In late spring I defended my dissertation and over the summer I moved to Michigan so I could begin a tenure-track nonprofit professor job at Grand Valley State University in the School of Public, Nonprofit, and Health Administration.  Although I thoroughly enjoyed writing my dissertation, I am happy to have a social life again and read books that I didn’t have time to read before.  I still don’t have time to read some popular books that I want to read like “The Help” or Dan Brown’s not so new “Lost Symbol” but I’ll hopefully eventually get around to reading those books before I see the movies.

I read two amazing books this summer that I will be using in my classes — these two books are Darian Rodriguez Heyman’s book Nonprofit Management 101: A Complete and Practical Guide for Nonprofit Managers and Professionals,  and Dalya Massachi’s book Writing to Make A Difference.

Starting with Nonprofit Management 101–I love this book for several reasons.  First, because it is written by leading experts in the field.  A few years ago I wrote a blog post: My NP Times Top 50: The Next Generation of Nonprofit Leaders You Should Know and I feel like Darian did the same thing with his book.  He went to his vast network and he recruited the leading experts in all areas of nonprofit management to write the chapters in the Handbook — for example he turned to Kivi Miller – expert in Communications and nonprofit newsletters, Kay Sprinkle Grace–expert in Fundraising and individual giving, Pamela Davis–expert in Risk Management and Insurance.  Being a great nonprofit manager is not just about having the necessary skills sets, it is also about the networking and knowing who or where to go to for further resources. When I teach nonprofit finance, fundraising, human resources, or information technology, I want my students to know the leading experts in the field of nonprofit management and to read chapters in Nonprofit Management 101.

Another reason I like the book is because it is practical.  I have been using Josey-Bass’s Handbook of Nonprofit Management and Leadership for many years now but it is primarily theoretical, so I am pleased to add Nonprofit Management 101 to my students’ reading list.  The only critique I have about this book is some nonprofit management subjects cover more chapters  than others. For example: fundraising received 6 chapters devoted to the subject and nonprofit finance and hr both only had one chapter each devoted to those subjects.  I would have liked to have more chapter coverage on those subjects as well.

The next book I read over the summer was Writing to Make A Difference by Dalya Massachi. This book provides practical writing tips and writing exercises for nonprofit employees at ALL levels of an organization. I WISH this book was around when I started working in the nonprofit sector.  I’ve worked very hard over the years to improve my writing skills and I am thankful that Dalya’s practical book will strengthen the quality of written work in the nonprofit sector.

I apologize to Darian and Dalya its taken me so long to write these book reviews!!