Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits
By Leslie R. Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant [more]
The Book of the Month: Bouncing around Kenyan roads in the back of a van was not the best place to read this book but I was too engaged to put it down (and was highlighting it even as we bounced!) Crutchfield, a veteran Ashoka executive and Grant, advisor to Stanford's Center for Social Innovation, capture specific strategies that apply to successful social businesses by studying the "best of the best." Their methods are unique, their findings are surprising - to them and to us - and their definition of "leverage" is right on. As with most social business books I've read so far, it gets a little intellectual at times, but if you are engaged meaningfully, or considering it, Forces for Good is a must read.
A favorite quote: ".....what we found surprised us - and flew in the face of perceived wisdom in the field. Achieving large scale social change is not just about building an organization then scaling it up site by site. Many of these groups are not perfectly managed. Nor are they all well marketed. And at least half don't score well on conventional ratings, because they care more about having impact than they care about having low overhead budgets. They do what it takes to get results."
http://www.amazon.com/Forces-Good-Practices-High-Impact-Nonprofits