The Nonprofit Roundtable’s annual meeting was held on June 10, 2009. During the meeting, members voted on the best "Big Ideas" to revitalize and improve the nonprofit industry. The full list of Big Ideas for Nonprofits contains over 40 items. Gelman, Rosenberg & Freedman, CPAs awarded $1,000 for each of the four Big Ideas chosen. The winners are below.

Fair Chance: Partner With Universities - Jeff Cooper

Create sector-wide organized partnerships with area colleges/universities. While many local organizations have strong relationships with an individual university/cluster of schools, there would be tremendous leverage if the sector as a collective voice worked with college leaders to develop standard curriculum, including a community service component, across all campuses.  This course could be a freshman requirement, planting the seed for continued learning and direct involvement.  Recognizing there will be obstacles, the benefits are immeasurable:   short –term, college students provide free intellectual capital/human resources; and more importantly, long term, college campuses are an ideal space to inspire a culture of public service.

Higher Achievement: Establish a Board Chairs' Table - Richard Tagle

We need a forum for board chairs to come together as leaders, visionaries and change movers. Board chairs hold a unique position in our sector: they balance the relationship between the executive leadership and the board.  Yet, there are very few avenues when board chairs can get together and discuss strategic and administrative issues that can help improve the state of our sector. Board chairs are powerful people -- let us translate that power into something that can make governments listen, funders support, and CEOs and Executive Directors benefit from.

Higher Achievement: Measuring Efficiency and Effectiveness - Richard Tagle

Many nonprofits have difficulty measuring their effectiveness, efficiency and impact. Often, there is a lack of evaluation and analytical capacity within staff - and organizations rely on volunteer evaluators or third-party contracts to do this work. If research firms can get together, funded by foundations, and help non profits create or enhance their theory of change, logic models, and measures of effectiveness and efficiency, we would be able to monitor our work periodically, communicate with funders more effectively about our impact, and identify ways to improve our practice. Not only will we, as a sector, be known for our passion for our mission but also for our ability to use data to advance our work and solve the problems we were established to address in the first place.

Samaritan Inns: Business-Nonprofit Co-op Program - Larry Huff

Create a Co-op Program between the Greater Washington business and nonprofit communities in which talent is shared in a well-defined program between participating business and nonprofit organizations. The objectives would be: sector strengthening through awareness cultivation and critical resource infusion; career enhancement among participating individuals from business; knowledge transfer between the business and non-profit communities; and, overall community development. Participating non-profits would identify entry/mid/senior level positions (mission and/or mission support) that would accommodate a 6 month assignment. Participating businesses would identify candidates who meet the following criteria: interest in non-profits; job classifications that match specific non-profit needs; and, ability to exit and re-enter after 6 months. Participating businesses would continue to pay salaries of their staff while on co-op assignments.