Update on The Lean and Agile Nonprofit

A little while back I announced my intention to write a book on some techniques and ideas incorporating Lean and Agile methodologies into the not-for-profit sector. I made some good headway but it became fairly apparent to me quite quickly that maybe I didn’t have quite enough material (right now) to produce a complete book. Well as luck would have it I met up with highly experienced not-for-profit consultant, Donnie Maclurcan and he mentioned his ‘Not-for-Profit Handbook’ project that he was struggling to find the time to finish.

To cut a long story short we decided to collaborate, with me incorporating my lean and agile ideas (and several others) into the book and us co-authoring the book together.

Here’s an update on what we’ve done so far…

I joined Donnie in Ashland, Oregon and for six days we worked intensively on the book and have now managed to:

• Draft the preface and three of the book’s five substantive chapters
• Incorporate notes from Donnie’s six years of not-for-profit consultancy in Australia
• Incorporate notes from my initial ‘Lean and Agile nonprofit’ ideas
• Develop a basic website, notforprofithandbook.org, including a first draft of the tools referenced in the book at notforprofithandbook.com/toolbox/ (we’ll be updating the design, content and formatting of the site over the coming months)

A Big thanks to Stephen Couling, Francis Le, AJ Tennant, Jennifer Hinton, Sarah Reibstein and Camile Duran for assistance with editing.

At this stage we’re on track for launch by December, and look forward to getting this to you in time for the festive season!

This doesn’t mean that the ‘Lean and Agile nonprofit’ project is over, this is just the beginning!