Organizations Books

Today it seems that we the church are more independent than interdependent, this book helps to foster how we as saints can build more loving caring relationships that cross Racial, Social and economic lines. As paul says in Colossians 2:2 " My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in LOVE, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ."

"God's frozen chosen?" HA! I am a New Englander - born and raised. On behalf of my brothers and sisters in the body of Christ here in the Northeast, I'd like to inform the world that we are indeed chosen - but we are no longer frozen! The warm wind of God's Spirit has been melting much of our cold independence and pride. THIS BOOK CONFIRMS THAT THE SPIRITUAL ICE AGE IN NEW ENGLAND HAS COME TO A CLOSE! Read about real pastors - real people - real churches in the Northeast where God's plans and purposes are unfolding. Macchia provides a brilliant blend of real-life circumstances with practical guidelines. This book filled me with faith, hope, and renewed strength to press on in my role as a vital part of the Body of Christ in my region.

This book is for God's frozen chosen everywhere who long to become His freed indeed!

The author provides ten characteristics of a healthy church, revealing the principles they represent and the process whereby a church can become healthy. Based on two major surveys of what people want in a church--and what they actually experience in their church. Loaded with real life stories of churches in the northeast that exhibit one of more of the ten characteristics. The author reveals a strongly biblical and deeply spiritual approach, with a real heart for the church. A former children's and youth minister who eventually became associate pastor in a large Boston area church, the author, Stephen A. Macchia is president of America's largest regional association of churches, Vision New England.

I find this book to be a helpful way of looking at the local church. The author is not devloping a particular model, or specifically prescribing how to "do it right." Instead, he is submitting principles that can be applied in virtually any setting. There is a healthy mixture of real life stories, biblical principles and exhortations. The author clearly has convictions about the need for health in the local church, and he communicates his convictions well.

The 10 characteristics outlined in the book are worth regular review, and can be used to help develop a vision for healthy balance in ministry. The book doesn't hold out any quick fixes, but rather upholds the value of healthy sowing and reaping over time. Many, many churches will benefit from the concepts and principles presented in this book.

The book written by Richard Hughes and Katherine Colarelli continues with the tradition of the Center for Creative Leadership of producing tools and information based on solid research and experience.
The book proposes a model of strategic leadership composed of three large competency clusters: strategic thinking, strategic acting and strategic influencing and then it explains and analyze each of these clusters, providing, not only a theoretical explanation of the different skills but also examples, tools and activities to develop them.

Before I bought this book I did not realize that it is such a very useful resource. If you are looking for a resource to inspire your startegic leadership, it is the right one.

I really like to have more books from CCL :-).

Becoming a Strategic Leader is a focused and wonderfully written work for those who believe in approaching challenges in a strategic way. The authors, trainers and researchers at the internationally acclaimed Center for Creative Leadership (www.ccl.org), use a framework familiar to strategic planning processes to improve the likelihood of obtaining results in enhancing one's leadership effectiveness. The content is solid and full of real life examples and applications. This book will appeal to those who are drawn to a logical approach to problem solving but should also engage the heart of others seeking to add structure to their own development or that of their teams. If you liked Execution, and Good to Great, you should like this as well. It is well worth a look.

Dr. Christopher Evans
www.christopherevans.org

Most of the publications that come out of CCL (or Center for Creative Leadership), which I have acquired for my personal library, are seemingly well-supported by research findings & concisely written by the respective authors, who apparently hold impeccable track records in their fields. This particular book is one of them. (CCL has earned its #1 Rank in Leadership Education by Business Week).

My primary interest in strategic leadership stems from my relentless search for better understanding of the thinking processes that go inside the heads of leaders. To be more precise, the strategy formulation processes! This has been by burning passion for more than two decades.

In this book, the authors have artfully as well as logically demonstrated how readers can exercise effective strategic leadership through their distinctive & systematic approach:

- strategic thinking (Chapter 2);
- strategic acting (Chapter 3);
- strategic influencing (Chapter 4);

These serve as the synergistic driving forces. In the authors' own words: Driving strategy as a learning process. (I am actually quite tempted to use the term, `syn-vergent' instead of `synergistic' [driving forces] as the former term was originally coined by Michael Gelb, in Thinking for a Change, which means `the art of balancing convergent and divergent thinking modes, logic and imagination, reason and intuition.' In the current book under review, the authors contend that strategic thinking engages the heart as well as the head.)

With an excellent introduction in Chapter 1, Chapter 6 shows how readers can apply the above approach in the broader organizational context.

Chapter 7 sums up the book: Becoming a Strategic Leader, using surfing as a metaphorical platform (I like it!) - keeping your balance while learning the best path to follow amid constantly changing conditions.

Throughout the book, the authors discuss in depth the specific competencies & perspectives related to each of the above driving forces, as well as their interdependency in producing a more wholistic (or more appropriately, `syn-vergent', as explained above) & meaningful strategy.

In conclusion as a whole from the standpoint of reader friendliness & action-packed learning, I rate this wonderful book a 5.

So, readers, please add this book to your Strategic Thinker's Bookshelf.

Attention Readers: To complement as well as to reinforce your understanding of Chapter 2 of this book, please read `Choosing the Future: The Power of Strategic Thinking', by Stuart Wells.

As I read through this book I kept thinking to myself, "That's a GREAT idea, why didn't I think of that!". It's full of ideas for people at all levels of experience with Auction-planning. Even if you've been involved in many auction fundraisers, I'd almost guarantee you'll find a few fresh ideas in this book! Great resource, easy read.

I wanted to drop you a note to tell you how extraordinarily impressed I am with "Benefit Auctions: A Fresh Formula for Grassroots Fundraising" by Sandy Bradley.

In the past, I've had occasion to run auctions for several non-profit organizations, both church and professional. I did okay winging it, but it wasn't easy. I had a problem collecting donations, getting the auction publicized, and keeping things running smoothly. It worked, but I always felt that it'd be a lot smoother if I knew what I was doing.

Then I read "Benefit Auctions: A Fresh Formula for Grassroots Fundraising." Within the first few chapters, I saw that one of my biggest problems with meeting my expected goals was that I hadn't set my goals correctly. The "times 2" rule explained it all. I also learned how to do much better solicitation of goods and services from donors (and how to find new donors!). The suggestions for how to set up processes also eliminated a major headache for the volunteers and--best of all--showed me how to speed up the payment and checkout procedures, which had been a real bottleneck in the past.

I haven't yet had a chance to try all of these techniques yet, but I am confident that I'm going to be able to double the income through increased donations while spending slightly less effort to publicize and run the auction. On behalf of my customers and my volunteers, thank you!

Benefit Auctions: A Fresh Formula For Grassroots Fundraising by musician, author, and licensed auctioneer Sandy Bradley who draws upon her years of experience and expertise as an auctioneering fundraiser for nonprofits and arts organizations. Benefit Auctions is an invaluable step-by-step guide for determine the kind of even best for a particular organization; finding an ideal location; hiring an effective auctioneer; developing a strategy for attracting attendees and bidders; soliciting donations of goods and services to sell; generating a catalog and bid sheets; training volunteers; setting up the event for maximum financial revenues; concluding an auction successfully while laying the groundwork of the next one. If you are responsible for developing a fundraising auction for your group or organization, then give a careful reading to Sandy Bradley's Benefit Auctions.

I'm just getting started in fundraising auctions and I've read everything I can get my hands on. I should have started and stopped with this book. I've bought extra copies to give to the nonprofits I'm working with so they'll know how to do it right.

I have used this book as a text book in many Change Agent classes I have taught and have found it to be a very pragmatic and useful guide. It is a shame that it is out of print now. In fact, the last class I tought, I had to go scrounging around the office to find copies on bookshelves to use. I wish they would republish it.

The list of consequences "when bad things happen to good projects" or What-NOT-To-Do is worth the price of the book. I wish I had read this book before starting my 6+ years as a consultant helping organizations to improve. This book presents most of the lessons that I've learned during those years and gives quite a few additional ideas on organization change.

Don't let the garish cover art distract you. This is a solidly good book, which I regularly recommend to my clients. Of course, I can't vouch for the Price Waterhouse consulting group's ability to get clients to change successfully or whether they even follow their own advice. I just know that I do apply the best ideas in this book (plus some of my own) in my consulting practice.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Easy to read and it truly made sense. We are just beginning an effort to change our organization and this book has helped us plot our course. I am encouraged that this book will help us achieve positive change for our company and employees.

If you're trying to figure out why a project isn't going well, this book just may solve your problem. It takes you through the basics of change mangement, and makes you aware of just what you're dealing with. Good, practical advice that made me wear out a highlighter. When I showed it to other IS people on our Oracle software implementation project, they said "that's us"!!! We didn't realize we were in the middle of a change project - now we can try to take a step back and regroup.

Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson holds no punches in this book. He brings the question of the ability of the planet to sustain today's consumption-driven American lifestyle into clear focus in "Beyond Earth Day". His report card on the planet is dire but believable.

The book provides a strong case that more dire consequences are up ahead for all of us, unless the current political leadership in Washington abandons its "business as usual" mentality regarding the environment and begins to recognize the urgency and gravity of the situation we are getting into with regard to air, water, land and climate.

"It is time for the president and Congress to reach an agreement that sustainability is the challenge of our time and design a plan of action for the future... There is no room, nor time, for partisanship. The president and Congress should face this issue in a unified and cooperative way and should persist until we reach the goal", laments Nelson.

Nelson recommends that the president of the United States deliver a "State of the Environment" speech to the American public and the world which outlines environmental challenges meriting the nation and the world's immediate attention, and the challenges that lay on the horizon. Such an address, Nelson says, is what is needed "to start public dialogue on the serious environmental problems facing the country and world today". People everywhere need to realize that maintaining the environmental sustainability of the planet is the most important responsibility we all have, because all life on Earth is interrelated, and because our economy is inherently dependent on the environment's "underlying resource base of forests, water, air, soil, and minerals".

"Beyond Earth Day" gives an amazingly thorough look at the state of our planet, then and now. Discussions of issues are well-referenced and Gaylord Nelson courageously presents honest solutions to problems that many people take pains to ignore. He offers history, wisdom, and guidance in an age when "environment" is an important issue to Americans, yet many are unaware of the seriousness of the issues our water, air, soils and biodiversity face. An America united by the knowledge offered by Senator Nelson has the capability to change the course of catastrophic events involving the very elements needed for life. Share the intelligence of this important book with everyone you know.

This book covers what should be the most important Issue to all people in the human-rat race. It's an attempt to make people realize how fast we are using up our natural resourses.
I can only hope that this book makes it to the top 10 best sellers list, so that it gets read by a large segment of the population. It's a vary important message and it's easy to read in a short amount of time, and once you read it it would be wise to give it to a friend and have them read it and pass it on to someone else.
Why can't an American president stand up, and run on smaller population and less consumption? Humans will gain less and less with over-population.

Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson holds no punches in this book. He brings the question of the ability of the planet to sustain today's consumption-driven American lifestyle into clear focus in "Beyond Earth Day". His report card on the planet is dire but believable.

The book provides a strong case that more dire consequences are up ahead for all of us, unless the current political leadership in Washington abandons its "business as usual" mentality regarding the environment and begins to recognize the urgency and gravity of the situation we are getting into with regard to air, water, land and climate.

"It is time for the president and Congress to reach an agreement that sustainability is the challenge of our time and design a plan of action for the future... There is no room, nor time, for partisanship. The president and Congress should face this issue in a unified and cooperative way and should persist until we reach the goal", laments Nelson.

Nelson recommends that the president of the United States deliver a "State of the Environment" speech to the American public and the world which outlines environmental challenges meriting the nation and the world's immediate attention, and the challenges that lay on the horizon. Such an address, Nelson says, is what is needed "to start public dialogue on the serious environmental problems facing the country and world today". People everywhere need to realize that maintaining the environmental sustainability of the planet is the most important responsibility we all have, because all life on Earth is interrelated, and because our economy is inherently dependent on the environment's "underlying resource base of forests, water, air, soil, and minerals".

Many fundraising books show you the mechanics of fundraising. Ms. Sprinkel does that, but more importantly, she shows the reader how to approach fundraising with the proper mindset. Gone it the "tin cup" mentality. Instead, she advocates that we approach fundraising with an investment mindset.

Having set the stage with her philosophical approach to fundraising, Ms. Grace proceeds to walk the reader through the different stages of fundraising, including annual and capital campaigns.

I used the information in this book to assist the development team at my children's school with a capital campaign. We trained a number of people in the art of fundraising and went on to raise the money needed for a new building. While I won't give Ms. Grace all the credit, I can say with confidence that the advice she dispenses in clearly written and very effective.

This book provides non-profit executives with a very practical approach to making their organizations more successful financially and more relevant to their audiences. I have advised many non-profits on a range of issues, and I am envious of Grace's admonition to "put away the tin cup." That's one of the truest, most important things that today's non-profit leaders could hear.

Many fundraising books show you the mechanics of fundraising. Ms. Sprinkel does that, but more importantly, she shows the reader how to approach fundraising with the proper mindset. Gone is the "tin cup" mentality. Instead, she advocates that we approach fundraising with an investment mindset.

Having set the stage with her philosophical approach to fundraising, Ms. Grace proceeds to walk the reader through the different stages of fundraising, including annual and capital campaigns.

I used the information in this book to assist the development team at my children's school with a capital campaign. We trained a number of people in the art of fundraising and went on to raise the money needed for a new building. While I won't give Ms. Grace all the credit, I can say with confidence that the advice she dispenses is clearly written and very effective.

Defining the difference between fund-raising and donor development was an eye-opener. In a non-profit world that is increasingly competitive for the donor dollar, Ms. Grace offers a powerfully different approach. Of particular interest was reference to values-based mission statements. Something from which every fund-raising organization can learn

I will not be surprised when Beyond the Bake Sale becomes referenced as the quintessential book on parent participation. The book not only takes a widely researched topic and presents it in an organized, easy to read format, it also reads like a how-to book rather than a textbook, making the topic much more approachable.

Beyond the Bake Sale became a resource to me and participants in a recent study I did with parents of children who have disabilities, educators, and school leaders. During the study participants worked to discover parent participation techniques that would open doors to both parents of children with disabilities and educators within their schools. At the end of the study, I was able to provide each participant with a copy of this book along with a list of suggested pages that fit the needs of each individual school site. The participants were overjoyed to receive the book and many (both parents and educators) have already e-mailed me saying they appreciate the way the book presents the information. Based on the feedback of others and my own reading, Beyond the Bake Sale is not only informative, it is inspirational.

No more excuses for not engaging parents in their children's education! This book provides essential information for every educational leader, teacher, or parent who wants to break down the barriers to parent involvement. Every page is a gem, filled with valuable insights and clear strategies.

This is the book I have been waiting for! If I could give it 6 stars, I would. Six years ago I attended a workshop on parent involvement with Don Davies and Karen Mapp as presenters and it changed my life. Since then I have been working in my children's schools and in the community to establish home/school /community partnerships. Over the years I have collected three files drawers full of materials, one full shelf of books and another full shelf of binders filled with things I downloaded from the internet. I've read it all and I will tell you that this book represents the very best of it in one concise, easy-to-read, and easy-to-follow volume.

It's all here: the research(presented in an approachable manner), background on the implications of No Child Left Behind on how schools must interact with parents, case studies, tools for evaluating where you are, instructions for creating action research teams( which I have used with great success), a section on the value of parents in the arena of advocating for school improvement, and a comprehensive list of resources which are accessible to anyone with a computer and a desire to improve their schools.

I never read Anne Henderson's first Bake Sale book, but I did have the opportunity to see her speak. Her depth of knowledge in this area is incredible and her ability to make the information accessible to her audience is exceptional. All of that comes through in this book. If you want better parent involvement in your schools, start by reading this book.

This is the book I've been looking for since my daughter entered the public school system a year and a half ago! As an active and involved parent, I was eager to get involved at her school. I volunteered regularly in her classroom, I attended all her events (those in the classroom and those that were school-wide.) I joined PTO and attended meetings regularly. I served on planning committees and contributed to fund-raisers. Still, I lacked a way in to what seemed like a very tight system of parents and teachers working together. I felt as though I didn't have enough experience to know what was approriate to talk about where and when. I didn't have the confidence (even after being a teacher myself for five years) to ask the questions I wanted to ask about the way our school worked.

The transition to first grade was not a smooth one for our family. My daughter's teacher was a first-year teacher and lacked the experience she needed to keep the lines of parent-teacher communication wide open. Our concerns snowballed quickly and we were ready to pull our daughter out of the school system and look for alternatives when I found this book.

This book presents advice, tips, and plans for teachers, parents, and administrators to begin working towards collaboration and cooperation in the school setting. Our children can only benefit from having more people on their teams! I want to be recognized as an important member of my daughter's team. This book has given me tips on ways to get my daughter's school to see me that way (beyond the basics I was already doing.) I found the list of questions to ask at conferences or in meetings to be particularly helpful as ways in to a conversation with my daughter's teacher even when nothing is going wrong.

My experience has been that teachers and administrators all say the same thing. They know that family involvement is integral to student success and they urge parents to get involved. However, when it comes down to the actual work of providing those opportunities many teachers fall short.

I am meeting with our principal next week and I plan to bring this book as a donation to the school. I hope the administrators will pass the title along to the other teachers and staff at our school. I will bring another copy to the next PTO meeting, and hopefully we will start to work towards change from there. I want to give this book to every parent I know! One parent, teacher, principal--one school at a time--that is how we will transform.

For those interested in the broader theological implications of the Lord's Supper, Blessed are the Hungry offers a feast of biblical insight. Leithart reminds us of the integral links between word and sacrament, kingdom and sacrament, and covenant and sacrament--links which have been largely ignored or denied among many evangelicals in the 20th and 21st centuries. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to reflect further on the Lord's Supper and the unity of Scripture.

Let's say that you ran into a group of people who had formed a club dedicated to reading and publishing stories about King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Then let's say you asked how you would join a member and you were told that if you joined you would have to dedicate yourself to living like a noble person being brave and chivalrous, etc. Furthermore, they insisted on describing the good deeds you would do in this club in terms such as "jousting" and "dragon-slaying."

Now, if you joined that club, and the ceremony involved someone in charge touching your shoulder with a sword, just like men used to become knights in the Middle Ages, you would understand exactly what is going on. Somehow this group is viewing itself as a continuation of the Knights of the Round Table. You would be joining by being "knighted." The ceremony would have meaning from the stories and by means of the ceremony you would be making your own story a continuation of those stories.

Peter Leithart has written the best possible book on Eucharistic theology by refusing to write a book on Eucharistic theology (well, except for the closing essay, "The Way Things Really Ought to Be: Eucharist, Eschatology, and Culture," which is quite good in it's own right). Instead, he has written expositions of the stories in the Bible that involve the centrality of table fellowship with God. To read these sermonic expositions is to have one's "vision" (an overused metaphor according to Leithart) re-focused so that the familiar suddenly seems new. When you participate in the Lord's Supper, you are being fed the fruit of the Tree of Life, participating in the sacrifice of the altar as a priest, entering the land of milk and honey.... it goes on and on.

In other words, by reading this book you will be greatly helped in a process that is often disfigured in modern Evangelical life. Reading some of the many stories of the Bible that describe eating and drinking will immerse you in a new interpretation of what you are doing when you partake of the Lord's Supper. And, conversely, when you participate in the Lord's Supper, you will be continuing in what you have read so that it is reinforced for you as you embody what you have read. The Lord's Supper is truly the application, the sign and seal of the Gospel message. Peter's book shows how, by eating and drinking, you are continuing a culture that once involved Abraham eating and drinking with Melchizedek, Jesus starting a dinner club to which all sorts of undesirables were invited, and Paul publicly rebuking Peter for refusing to eat with uncircumcised Christians.

The final essay deserves special mention. Leithart argues that the emphasis on a "zoom lens" metaphor has deformed discussion of the Lord's Supper. By a "zoom lens" he refers to 1. an emphasis on the elements as "visible words" when the plain emphasis of the Bible is on eating and doing not on seeing, 2. a narrow focus on what happens "in" the elements, and 3. a narrow focus on what happens to an individual participant. Peter offers a "wide-angle" perspective that brings to our attention what happens in the congregation and to the congregation when they participate in the Lord's Supper. That essay alone is worth the price of the book. --Mark

"Years ago I got into the habit of trying to read one book on the topic of the Lord's Supper as part of my preparation for Communion. Since the church I attended at the time only celebrated quarterly it wasn't too difficult to dig up titles on the subject. Anyway, in preparing for Communion I picked up Peter Leithart's 'Blessed are the hungry' which is mostly a collection of 3-5 page meditations. I give the book my highest recommendation. I would not hesitate to put it in the top 10 books I've ever read, not for its profundity, but for its perspective. You might not agree with everything he says, but I doubt that anyone could walk away from reading this little paperback book of meditations without having a perspective adjustment and a greater appreciation for God's revelation of Himself and the means of grace He has blessed."

Wow! This book was good. It was intended to be read as a meditation before each of the Lord's Suppers celebrated in the church; however, I couldn't put it down.

The purpose of the book is to eventually show how the celebration of the Lord's Supper leads to eschatological renewal and subsequently, the transformation of culture. This is the Epilogue of the book. The chapter (each about five pages or so) build up to this theme.

Following Frame and Poythress's multi-perspectival approach to the Eucharist. It is impossible to exhaust the meaning of the Supper in one proposition. Leithart doesn't mention this explicitly, but the point is there nonetheless. This is a crucial point to make. Without it, the book fails in its purpose.

Leithart examines the many facets of the Supper in biblical history, starting with Adam and ending in The New Jerusalem. Leithart looks for the feasting theme in Scripture (Adam delighting and communing with God in Paradise--The Second Adam inagurating the Feast that will bring about the New Paradise. Daniel and his friends refuse the King's food and so reconstitute the New Israel who will return from Captivity. The disciples eat the Supper as symbolic of the massive forgiveness that is about to come to the world via cross and resurrection; this forgiveness entailing the reversal of the Curse of the First Adam. In taking the Feast the disciples become the New Israel.).

As an example of Leithart's excellent writing, consider the value of being drunk with Yahweh's wine:

Zechariah 9:15, "The Lord of hosts will protect them,
and they shall devour, and tread down the sling stones,
and they shall drink and roar as if drunk with wine,
and be full like a bowl,
drenched like the corners of the altar.

"But the passage pictures Israel drunk with another kind of wine: filled with the wine of Yahweh's Spirit, Israel would be bold, wild, untamed, boisterous in battle. This suggests one dimension of the symbolism of wine in the Lord's Supper: it loosens our inhibitions so that we wil fight the Lord's battles in a kind of drunken frenzy. If this sounds impious, how much more Psalm 78:65, where the Divine Warrior himself is described as a mighty man overcome with wine? Yahweh fights like Samson, but far more ferociously than Samson: He fights like a drunken Samson!"

Exciting as this may be, we must face up to one aspect of the biblical witness. This is where Perspectivalism saves the day. 1 Corinthians 11 warns against treating the Lord's Supper casually, yet throughout the Old Testament (and hints in the New) we are to delight in the Lord through feasting. So, what gives? I will try to reconcile it in one statement (irony, I know. I previously warned against doing this):

We are to be contrite over our sins but at the same time we are to rejoice that our sins are forgiven and the New Age--the Messianic Age, the Age to Come--has broken into the present evil age. Christ is becoming King over the World! Yes, from one perspective we are to mourn over our sins but at the same time, we are to take heart that our sins are forgiven. Weeping may tarry the night, but joy comes in the morning!

"The Board Member's Playbook..." is an indispensible resource for board members and those interested in policy govenance. The writing is very intelligent, clear, concise; a pleasure to read. A separate section provides a thorough overview of the Carver model for those unfamiliar with policy governance, as well as those needing a refresher. An accompanying CD-ROM is another excellent resource for helping board members with implementation.

This book is a roadmap to success for anyone who uses it. The real world examples and worksheets offer a practical, hands-on exercise in policy govenance. After reading and completing the exercises on my own, I felt well-prepared and energized to take on a board-related challenge using the model.

While this book brings everything a board member needs to effectively use the Carver model, it is the board members themselves who are ultimately responsible for their success. Board members must commit to being honest with themselves and one another, and be dedicated to the rigors of the process to properly implement the Carver model.

This wonderful resource also raises a very important question in my mind - why is the Carver model used predominantly in the non-profit sector? Why isn't the Carver model de rigeur for the for-profit sector? I can only see great benefits and progress ahead should this actually occur.

This is an incredibly useful addition to Carver's Policy Governance Model because it provides practical structure to "rehearsing" common Board-Staff-Owner scenarios with concrete examples. There are hundreds of books on non-profit governance but the vast majority just seem to dabble in detail and pop-psychology (unworkable concepts of "shared governance", etc); but the Carver model provides a unique, practical, and internally consistent method of governance. I'd certainly recommend highly all of his books. This one, written by Miriam Carver and Bill Charney, provides practical exercises demonstrating how the Carver model would handle problems Boards face regularly such as: Do Board members have authority over employees?; Should Board members with expertise oversee programs?; Does the Board job include fundraising?; We like and trust our CEO - isn't that governance?; What if the CEO lies?

It's amazing to me that "rehearsal" plays a role in virtually every profession (musicians, lawyers - in mock trials during law school, teachers - with student teaching, MD's - with simulated emergencies, etc), yet Board members don't rehearse. No wonder performance isn't always optimal. This book is invaluable. It not only suggests that Board's spend time, preferrably at each meeting, rehearsing governance issues but it also provides a practical approach loaded with wonderful examples. Worksheets are included as are the author's suggested "generic" solutions.

Every Board using the Carver Policy Governance Model should have this volume. I can't recommend it highly enough!

A welcomed addition to the "Policy Governance" corpus, "A Board Member's Playbook" provides a clear, concise and easily useable framework for Board practice. Complete with worksheets and an CD Rom, the book helps policy governance Boards work through simulated issues, forming a bridge between the theory of policy governance and its practical application.

This book consists of 50 very real-world situations that any board using Carver Policy Governance ® might encounter, with a single worksheet to be used by the board members to logically think through what should be done in this instance. The book calls them "rehearsal scenarios."

I used a few of these scenarios with my board, and they thought it was great! It took the policies from dry words on paper to useable skills. They immediately decided to add time to every meeting's agenda to do one of these rehearsal scenarios.

As the facilitator of our board, I love it because each scenario comes with proposed solutions that I can use to help guide the discussion. It really cuts down on my prep time. It's a great tool for continuing to build board capability of governance.

One of the wonderful things about this book is its overwhelmingly optimistic perspective on the role a board and its members can play in a nonprofit organization. Hildy Gottlieb's positive attitude and enthusiasm for the role of nonprofits are evident throughout. Her charts and workbook pages are useful and open-ended, so that each organization can individualize the process. The book is a wonderful resource.

"Think of the worst board members you've ever known, and remember that someone actually recruited them." No tool better addresses this problem than Hildy Gottlieb's simple and powerful workbook, "Board Recruitment & Orientation: A Step-by-Step, Common Sense Guide." It is one of the very few publications that I recommend be on the bookshelf of every nonprofit as using it can and will transform your charity.

Research studies completed over the last several years have proven beyond a doubt that the strength and quality of a nonprofit's board bear a direct correlation to the effectiveness of the organization itself. Yet most charities still put less real effort into assessing and defining their leadership needs than they do into determining the type of copier or computer they should buy.

Unlike other manuals and texts on board development, Gottlieb's guide presents an extraordinarily simple-to-follow recipe for putting together a powerfully effective and dynamic governance team. Best of all, it is written and structured in such a way that even the busiest executive director or board trustee can quickly glean its message and take action steps to begin transforming their board today.

Recruiting the right people and preparing them well for the job ahead are the keys to building and empowering a dynamic leadership team. "Board Recruitment & Orientation" covers the fundamentals of establishing that team. The workbook is also full of sample documents and forms, including a model "Letter of Commitment" to be signed by directors, that make its instructions simple to implement. And, best of all, it is priced at a level that every charity and nonprofit consultant can afford.

I give this book my highest recommendation!

This is a quick-read, fun to implement and deeply effective workbook - one which busy board members (and at least one executive director I know) seem to love. This workbook will be useful for anyone putting together any group of people to accomplish a task (yes, it works for committees too).

I loved the section asking three questions about criteria on who you want to serve: must have's, wouldn't it be nice to have's and the never in a million years category.

The workbook is fun to use (great conversation starter) and wastes no time. It's built for the real world - practical, effective - and indispensible. I may have to order another because it's so difficult to get back my copy when I lend it to
someone (which I often do)!

What a joy to spend money on a product which has such a tremendous return-on-investment. I haven't implemented every
chapter as yet, but I plan to - and can't wait to see the results!

When a book aims to be a practical and immediately useful workbook, I am a particularly tough customer -- especially with books dealing with any aspect of the all-important nonprofit board.

A truly useful book is one that is willing to guide us along a straight, down-to-earth path, even if that means debunking such entrenched dogma as "recruit board members for their wealth" and "let the CEO recruit the board." Hildy Gottlieb has not only written such a book, she has tackled one of the most neglected areas in today's nonprofit world: board recruitment. Bravo!

Gottlieb starts with a simple premise -- that the recruitment process is the oft-neglected key to building a powerful and dynamic board. She challenges us to "[t]hink of the worst board member [we've] ever known, and remember that someone actually recruited him." Hmm.

Look. I'm busy. You're busy. This workbook wastes no time, thankfully. It establishes the five-step process and efficiently marches through each one:

Step 1: Establishing Qualifications
Step 2: Board Member Job Description
Step 3: Identifying Prospects
Step 4: Application Process
Step 5: Preparing the New Board Member to Govern

The book gets us to work with pencil and paper by providing a worksheet to brainstorm the characteristics that board members must have. I like that. It is, after all, a WORKbook. But we're not left without guidance; Gottlieb gets us started with examples such as "[w]illingness to commit time for board meetings, committee meetings, planning sessions, special events," and "[w]illingness AND ability to add their expertise, time, resources when the need arises -- not already committed."

Before you say "duh, why do I need a book to tell me that?" it's amazing how many boards are populated by individuals who don't show up, or, when they do, provide little or nothing of real value, or, worse, actually work against the interests of the organization. This workbook shows how to avoid such board members and, further, how to identify and recruit the kind of board members that really move the organization forward. When it comes to board member recruitment, even the most basic points are too often overlooked, with dire consequences for the organization.

The book is not, however, a surface treatment. Gottlieb uses her considerable 10+ years as a nonprofit consultant, and that of her consulting-practice partner Demitri Petropolis, to drill down into the details when necessary. She strikes just the right balance between too little and too much. To keep things interesting, Gottlieb uses stories, checklists, forms and charts throughout.

Nor is it timid. Gottlieb debunks plenty of entrenched dogma about the board-member recruitment process -- even the idea of recruiting a board member because of wealth. Her willingness to supplant dogma with what her experience has taught is one reason this book is an important contribution to the nonprofit sector. I intend to cite it repeatedly in CharityChannel.com discussions whenever I see tired old dogma being asserted when what we need are experienced practitioners to tell it like it is. Gottlieb tells it like it is, fearlessly.

Priced as it is, there is no reason why this workbook should not be in the hands of every board or staff member who is responsible for recruiting. In fact, I'm going to make a gift of several copies to some of my nonprofit clients.