Making Things Work

Here is a collection of information and links to help you manage your organisation or one-off campaign in the most effective way.

People and Planet Online's Groups Guide has specific advice on many of the problems and concerns that come up in the life of many groups.

Nuts & Bolts Publishing has some free articles and resources on a variety of nonprofit leadership and management topics.

Capaciteria is "a comprehensive, searchable database directory of administrative resources that help nonprofits leverage their own capacity" (I wasn't sure exactly what that means, either). They have materials on legal issues, financial management, membership development, fundraising, and much more (now those, I understand!)

Your meetings can make or break your group. If they're run well, you'll be productive and members are likely to feel that their time was well-spent. If not, you'll find yourselves spinning your wheels, and people will eventually give up on your group in frustration. This handout on Facilitating Meetings Effectively has some good suggestions on running efficient, productive meetings.

Resources for Meetings and Group Process has links to some excellent materials on meeting management, conflict resolution, communication skills, and more.

How To Make Meetings Work in a Culturally Diverse Group is a set of guidelines to help people understand differences within a group and find common ground.

The Disability Etiquette Handbook has tips on welcoming and accommodating people with disabilities in your organization.

Tips for Equal Access Presentations can help you make your meetings, lectures and other events accessible to people with disabilities.

The Seattle Peace and Justice Events Calendar offers some considerations for making your event accessible to people with disabilities.

Every group has them, and these Hints for Facilitators: Handling Difficult Behaviors in Meetings can help you handle them.

Meeting Minutes is a set of guidelines on taking and writing up the minutes of a meeting.

The National Association of Parliamentarians' How to Use Parliamentary Procedure is a comprehensive guide to operating under Robert's Rules of Order.

Jim Slaughter's site on Parliamentary Procedure includes charts and articles on meeting procedures, "cheat sheets" to Robert's Rules of Order, and much more.

Parliamentary Procedure: Toward the Good Order of the University advice from Dr. John A. Cagle, Parliamentarian of the Academic Senate and Professor of Communication at California State University, Fresno

Robert's Rules of Order Revised The original source--complete and comprehensive, but probably not for the casual user.

This handout on Consensus Decision-Making offers a basic introduction to the concepts and process, and helps you decide if the method is right for your group.

On Conflict And Consensus: A Handbook On Formal Consensus Decisionmaking is an excellent and extensive guide to facilitation skills and consensus development. Food Not Bombs Publishing sells printed copies, but they also offer the entire book here and let you download and print it free of charge.

Ron Kelly's conflict resolution tools page has many useful links that may help individuals and groups.

Training For Change has a great and ever-growing set of experiential exercises and activities for helping people learn to work more effectively in groups.

Event Planning Made Easy is a set of questions to consider and tasks you need to take care of in planning any event.

Learning to delegate work is one of the most essential--and one of the hardest--skills a leader or manager needs to know. These Tips on Successful Delegation may help.

If you're planning to pursue funding through grants from foundations and public agencies, this Guide for Writing a Funding Proposal may help.

written by casagodita.com