About the webinar... 

Improving philanthropy by better understanding mission-driven leaders

This presentation will focus on my most important insights into nonprofit and philanthropic leadership, and social entrepreneurship, that are relevant to being an effective changemaker in today's world while minimizing the risks of burnout or disillusionment.   It will help attendees to put themselves in the shoes of the nonprofit leaders that philanthropists seek to help.  The presenter will draw from his two recent books on nonprofit leadership and focus on key lessons and insights related to fund-raising (relevant to both the giver and the receiver), nonprofit governance, crisis management, team development, and self-care.   In the context of fund-raising, I will share some of the practices used by donors I worked with that were most supportive and helpful to me in causing change.

This presentation will:

1. Give participants new insights about what is required to cause positive social change through partnering effectively with nonprofits
2. Recast fund-raising and philanthropy as a win-win partnership rather than a transaction.
3. Describe self-care techniques that can be applied by anyone, especially nonprofit leaders and donors, especially during a time of national and organizational crisis.  
   

About the presenter...

Alex Counts Alex Counts is the author of Changing the World Without Losing Your Mind: Leadership Lessons from Three Decades of Social Entrepreneurship (Rivertowns Books, 2019), an independent consultant to nonprofit organizations (including the India Philanthropy Alliance), and an affiliated faculty of the Do Good Institute at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy. In 1997 he established Grameen Foundation with the support of Nobel laureate Dr. Muhammad Yunus and became its President and CEO. He did so after having worked in microfinance and poverty reduction for 10 years, mostly spent living in rural Bangladesh. He ran the organization for its first 18 years, and remains a friend and volunteer of Grameen Foundation. Counts also wrote Small Loans, Big Dreams: How Nobel Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus and Microfinance Are Changing the World (Wiley, 2008) and When In Doubt, Ask for More (Rivertowns Books, 2020). He has been published in The Washington Post, the Stanford Social Innovation Review, and The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Counts was a founding member of the Advisory Council of the Center for Financial Inclusion, and served for 12 years before becoming an member emeritus in May 2020.  He served as the chairman of Fonkoze USA.  He was a founding member of and served as co-chair of the Microfinance CEO Working Group (which today is the Partnership for Responsible Financial Inclusion). He is a Court Appointed Special Advocate for foster children in the state of Maryland.  His blog covers topics related to excellence in nonprofit management and beyond.