8 percent, respectively, compared to 4.8 percent and 2.1 percent at private foundations.

The median salary totaled $140,250 for CEOs and managers of corporate-giving programs, and $78,000 for program officers at 779 foundations and corporate grantmakers that reported salaries for a total of 7,611 full-time employees.

Salaries varied by size and type of grantmaker and by region.

The median salary in the Midwest was 10.1 percent lower than the national median for all positions, while salaries in the Northeast were 9.1 percent higher.

Among all foundations surveyed, 87.6 percent granted salary increases in 2008, but only 56.1 percent planned to award or already had awarded increases for 2009.

Median salary increases in 2008 totaled 4 percent for all types of foundations except corporate grantmakers; 4 percent for community foundations; 4.5 percent for family foundations; 4.1 percent for independent foundations; 4 percent for public foundations.

Corporate grantmakers reported median salary increases of 3 percent for 2008.

Women accounted for 75.8 percent of all full-time paid staff and 71.1 percent of all professional staff, including 56.2 percent of all CEOs or managers of corporate giving programs and 72.8 percent of all program officers.

Women held 90 percent of support-staff positions.

Minorities represented 24.9 percent of full-time paid staff, with blacks accounting for 11.9 percent of the total, Hispanics and Asians accounting for 6.1 percent and 4.9 percent respectively, and all other minorities accounting for 2.2 percent.
Minorities accounted for 7.65 percent of full-time paid CEOs and 35.6 percnet of program officers.


Source: Philanthropy Journal

By Trent Hamm
The happier you are with your work, the better you’ll produce. So, find work you enjoy. You’ll do better in your career, go home happier at night, and be more likely to earn more.

I recently had a conversation with a 66 year old woman who had retired from a fairly lucrative career, only to take on a completely surprising job as her “retirement job.”

She’s a grade school lunch lady.

Why did she choose to take on such a job? The reason was simple, she told me. Her grandchildren, her grandchildren’s friends, and the grandchildren of some of her friends attended that school. She had a lot of experience working with food over the years working at soup kitchens and the like and she really wanted to put her skills to work making great meals for the little kids she cared about.

To put it simply, she loves her job. She really, really enjoys doing this, and I could tell by some of the stories she told me.

I told her that her job seemed like it could be pretty thankless – the kind of job that Mike Rowe might shadow. She thought about that for a minute and said something pretty profound.

If you hate your job, a good situation can become a bad one. If you love your job, you can turn a bad situation into a good one.

What do you do if you hate your job, I asked her. She dropped another piece of wisdom on me.

If you hate your job, stop doing the parts you don’t like and spend more time doing the parts you do like. The worst that can happen is that you get fired from a job you hate, and is that really a loss? The best that can happen is that you start producing much better work that helps you move up the food chain.

She told me that her job was to put healthy, tasty, and fun meals on the table for the kids. She knew what guidelines she had to follow and she followed the health-related ones, but she would often spend her food budget in creative ways to get healthy and fun food out there. She also didn’t “waste time” on unnecessary paperwork and meetings, stating that if there’s something important, they’ll find her in the kitchen actually doing her job.

I think every job benefits from a bit of her perspective. At my previous job, I loathed the bureaucracy and paperwork aspects of the job. Eventually, I reached a point where I pretty much ignored them until there happened to be downtime – in other words, I moved the aspects I didn’t value to the lowest possible priority. I missed a few minor deadlines, to be sure, but it made my job a lot more enjoyable and, unsurprisingly, more productive, too.

I keep this same philosophy in my writing work. If I’m not enjoying the work, I do something else, and almost always, it works. Why? Because if I move to something that’s fun within the range of stuff that I do professionally, I usually produce something great. If I grind against the boring stuff, I hate it and produce stuff that’s poor.

This is true of almost any job, from flipping hamburgers (some people are better in the kitchen and some people are better at service) to office work. If you hate your job, find out what you hate about it and do less of that. Figure out what you like about it (or at least hate less) and do more of that. You might miss out on a few details, but you’ll produce much better stuff in the areas that matter. Any boss worth his salt will see that and reward you for it (or at least overlook the little things that you miss).

I’ll leave you with one final anecdote from a friend of mine who manages a convenience store. One of her high school aged employees seemed really down, so she took him aside and asked him what the problem was. “I hate working the counter. I hate talking to all these people.” She made a deal with him – if he turned it up a notch with the other tasks, she’d take him off the counter completely. He brightened up quickly. Now, the bathrooms are spotless, the floor is mopped, the products are stocked, and the other employee working the counter is happier, too, because she likes dealing with the customers.

Everyone wins when you don’t hate your job. Find the parts you like and do more of that instead. The happier you are with your work, the better you’ll produce. If you’re worried about how it’ll go over, talk it over with your boss first, but give it a go. You’ll do better in your career, go home happier at night, and be much more likely to receive better pay.

Source: Christian Science Monitor