Five Good Ideas
Five Good Ideas is a lunch-and-learn program where industry or issue experts discuss powerful yet practical ideas on key management issues facing non-profit organizations. The sessions are most useful for management staff and board members at small and mid-sized non-profits.
Each expert presents five practical ideas and explores with the audience how these ideas can be translated into action. During each session, participants organize into small groups and continue the discussion to generate the best and most relevant of all ideas.
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Next Session
Opening Our Doors to Leaders: Community Engagement 101
More and more non-profit organizations are recognizing the importance of engaging the communities they serve in a meaningful way. But what exactly is meaningful community engagement? What are some of the ways in which your organization can do this? What are some first steps for you to begin the process of changing the message of “service users” and “clients” to people feeling that they are “community members” and active participants. How can you embed this approach in all aspects of your organization, programming and staff? This session will address these and other questions as Deena Ladd shares her experience and ideas on building community participation in your organizations.
Upcoming Sessions
Mapping Progress, with a Purpose
Measuring our progress in achieving our goals and fulfilling our missions is more important than ever. In a world of economic volatility, government constraint and increasing transparency, funders and their grantees need more effective ways to demonstrate their individual and collective impact to a broadening array of interested stakeholders. Blair Dimock will share the steps they have taken at the Ontario Trillium Foundation has taken to re-invent how they measure the impact of their granting, what they measure, and why. Through a focus on balancing accountability with an action learning agenda, using mixed measurement methods, increasing engagement with grantees, staff and volunteers, and experimentation, you, too can improve how you map your progress towards achieving your organization’s mission.
Five Good Ideas about Policy
The purpose of policy work is to improve the quality of life for all citizens. As part of that overall goal, it seeks to reduce poverty and inequality, and to promote the inclusion of individuals who typically are underrepresented in the social, cultural, political and economic life of a community – and of a nation. Policy work generally seeks to shift the way in which resources and opportunities are distributed in a society. This change could involve, for example, the provision of higher benefits or the reduction of income taxes. Policy work may also enable access to opportunities, notably advanced education or paid employment. It may build capabilities, such as literacy or skills development, to promote self-sufficiency in the long term. All policy work shares a common goal: to effect some form of change deemed to be in the public interest. But policy efforts can also affect the people who do this work. Each attempt at reform comes with lessons that can be applied not only to future policy initiatives but also as guidance to the non-profit world.
Five Good Ideas – THE BOOK!
Coach House Books has published Five Good Ideas: Practical Strategies for Non-Profit Success. Featuring a collection of the best ideas from our Five Good Ideas sessions, we’re sure that you’ll find the book a handy quick-reference guide.
Buy your copy now from
We are tweeting about Five Good Ideas leading up to, at and after the book launch, and at every session. Follow our and other tweets about Five Good Ideas (Twitter hashtag #5GI)!
In the media
- CBC Radio Metro Morning: Reaching Potential
- Toronto Star: Non-profits tap wellspring of fresh thinking