FOUR ONE SIX CONSULTING (416co)
  • HOME
  • ABOUT
  • BOARD EVALUATION INDEX Tool
  • Boardroom Ethics Training
  • CONTACT

What's neat + noteworthy in the universe.

follow the money

3/25/2019

 
If you have tuned into any business news channel or flipped to the business sections of your favourite newspaper, you cannot ignore the pundits calling for a global recession. As a charity or a nonprofit CEO / Executive Director, what does this mean for your financial outlook for the next 3-5 years? Let's take a look at what happened to charitable giving and nonprofit funding during the Great Recession of our decade...

Pinch me.

A Stanford article in 2012 stated "At current rates of growth, according to Giving USA, it will take until 2022 to return to the level of giving recorded in 2007." 

An economic study published by Community Development Halton in 2010 had the following key findings (read the report for a full list):
  • smaller charities, arts and culture and environmental non-profits – were the most negatively impacted by decreases in their revenue in 2009;
  • Social Services and Health-care organizations were both significantly impacted by surging demand and operating costs for the services they provide

Hard Hit, a 2010 study by Social Planning Network of Ontario found:
  • Rising demand
  • Inability to meet needs
  • Deficits up, surpluses down
  • Falling revenues
  • Challenging working conditions for nonprofits and charities
Read more here.

Too big to ignore. 

The charitable sector is big in Canada.

Are you scared yet?

Revisit the past decade. What happened to your revenues? Staffing levels? How did you recover? Historical performance is not an indicator of future returns, but it's a pretty good place to start.
Build resilience into your forecasts. Know your levers. Tell your senior staff. Inform your Board of Directors.
Layer sensitivity analysis in your views. "What if..."
Keep that enterprise risk management plan handy. Do you even have one?
Partner. Merge. Acquire. Get economies of scale on your side.
Rally the troops. Talk to your funders and donors about their commitments. 
Be. Prepared.

Get in touch with us if you need a sounding board.
​
​We are here to help.

perfect circles do not exist in the universe

12/18/2018

 
Put simply, Plato's "theory of forms" asserts that everything on Earth is actually the imperfect copy of an ideal form that exists beyond our universe - unattainable. Therefore a perfect circle does not exist in reality. And by that definition, neither can the Circular Economy, but we should set our sights on the ideal.

The Circular Economy has no real definition yet.
​We just know it's not linear and it isn't Recycling 2.0

You can find excellent primers here and here. But the best one (for dummies) is here.
Unintended consequences of recycling is more consumption.
Fascinating articles on the need to reboot recycling and questioning the status quo.

Money flow.

Stakeholders over shareholders.

Leaders.

Poland and the Czech Republic rank near the top. Surprised? They are among the European countries producing the least municipal waste (per year per person).

Losers.

Canada has a very dirty secret. (updated here).

Influencers.

Finland.​

Innovators.

Turning food waste into cocktails (click... it's not what you think it is).

Enablers.

CE100 from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

Enforcers.

Ontario has recycled over 120 million tires, more than 95% of old tires, since 2009. Read more here.

'Disruption' risks leaving some behind.

We are evolving toward the Circular Economy 2.0
​Developing countries have an opportunity to widen the circle.

Fast phones meet fast fashion.

The world's population is 7.7 billion. Since the iPhone was introduced 10 years ago, more than 7 billion phones have been produced. Where did they all go?
UK MPs want to peek inside your sock drawer.

instant gratification

12/11/2018

 
We made plastics so good and now we can’t stop using them - demand for plastics wages on for the next 20 years

The unintended consequences of instant gratification

Money Flow.

$755 million in social finance funding turns Canada from loser to leader

Centennial College gets a piece of the $45 million social innovation federal gov’t pie for research (Canada)

Learning.

Innovate or die - why aren’t nonprofits allowed to fail?

Measure impact… or don’t?

Policy + Politics.

City of Saskatoon approves a new Purchasing Policy that includes social procurement criteria

Harm Reduction.

BYOS at Ikea (Bring Your Own Straw)

Latest Lit.

The Beautiful Bailout - available for pre-order

    What you'll read

    Published twice monthly, a curated collection of news and blogs from around the globe, that drive us to serve the greater good.

    Archives

    March 2019
    December 2018

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

      Tell us What you think

    Submit

Support

Contact
​
[email protected]

© COPYRIGHT 2022. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  • HOME
  • ABOUT
  • BOARD EVALUATION INDEX Tool
  • Boardroom Ethics Training
  • CONTACT