Critical Conversations for Nonprofits: When To Stay Open & When To Close Your Doors

One of the most difficult decisions to make for an Executive Director (ED), Chief Executive Officer (CEO), for a President of a Board of Directors, or for the Board of Directors itself, is whether to close a non-profit and go out of business. In some cases, shutting down permanently is not the only option. Before making any decision though it is important and prudent to have crucial conversations within your organization. As a result of this session, participants will be able to:

• Understand what conversations are crucial in deciding whether to stay open or close
• Understand the importance of consensus, getting to consensus and decision-making
• Review nonprofit lifecycles and determine course of action if your organization is moving between lifecycle stages
• Be equipped with the appropriate questions to ask to test your organization’s resiliency in a crisis

*Part of our Critical Conversations Series;

• When To Stay Open & When To Close July 30th
• Merging with a Nonprofit August 12th
• Dissolution of a Nonprofit August 25th

Costs: Nonprofit Network Members $25
  ~Guests of Members $15

Future Members $40.00 
~Additional non-member from same organization $30

Facilitators - 

Katena Cain, PhD

Nonprofit Management Consultant

Katena is a Management Consultant skilled at helping diverse groups and communities think creatively and collaboratively together. She empowers people to translate conflict and differences into creative breakthrough. Her passion is creating environments where individuals, teams, and organizations can transform and shift old ways of doing things. 

Katena specializes in leadership and team development, board governance, strategic planning and communication. She is skilled in Cognitive Coaching, is a certified Bridges Out of Poverty trainer, and is a co-creator of a statewide Diversity, Inclusion and Equity toolkit. Her ongoing clients represent a broad range of groups, including police departments, local municipalities, schools, religious institutions, social services and human services. 

Katena holds a Bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University, a Master’s degree in Organizational Management from Spring Arbor University, and a PhD in Organizational Leadership at Grand Canyon University.

Laura Fuller
Capacity Builder

Laura began her career as an AmeriCorps VISTA member in 1999 and has worked to make the world a friendlier place ever since. During her AmeriCorps years, she learned the basics of grant writing, project management, and volunteer recruitment, skills that she has sharpened in the years since.

Much of Laura’s career has been spent working for Extension in all programs in various states helping farmers increase the productivity of their farms and improve their living standards. She spent four years working to educate immigrants and refugees about healthy food choices and finances through SNAP programs.  She has been a 4-H Educator with a program serving more than 2000 urban youth and managing the more than 500 volunteers who mentored them. As a Community and Economic Development Educator, Laura’s projects included teaching seminars on grant writing, working with communities to determine the impacts of oil and gas drilling on their economics and schools, and with prisons to implement entrepreneur education so that prisoners would be able to create their own opportunities upon release.  Most recently, Laura was a Regional Director for Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Western Region where she managed the teams supporting finance, HR, and IT for nine counties as well as a residential 4-H Summer Camp and her own staff of 21 direct reports.

For eight years, Laura served our country as an Ombudsman for the US Navy Reserve, supporting the Great Lakes chain of command beginning in 2003.  During this time, she oversaw the mobilization of more than 500 sailors to Iraq and lent a listening ear to their dependents, a service that led directly to her research interests.

Laura holds a BA in Women’s Studies with an honors thesis on domestic violence in military families and a MS in Sociology with a focus on Community Development.

What is a Virtual Workshop?

NN will present Virtual Workshops via Zoom or GoToMeeting.  They will be a live interactive webinar presented by one or more of our facilitators. We will be replicating our in-person facilitation style and the workshop will be engaging and require dialogue. We will provide you a login link and a copy of the presentation ahead of time via email. You will also be emailed all coordinating documents in order to follow along, ask questions and provide feedback. 

You will need access to a Computer, notebook, or tablet. If you do not have a microphone or sound on your PC or tablet  you can also dial-in by phone.

How to join a Zoom meeting, click HERE