How to Save the World in Six (Not So Easy) Steps: Bringing Out the Best in Nonprofits

A must-read for anyone who loves nonprofits but worries about inefficiency, infighting, and inertia, How to Save the World in Six (Not So Easy) Steps is the definitive guide to advancing the mission effectively and mobilizing support.

The US has over 1.5 million nonprofits, which touch our lives in countless ways. The finest are inspiring, but unfortunately, too many let us down. Luckily, there’s a solution. How to Save the World in Six (Not So Easy) Steps by expert scholar and nonprofit leader David M. Schizer is the ultimate management book for nonprofit professionals, board members, and donors.

Since the goal of nonprofits is to advance their mission—not to make money—performance can be difficult to assess. Schizer explains how this fundamental challenge makes it harder to expose unwise and self-interested choices, resolve conflicts, and evolve with the times.

In response, nonprofits need to do two challenging things really well: figure out the best way to advance the mission, and then build support for it. With entertaining anecdotes from his many years leading Columbia Law School and international humanitarian organization JDC, as well as interviews with an all-star cast of nonprofit leaders, Schizer explains how to accomplish these twin goals with the “six Ps”:

• Plan: Run a rigorous planning process
• Persevere: Line up internal support
• Prioritize: Set priorities by asking three key questions
• Pivot: Test innovations
• Publicize: Share ideas and hold yourself accountable
• Partner: Raise more money by involving donors in the work

By chronicling the good, the bad, and the ugly at nonprofits and explaining how to get more out of them, this book shows how we can “save the world” together with the “six Ps.”

David M. Schizer is a twenty-five-year veteran of the nonprofit world. He became the
youngest dean in Columbia Law School's history at age thirty-five and also served as the
CEO of JDC, a humanitarian organization active in seventy countries with a $365 million
annual budget. Schizer has served on the board of a number of nonprofits and for-profit
companies, including 92NY, the Ramaz School, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Feil
Properties, and SEACOR Holdings.
 
A member of the Columbia Law School faculty since 1998, Schizer is a leading
scholar of nonprofits, tax, energy, and business law, as well as an award-winning
teacher. He has taught at Yale, Harvard, Hebrew University, University of Tokyo, and
other major universities around the world. Schizer also clerked for US Supreme Court
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Court of Appeals Judge Alex Kozinski.
Schizer has a BA, MA, and JD from Yale. He lives in New York City with his wife
and three children.