Foreword This is a book well worth reading. When I reviewed the manuscript, its quality did not surprise. During my time as president of William & Mary, Cindy Jarboe and I worked together closely. She was one of the college’s ablest volunteer leaders. She never failed. She was conscientious, imagina- tive, and indefatigable. The intensity of her commitment inspired others. This book deserves a wide audience for many reasons. Among them is the underappreciated importance of nonprofit organizations. Consider this: in one recent year the nonprofit sector contributed $878 billion to the national economy. That approximates 5.5% of our gross domestic product. Nearly 12 million people find employment in the nonprofit sector, more than 10% of the American workforce. Nonprofits are not principally engines of economic growth. They touch every aspect of the cultural, educational, and moral life of the nation. Choose any American city or town. You will discover profound nonprofit influence everywhere: in the arts, education, the environment, health, and religion. Put simply, life without nonprofits is unimaginable. What also makes this book special is the wide-angle analytic lens Cindy uses in shaping its content. Here the reader will discover informed advice on every aspect of nonprofit endeavors, from the essentials of volunteer recruit- ment to the basis of financial literacy and to the ABCs of event planning. Nothing important has been omitted. Yet this book is much more than a well-considered “how to” manual. Cindy writes with real insight about leadership. She is a wise guide to what makes great leaders and how they may be trained and sustained. Her think- ing is relevant to leaders and leadership in any context.
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