Michael Hickey
Michael Hickey serves as vice president of development for the Fund for Public Schools. He writes the Man-About-Town blog.
Can Nonprofit Leaders Also Be Tech Innovators?
You may have seen my prior post on why the nonprofit sector is so tech averse. If you haven't...
Do Good Techies Make Good Neighbors?
Everybody knows that if you want to restore integrity to your downtown business corridor or your local industrial park, if you want to create jobs and point your community toward the future of the workforce, or if you want to capture the hearts and minds of DIY makers and social entrepreneurs, you'd better have a […]
#OMG: Is the #NPO Sector Tech Averse?
I was speaking with a friend of mine who works at a very large nonprofit organization (very large as in over $100 million in annual revenues). They serve thousands of clients every year with job development, alcohol and other drug abuse treatment, affordable housing, psychological counseling and a variety of other supports. As a result […]
The New Dawn of the Nonprofit Merger
It used to be that the idea of one nonprofit taking over another was simply anathema. Nonprofits didn’t, you know, do that to one another. Mergers and acquisitions were the territory of national banks, energy companies and pharmaceutical giants with oversized ambitions and possibly malevolent intent. Nonprofits weren’t motivated by “creating efficiencies,” particularly at the […]
Social Impact Investment and the Failure of Imagination
Domestic social impact investment is stuck. Each year a few deals trickle through, but despite the potential and promise, impact investments in the United...
Are You TED Talk Ready? The Importance of Conceptual Capital
In the callow youth of the nonprofit sector, you needed two kinds of capital: (1) financial capital, because money does,...
Let’s Turn this Old Barn into a Theater…Part III
Taking on a “fixer upper” means taking on the unexpected. If you are a cultural organization seeking a home,...
Let’s Turn this Old Barn into a Theater…Part II
Moving into a newly adapted space usually entails a leap in operations—not a slow, steady climb.
Let’s Turn This Old Barn into a Theater!
For many cultural organizations, buying a fixer-upper is a good strategy for acquiring a home at a reasonable price...
Stuck in the Middle
What do community development intermediaries do these days, and why do we need them?
Part II: What If Someone Gave You $5M, Then Asked for It Back?
When was the last time you sat down with your financial manager and the actually considered the various tranches of capital you would need?
Part I: What If Someone Gave You $5M, Then Asked for It Back?
There are wealthy people and institutions out there in the world right now who are willing to give your nonprofit a lot of money. As a matter of fact, that number appears to be growing.
The (In)Efficiencies of Scale
ArtsBlog (the blog of Americans for the Arts) recently hosted a forum called: “So, Does Size Matter?” The short answer is hell yes it...
Report Back: NY Grantmakers in the Arts “Creative Placemaking” Panel
Your Man About Town’s middle name is Moderation, Dear Reader; and although it is a somewhat awkward locution when making...
Disaster and Recovery – Part II
Shortly after hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the Gulf Coast, I was dispatched to New Orleans by the corporate foundation...
Disaster and Recovery
Dear Reader,
I’m writing to you from Man About Town’s Brooklyn redoubt – where we have been spared from the very worst of hurricane Sandy....
The Art$, Part III: Some Quick Fixes
In my earlier posts on this subject, dear reader, I first endeavored to put a finer point on the more...
The Art$, Part II
In my most recent post we started a conversation about some of the differences between very large cultural organizations and,...
The Art$
I was invited recently by the Municipal Art Society to do a research project called “Who Pays for the Arts.”...
Blurring the Lines Between For-Profit and Nonprofit
In my last blog post I spent a good chunk of time talking about the trend toward “complexification” in the...