NRMC’s Most Popular Risk Articles of 2024
Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes
By Rachel Sams
Lead Consultant and Editor
By Rachel Sams
This year, the risk managers in NRMC’s audience navigated competing demands to stay open to possibilities yet have all the answers. They sought a sense of calm and tools to help their nonprofit build resilience in the face of change. They worked to grow their knowledge about artificial intelligence risk. They longed to connect with other risk management professionals facing similar challenges. Amid all that, thankfully, they laughed.
Here are NRMC’s 10 most-read RISK eNews articles from 2024, based on open rates for our email newsletter. Review these articles to brush up on your skills, peek into the brains of the nonprofit risk management community and enter next year ready for new challenges.
1. The Tension Crushing the Soul of Risk Management
Risk leaders are engaged in a noble battle for the soul of the risk management discipline. The battle pits the desire to support big bets that could propel a mission forward against the familiar expectation of operational risk management: reducing the likelihood of events and circumstances that could negatively impact a nonprofit’s mission.
2. Keep Calm and Carry On Embracing Possibilities
Contrary to popular myth and misconception, the people who have accepted or been voluntold to manage risk are not professional doomsayers. To be an effective risk champion in a world of increasing volatility and uncertainty, you must stay calm, no matter what. To cultivate calm, ready yourself with a set of great questions that will help you understand and evaluate the risk in front of you.
3. Fortify Your Pillars of Resilience
Andrew Winston’s reflections on the fundamental pillars of resilience can inform nonprofits across the mission spectrum. He explains that while under stress, people and organizations should rely on three resilience pillars: 1) diversity and redundancy; 2) strong networks (i.e., friends you can trust); and 3) purpose or mission.
4. A Step-By-Step Framework to Mitigate AI Risk
We offer a step-by-step framework to evaluate AI risk and make good decisions about when and how to use AI in your nonprofit—and when not to. The framework is designed to be flexible, not prescriptive. Every organization is different, and an AI use that might benefit one nonprofit’s team, community, and clientele might feel very wrong to another nonprofit.
5. It’s Okay to Laugh About Risk Management. Really.
In their book Humor Seriously: Why Humor is a Secret Weapon in Business and Life, Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas explore the role of humor in building trust. Since the NRMC team has found that candor and vulnerability are fundamental to a healthy, risk-aware culture, we were intrigued to learn that “Shared laughter quickens the path to candor and vulnerability.”
6. Maximize Your Risk Learning
Here’s a peek at our lineup of new affiliate member webinars. We hope you’ll include one (or more!) of these on your risk learning agenda next year.
7. Three Very Human Qualities to Help You Mitigate AI Risk
If you and your team return to your most deeply human qualities over and over, you will make pretty good decisions on AI risk. And if you commit to learning the skills and practices you need to navigate AI, your pretty good decisions on AI risk will get better.
8. How to Meet Your Fellow Risk People
Nonprofit risk management is always challenging. But it doesn’t have to be lonely. One way to alleviate nonprofit risk management loneliness: enroll in NRMC’s Emerging Risk Leaders Certificate Program. This interactive virtual program serves nonprofit professionals who want to hone their risk skills and understanding.
9. Think of It This Way, That Way, Or Another Way
Monica Guzman’s book I Never Thought of It That Way skillfully tackles the issue of polarization that leads many of us to see people with whom we disagree as wrong, misguided, and worse. She offers practical ways to get out of the echo-chambers and silos we hide in.
10. Risk Managers Must Learn To See What’s Already There. Here’s How.
In Look Again: The Power of Noticing What Was Always There, Tali Sharot and Cass R. Sunstein encourage readers to seize and embrace mini breaks to regain the sensitivity to things we’ve simply stopped noticing. If you’ve ever stood up from your workstation to take a walk to clear your head, you’re familiar with the potency of a mini break.
Rachel Sams is Lead Consultant and Editor at the Nonprofit Risk Management Center. The nonprofit leaders she works with inspire and challenge her. Reach her with questions and thoughts about NRMC’s most-read articles at rachel@nonprofitrisk.org or (505) 456-4045.
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