"Many of these nonprofits operate on a tight budget and don’t have a significant cushion in reserve. Many rely on fundraising events to provide funds for their services and those events have been canceled. Many nonprofits have employees who are at the bottom of the pay scale and cannot afford to be laid off. The fundraising capacity of these nonprofits is currently paralyzed. Ethical giving in a pandemic looks different than in normal times."Joan Harrington, the director of Social Sector Ethics[…]

 Over the past few weeks, coverage of COVID-19 (coronavirus) has dominated the news cycle. While the world has responded with swift mobilization, it is difficult to plan for the effect an outbreak could have on your community. Thankfully, infectious disease experts in Maryland and around the globe have developed advice on how to prepare for an outbreak, both personally and in the workplace. World Health Organization Free Learning Resource: an interactive, web-based, knowledge-transfer platform[…]

"On social media, images and hashtags can spread like wildfire. Posts that go viral are usually those that prompt a visceral reaction from users who feel moved to reshare and, in the best cases, take action based on a post. The scale, reach, and free nature of social media make it lucrative for nonprofits on tight budgets to leverage it as a platform for soliciting donations and raising awareness through storytelling." Anita Varma, the assistant director of Social Sector Ethics, as well as[…]

 "The vast majority of nonprofits use multiple forms of social media to raise money, find volunteers, or take some action on behalf of the organization, with the goal of advancing objectives. Is your social media program fulfilling your mission? You need to ask yourself three questions." Joan Harrington, the director of Social Sector Ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, a Replication Partner of the Standards for Excellence Institute wrote a blog on the Ethics of Social Media and[…]

This is part of a special series, brought to you by the Standards for Excellence Institute, to provide nonprofit leaders with a brief nonprofit governance and management tip weekly over the course of 2020. We hope these short tips will be helpful to you and the nonprofits you serve. If you have suggestions for future topics, please forward these to acmadsen@standardsforexcellence.org.When I started with the Standards for Excellence in April 2019, one of my first tasks was to draft the 2018[…]