Jul 19th, 2013 Corporate Social Responsibility, Employee Engagement, Leadership
Understanding the Spectrum of Skills-Based Volunteering
By Lindsay Firestone, Director of Advisory Services, Taproot Foundation This is an installment of Taproot's Back to Basics series, focusing on the helpful building blocks for developing a successful corporate pro bono program. Over the past several years there has been tremendous growth in corporate pro bono service. From the growth of new programs, to the piloting of new models,...
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Jun 10th, 2013 All, Employee Engagement, Leadership, Programs, Social Impact
Meet Ruth: A Taproot Fellow and Top-Notch Project Manager
Ruth Van Hecke is a dedicated Allstate employee, who was granted six moths to work as a Pro Bono Fellow at Taproot. She jumped right in, used her project management expertise, and made a huge impact on Taproot and how we work. Click here to read her story.
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Mar 30th, 2012 Global, Leadership
What We Can Learn From German Leadership
Interview with Markus Hipp: Executive Director of the BMW Foundation Markus Hipp is the Executive Director of the BMW Foundation, headquartered in Germany. He began his career in philanthropy at the Robert Bosch Foundation. I recently spoke with Markus about his work and his perception of German vs. American leadership. Here's an excerpt from the interview: AARON: What’s the difference...
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Feb 22nd, 2012 Leadership
The Start-Up of You
Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn and perhaps the most admirable person in Silicon Valley, just published a new book - The Start-Up of You. It is a good read and translates many of the principles of entrepreneurship into practices that everyone can adopt. Here's a summary of the book: The Start-Up of You The career escalator is jammed at every level....
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Dec 23rd, 2011 Leadership, Programs
11 Headlines From 2011
2011 at Taproot 1. Our pro bono consultants provided our 1 millionth hour of consulting to local nonprofits - putting beyond any doubt the potential of pro bono to be scalable, reliable and high quality resource for the nonprofit sector. 2. We embraced social media with a bear hug with new regular posts on a wide range of sites (blogging...
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Dec 9th, 2011 Corporate Social Responsibility, Leadership, Social Impact, Volunteer Consulting
Ten Years Ago a Root Vegetable Was Born
Ten years ago this Sunday we launched the Taproot Foundation at the Hang Art gallery in San Francisco. It was a packed house of hundreds of nonprofit and business professionals and the energy in the room was amazing. My future wife was in the room (we had only met once and weren't dating yet). My aunt got us some great...
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Nov 30th, 2011 Leadership, Social Impact
An Interview With Aaron Hurst, Social Innovator
Investing in innovation to improve current services or to envision new ones requires a great leap of faith because there is no certainty in the outcome. Yet innovation is critical to keeping programs relevant to their target audience, and viable to the organizations that produce them. I sat down with our Founder and CEO, Aaron Hurst, who has developed a...
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Sep 21st, 2011 Leadership, Social Impact, Volunteer Consulting
How Do You Give Back?
Different perspectives on how to give back In the last two weeks, I've posted several articles digging into the many different ways individuals and organizations give back to their communities. Leading up to the 10th anniversary of 9/11, I asked two philanthropic leaders for their views on service and their work for the greater good: Tim McClimon, President of the...
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Jul 6th, 2011 Leadership, Social Impact
Hurst on HuffPo: Gap Foundation President’s Thoughts on Passion, Gen X and Service
We conducted an interview on Huffington Post with Bobbi Silten, President of Gap Foundation and Senior Vice President, Global Responsibility for Gap Inc. For the beginning of the interview click here - it continues below: What does it take to get CEOs to see the business value of philanthropy? Part of it is showing them the multiple levels of value...
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May 13th, 2011 Leadership, Nonprofit Management
Book Release: Nonprofit Management 101
At Taproot, we know better than anyone the importance of building infrastructure and capacity for nonprofits. It takes more than just a great idea or a worthy cause to run an effective organization; you also need solid management skills that bridge sectors and disciplines. That's why we're thrilled at the release of Darian Rodriguez Heyman's new book Nonprofit Management 101:...
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