It's About Time

It’s about time, y’all. It’s time to Create a New Operational Excellence (CANOE) among nonprofits across the country and elevate anti-oppressive, liberatory approaches to nonprofit operations.

And it’s about time to honor and promote the work of nonprofit ops gurus wearing so many hats - HR, IT, and financial management being among them - who truly are the unsung heroes of successful nonprofits. This work is too often dismissed and devalued, leading to a lack of operations resources, trainings, and knowledge sharing. It’s about time for nonprofit ops professionals to come together, lift up our work, and lean into collaboration, community building, and learning.

And that’s why the CANOE team has been working since our inception on creating a community of practice or a dedicated virtual space for like-minded nonprofit operations professionals to elevate our field, as well as connect and learn from each other. Our aim is to create a venue for asking and answering questions, challenging traditional approaches, sharing best practices, and filling in the knowledge gaps most operations professionals experience. Perhaps even more importantly, we aim to create a safe space where ops gurus can build bridges, camaraderie and a sense of belonging among peers at nonprofit orgs across the country.

After months of development, we are beyond thrilled to announce the soft launch of ElevateOps, our vibrant community of practice supported by the Slack platform. Our ideal participants in this community are folks who not only want to learn best practices in our field, but who also are eager to build relationships and collective power that challenges the status quo and reinvents traditional approaches to our work. We expect all members of ElevateOps to be committed to dismantling racism and other systems of oppression, consistently evaluating systemic inequities, and looking for new paths of opportunity for all.

Does this resonate with you as a nonprofit operations professional? Did you just say to yourself, “They’ve read my mind,” “This sounds amazing!” or “How do I sign up?” Then, we want to hear from you.

Applications are now open to be a part of our burgeoning ElevateOps community, and you’re invited to apply. We’ll start with a soft launch for 1 month with just 20 initial applicants, then we’ll expand to a broader group. We can’t wait to get to know you, learn from you and grow with you and hope that you’re as excited about ElevateOps as we are!