The Gilbert Center offers consulting services, workshops, publications, applied research, and public speaking to grantmakers, nonprofits, and the agencies that serve them, with a focus on strategic communication and management systems. We work collaboratively to help build both organizational and community learning with a range of organizations and a great many colleagues.
We have an ongoing interest in the transformative role of new technology, but our first emphasis is on people and their relationships. We count some of the largest funders in the world among our clients along with some of the most cutting edge organizations.
There are a few different ways to learn more about us and what we offer. See the full list of services below, or browse our services by program area. Learn a little about our background in the About Us section, and also feel free to Contact Us if you can't find the answers to your questions here on the website.
You may also contact us and tell us more about your organization. We are, to put it bluntly, a very soft sell agency. We believe in dialogue and in pointing you to the best possible resources that will help you face your opportunities and challenges.
21st Century Collaboration Resources (publication) - This report contains five feature articles on the cutting edge of challenges and opportunities facing organizations who are considering collaboration in the modern, networked society. It compiles 91 of the best collaboration resources from Nonprofit Online News, from 2001 to early 2005, organized into 19 categories, including Social Software, Online Strategies, Knowledge Management, and Unifying Issues.
21st Century Fundraising Resources, 2nd Edition (publication) - We're very pleased to be offering this second edition of 21st Century Fundraising Resources. It's been substantially expanded to contain six feature articles, five of those new, and 105 resources, which are divided into 9 categories, including Community, Email, Design, Principles, and Websites, and are meant to be perused in any order you like.
Breakthroughs in Organizational Comunication (workshop) - This is a predecessor course to our intensive workshop on Strategic Communication, in which we facilitate a team of yours to actually plan major breakthroughs for your organization. But if you want an overview of where those breakthroughs are likely to come from, you can explore that in this survey workshop.
Communication Centered Technology Planning (publication) - This report presents a Guide to Communication Centered Technology Planning. It includes a new ten page article, and compiles 122 of the best communication centered technology planning resources from Nonprofit Online News, Spring of 2001 - Summer of 2004, organized into fourteen categories, including: Communication & Collaboration, Communities & Networks, Knowledge Management, Stakeholders and Systems Thinking.
Communication Centered Technology Planing (workshop) - Enormous amounts of irreplaceable time and money has been spent and is continuing to be spent on technology project(s) that, in the end, are often only marginally successful, if they can claim success at all. The underlying causes of this can be found in flaws in the conventional technology planning processes of nonprofit organizations.
Communication Audits (consulting) - Many organizations want to explore the opportunities for improving their communication systems, but are not yet ready to engage the process fully. We recommend that you consider one of our Communication Audits. Our basic package includes: a Communication Objectives Assessment, a Web Site Evaluation, an Email Communication Evaluation, and an Online Readiness Assessment.
Consulting (program area) - We offer consultation in the areas of Communication Planning, Communication Research, Email Strategies, Evaluation, Knowledge Management, Management Systems, Online Marketing, Organizational Learning, Organizational Transitions, Technology Planning, and Technology Requirements .
Email Newsletter Marketing (workshop) - The core practice of the "Email Savvy" organization is the successful use of an email newsletter. Blasting email out the door is easy, but creating newsletters that actually work, in the context of a flow of communication that genuinely engages people, that can actually be much harder. It's become especially true in today's world of spam-inundated mailboxes. This series will help you develop and maintain a newsletter marketing model that avoids common pitfalls, implements best practices, and moves you in the direction of continual improvement of your systems for engaging your stakeholders.
Frictionless Fundraising (workshop) - The Internet has the potential to bring the art and science of fundraising back into balance, restore the confidence and trust of donors, and deeply enhance the relationships our organizations have with our stakeholders. Or it can be yet another way to alienate our supporters and disempower our fundraising professionals. The Frictionless Fundraising workshop will help you avoid the easy pitfalls and set forth on a path of success.
The Guide to Nonprofit Email: Essential Strategies, Practices, and Resources (publication) - We're very pleased to be offering this extensive new publication to you. It contains thirteen feature articles, seven Quicksheets, and 111 resources, which are divided into seventeen categories, including Communication Strategy, Email Newsletters, Fundraising, Knowledge Management, and Web Related Issues, and are meant to be perused in any order you like.
Knowledge Management (consulting) - Knowledge Management is a term of art usually referring to a set of practices designed to improve the capture, retention, and transfer of both explicit and tacit knowledge within an organization. Very often, it has a strong technological component.
LifeWork Counseling (consulting) - Do you need career related counseling and development? Individual leadership or vision development? You might want to consider one on one sessions with Michael Gilbert. Michael sets aside a few hours each week for such sessions. He's interested in helping individuals with genuinely transformative work. In some cases that will mean working with leaders who are working to transform both themselves and their organizations. In some cases that will mean working with individuals who, while not in a leadership position, are tackling big issues related to social and personal change.
Luncheons 2001 - 2002 (speaking) - Michael Gilbert spoke on the subject of Nonprofit Technology Leadership: Setting an Agenda for Organizational Effectiveness at a series of luncheons we hosted between May 2001 and March 2002.
Making Peace with Time (workshop) - Our culture teaches us that time is an enemy. There is never enough time to get everything done. We are pressured by time. We begin to hate the very idea of time and yet we have a peaceful ideal that we keep hoping for. Time terrorizes us and yet we cannot escape. This is particularly true for those of us who are dedicating our lives to social change and service.
The Modern Nonprofit Web Site: Strategies, Patterns, and Tools (workshop) - We all know now that the modern nonprofit web site is not simply an online brochure, but knowing what it is not only gets us started. Maybe that will help us avoid spending our limited budgets on pretty online boondoggles, but we still need a proactive vision. We still need to know what works. These workshops will give you that answer and more.
Nonprofit Email Study (research) - The Nonprofit Email Study is a large scale examination of the role that electronic mail can play in advancing a nonprofit organization's relationship with its stakeholders, whether they are donors, volunteers, activists, clients, or others.
Nonprofit Knowledge Management (workshop) - Knowledge Management is an overused phrase with a dubious lineage, often connoting a software centric solution of some kind. But underneath the phrase is a powerful concept: that there are opportunities for learning in the new information and communication networks. This series will help you find those opportunities, keep you from taking expensive wrong turns, and give you guidance for high impact knowledge management initiatives.
Nonprofit Online News (publication) - Nonprofit Online News has been in continual publication since April 1997. It provides a commercial free stream of tightly edited, well annotated news and resources related to emerging issues in the nonprofit world, with a particular emphasis on communication and new technology. You may read the news in several forms: on the web site, in daily and weekly email editions, and in an RSS feed.
Nonprofit Technology Consulting Skills (workshop) - The field of nonprofit technology consulting has grown and evolved enormously in the last few years. One of the essential tensions in the field is the sense that technology consultants, in order to do their job responsibly, have to become communication and management consultants as well. As nonprofits get more sophisticated and the technology develops to address mission critical needs, this tension is only getting worse. These seminars will address that tension head on, by identifying appropriate roles in the consulting process and by helping technology consultants ground their work in the communication needs of the organizations they serve.
Nonprofit Technology Planning and Implementation (workshop) - The last few years of technological change have brought nonprofit leaders enormous opportunities and challenges and that pace of change shows no sign of slowing. The potential to make the same mistakes over and over continues to be an issue for many organizations. Nonprofit leaders rarely have the time for conferences or workshops outside their issue areas. These seminars on Nonprofits & Technology will provide you with solid tools and guidelines targeted at your role as a decision maker.
Online Seminars (workshops) - All of our seminars are intended for busy nonprofit staff who don't have the time to travel to a workshop, but who want to learn to apply strategic communication lessons to their work. Our packages tend to be tightly focused on a particular professional field and our workshops deliver lessons that can be immediately applied within a particular professional's field of authority. These live, online workshops are designed to teach immediate practical lessons, while still remaining grounded in clear principles.
Past Speaking Engagements (speaking) - Here you very simply find a list of Michael Gilberts past speaking engagements in reverse chronological order.
Planning and Evaluation (consulting) - We are ardent advocates of self-regulating systems. To that end, we help organizations design integrated methods of planning and evaluation. We can start by providing independent evaluations of your systems, by doing program evaluation and analysis of communication systems. In the end, we can help move your organization toward effective and sustainable business plans for your communication and management infrastructure initiatives.
Publications (program area) - As part of our organizational and community learning process, we are committed to publishing as much of our exploration, resources, questions, and answers as we can. So far, we do this in the form of some periodicals, online books, articles, and reports.
Publications for Sale (publications) - Any and all research reports we have for sale will be listed here.
Research (program area) - Using an established track record for rigorous methodology and unflinching analysis, we can get you beyond the anecdotes and stories in your field of work, and help you develop the kind of metrics that unleash creativity and innovation in your field. We are widely regarded as one of the strongest applied research organizations in the field.
Site Analyzer (research) - Nonprofit SiteAnalyzer is an online project of The Gilbert Center. Our goal is to learn more about how nonprofits are using the World Wide Web. Rather than using laborious and anecdotal observations, we've decided to learn as much as we can through automated tools.
Speaking (program area) - Michael Gilbert and his colleagues are well known for their inspirational talks. Mr. Gilbert delivered the keynote at the very first Silicon Valley Conference on Nonprofits and Technology and has been in great demand ever since.
Strategic Communication Intensive (workshop) - The Strategic Communication Intensive is a challenging and rewarding three day process that brings together all the best principles and insights of our systems approach to communication in a process focused on tangible outcomes for your organization.
Technology Planning (consulting) - Technology planning means a lot more than it used to. The communication lifeblood of organizations is resting more and more in new information and communication technology systems. Organizations cannot afford technology that does not reflect their communication needs.
Usability Testing (consulting) - After nearly a decade of leadership in the field of nonprofit technology, we have both seen and made our share of mistakes. Many of those mistakes could have been prevented with Communication Centered Planning. Most of the rest (including some of our own ventures into software development) could have been prevented with Usability Testing.
Workshops (program area) - One of the ways in which we engage with our community is by offering the lessons that we have learned in packages that are more accessible than fully negotiated consulting engagements. One important form, more involved than reading our publications, is our growing lineup of workshops.