Board Members Who Function as Pro-Bono Consultants May Not Necessarily Be The Best Way To Go I was approached a short time ago by a director of a non-profit organization who wanted to know if it was appropriate to avail herself of the pro-bono services of her board members who were lawyers, accountants, financial advisors and those with other skills that can cost the agency a lot of money during the course of a budget year. There are implications for the director, the staff and the board when pro-bono services are utilized. Prior to making the decision to use the services of these, and other professionals, who are on the board of directors, there are a number of issues that should be carefully considered. The role of a board member who is a professional in her own field and who has expertise … Continue Reading
Foundation Management Survey Reveals Governance and Expenses of Foundation Boards
The Council on Foundations released its three-part 2010 Foundation Management Series, which provides a snapshot of governance practices and administrative expenses. The findings enable foundations to benchmark their practices against peer organizations in the field, which in turn informs their efforts to strengthen leadership and governance. The Management Series, prepared in cooperation with the Foundation Center, comprises three reports: “Board Composition and Compensation,” “Administrative and Investment Expenses,” and “Fiscal Oversight.” More than 500 foundations provided information, when available, on their boards’ demographics, compensation and reimbursement practices, ethics and diversity policies, and fiscal and administrative activities through 2009, the most recent … Continue Reading
Legal Structure as a Tool for Accomplishing Your Goals
A veteran social entrepreneur provides a guide to those who are thinking through the thorny question of whether to create a nonprofit, a for-profit, or something in between. from Stanford Social Innovation Review: For Love or Lucre Social entrepreneurs who want to start a new venture quickly confront an important question: What type of legal structure should I create? Should I start a traditional nonprofit, a for-profit, or something in between? This is not a simple question to answer, and it is in some ways becoming more difficult with the proliferation of new legal structures like the B corporation that are intended to allow entrepreneurs to meet financial, social, and environmental bottom lines. I have started successful and unsuccessful for-profit and nonprofit ventures. My goal in … Continue Reading
Resource Links
If you are not familiar with our Resource Library, have a look. We developed this section as a way to assist you in connecting with others, reaching a greater audience and keeping current on the newest tends. We also encourage you to check back often as new links are added on a regular basis. Some recent additions: IRS Tax-Exempt Status Newly revised, the process for dealing with the IRS to obtain tax-exempt status (October 2010) Finding the Right Transparency Today, more than ever, the public and government agencies are demanding nonprofits to be transparent. But concerns about having a realistic picture of internal operations, where money is going, and the effectiveness of the programs are countered by concerns of overburdened staff, increased administrative costs, and an invitation to … Continue Reading
IRS Penalizes Nonprofit $170k. for Not Filing 990′s
Through much of the past twelve months, the IRS and most publications reaching the nonprofit world, continually reminded nonprofits about the implementation of new filing requirements for 990 forms. Now, in one of the first publicly disclosed cases, the IRS has fined the Steamboat Springs Colorado Education Fund Board almost $170,000 for not filing 990's for four straight years. In this - the first year where the IRS can take more severe enforcement action - hundreds of thousands of nonprofits were known to be at risk. It's likely the IRS will have a few high-profile announcements such as this, with penalties later waived, for nonprofits to realize the government really is taking a stricter approach. This from Steamboat Today, ... the IRS notified the volunteer group that it owed penalties … Continue Reading
Conference Gives Advice on Strengthening Boards
More than 200 nonprofit executives and lay leaders from the UJA-Federation of New York’s network of agencies met November 15th for "Leadership Matters: Board Practices That Enhance Impact and Excellence," a conference to discuss how board governance can be strengthened to increase organizational effectiveness. At the conference, UJA-Federation announced a new Governance and Leadership Grant program aimed at aiding agencies seeking governance help. For beneficiary agencies whose representatives attended the Leadership Matters conference, the agency is eligible for up to $10,000 for projects that include board assessment, post-assessment follow-up, building customized financial dashboards and creating a governance committee. Speakers throughout the day told stories of how their groups have … Continue Reading
The Evolution of Fiscal Sponsorship
from Nonprofit Law Blog: Fiscal Sponsorship is Maturing as a Field As the field has matured, donors, foundations, and other grantmakers have become increasingly confident in making gifts to projects through responsible fiscal sponsors. In fact, a gift to a strong fiscal sponsor ... may provide greater comfort to a funder than a gift to an independent charity without a comparable administrative infrastructure and professional team of financial and human resources experts focused on compliance. Among the best practices adopted by such fiscal sponsors: The fiscal sponsor fulfills all legal, tax and regulatory requirements of philanthropic and charitable nonprofit organizations and complies with the letter and the spirit of all laws. The fiscal sponsor manages all funds, assets and other … Continue Reading
Can You Handle the Difficult Questions
from The New York Times comes a helpful primer of communication “do’s” and “don’ts” as seen by a range of crisis managers in the professional PR priesthood. Of course, there’s anything but universal agreement on how best to handle a crisis, but one thing is universal and certain: Some plan is better than no plan. In Case of Emergency: What Not to Do Whoever suggested that all publicity is good publicity clearly never envisioned the wave of catastrophe engulfing high-profile corporations over the last year, laying waste to some of the most meticulously tailored reputations on earth. ... As conventional wisdom has it, the three companies at the center of these fiascos worsened their problems by failing to heed established protocol: When the story is bad, disclose it … Continue Reading
Working with a Fundraising Firm
Working with a Fundraising Firm: Clarifying Expectations From Both Sides During the last few weeks I have discussed the processes and content that non-profit organizations use when outsourcing their fundraising to a consulting firm. A question was raised about the expectations from both sides: what the organization’s expectations are from the fundraising firm and the fundraising firm’s expectations of how the non-profit agency will work with their principals and staff. This week’s posting explores these issues. When an organization makes the decision to outsource its financial resource development (FRD) function it often does so following an arduous and lengthy process. Often the executive director of the organization will have spent many hours interviewing perspective firms and … Continue Reading
Fostering Engagement With Board Members
from Philantopic: Connecting Your Organization’s Past, Present & Future Are your board members reticent to change? Are they pushing back at adopting a new approach to program implementation, service delivery, or staffing? Are they hesitant to embrace, and become ambassadors for, new policies? Most likely, your board members do not fully understand the proposed change - or the connection of the new initiative to the "old way" of doing things. Information alone cannot foster acceptance and engagement. Offering explanations, data, and statistics does not necessarily convert information into true understanding. Your board members can, however, be respectfully guided toward understanding and embracing what seems like change. Provide time and space for them to explore your organization's … Continue Reading
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