A Step-by-Step Guide for Helping Your Nonprofit Compete Successfully
In this important resource, acclaimed nonprofit consultant, author, educator, and speaker David La Piana shows nonprofit leaders how they can increase the likelihood of organizational success by tapping into the power of competitive strategy. Play to Win demonstrates how your nonprofit can be a more effective competitor in order to enhance its chances for achieving both programmatic and financial success, and ultimately to more effectively advance its mission. Step by step, this vital resource offers the information you need to assess your organization's position in the marketplace and practical tools you can use to develop successful competitive strategies.
"This excellent book addresses the key strategic question facing any nonprofit organization—how (and when) to compete without compromising the core values and public expectations that distinguish nonprofits from other types of organizations. David La Piana is eminently qualified to provide students and professionals alike with new insights and helpful tools for navigating the treacherous landscape of nonprofit management."
—Kevin Kearns, author, Private Sector Strategies for Social Sector Success
"I applaud La Piana's recognition that it is time for nonprofits to bring the notion of competition out of the closet."
—Pat Jones, senior vice president, Affiliate Services, Easter Seals
"This book is three-dimensional: prophetic with its take on competition and collaboration, practical with many tools and resources, and provocative in its ability to describe how it can help breed real collaboration."
—Tom Reis, program director, Kellogg Foundation
"David La Piana challenges us to view constructive and ethical competition as the driving force behind innovation and real social change."
—Jim Denova, senior program officer, Benedum Foundation
"Not only do David's words jump off the page—resonating, validating, enlightening—but he provides the nonprofit leader with the tools to compete ethically and effectively in the very competitive environment facing nonprofits."
—Connie Cochran, CEO and president, Easter Seals UCP, North Carolina
About the Author
David La Piana is founder of La Piana Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in helping foundations and nonprofit organizations address the strategic issues they face. He has also been an adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco's Institute for Nonprofit Organization Management and a lecturer at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. He spent the first eighteen years of his career directly managing nonprofit organizations and speaks to nonprofit leaders as a peer.
Michaela Hayes is a senior manager with La Piana Associates. She has more than twenty years of experience in helping organizations use marketing and communications strategies to strengthen their mission advancement.
