Are you ready to take your nonprofit consulting services to the next level?The Standards for Excellence Institute’s Licensed Consultant Training is an exclusive professional development initiative that gives independent consultants the knowledge, skills, and tools necessary to work with nonprofit organizations across the country interested in learning about, implementing, and becoming accredited by the Standards for Excellence Program. Applications are due July 8th for the November 2020[…]

The Standards for Excellence: An Ethics and Accountability Code for the Nonprofit Sector calls for “all organizations to incorporate diversity, equity, and inclusion into their work as part of their missions.”  Most organizations have incorporated these principles into their organizational values, visions and goals.  The killing of George Floyd at the hands of police has created untold pain and fear among Black communities but has also mobilized leaders and organizations from across the nation[…]

Nonprofits are facing tough choices during this challenging time.As we discussed in last week’s 52 Tips blog post, nonprofit board members are needed now more than ever. Organizations are stretched, and need strong support from their governing bodies. The Standards for Excellence code offers the important tenet that “Board members are in a position of trust to ensure that resources are used to carry out the mission of the organization.” Boards cannot allow a lapse in service, especially now when[…]

We are living in unprecedented and uncertain times. For many of us, the normal cycle of work and life has been turned completely upside down. Nonprofits of all sizes are wrestling with more challenging and difficult decisions than they ever have before.To weather the current situation, we must engage in our organizational best thinking, from staff and board leadership. Every resource at our disposal should be deployed to meet the challenges. Nonprofit staff members cannot and should not be[…]

Buying supplies, equipment, and mission-critical resources have always been an art as well as a science for many nonprofits. Nonprofit leaders strive to be the best stewards of their resources and work diligently to get the most for their money while having just the right amount of inventory on hand at all times.In these times, when we’re all in the midst of the pandemic, the purchasing needs have likely changed dramatically for a lot of nonprofits. For nonprofits providing around the clock care[…]

Since the Standards for Excellence program’s inception, nonprofits have received advice about how to run their board meetings, recruit new members, and avoid conflicts of interest, just to name a few of the ways we seek to strengthen boards. The Leadership section of the Standards for Excellence: An Ethics and Accountability Code for the Nonprofit Sector is a comprehensive section and includes benchmarks and best practices of the full range of board and staff leadership measures, as well as[…]

Standards for Excellence Seal Holder, The Valley Medical Center Foundation, is working hard in the Silicon Valley to meet vital community health needs for the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, O’Connor Hospital, and St. Louise Regional Hospital—check out their blog here. To our friends at the Valley Medical Center Foundation, we are proud of the amazing ways you are serving.[…]

In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, nonprofits across the country are facing challenges that none of us have ever had to ponder, let alone tackle, before. Issues related to assisting those we serve, our staff, and volunteer teams are perhaps more pronounced than ever. Along with all of the new challenges and difficulties, there are a host of vital management and operations tasks that have always been on our plates—and continue to be on the proverbial “to do list.” Certainly, issues[…]

My name is Colin Fedor, and I am an English Major at Stevenson University and Volunteer Intern with the Maryland Nonprofit Standards for Excellence Institute in the Spring of 2020. My experience as an intern with the Maryland Nonprofit has been anything but normal, but it has provided me a greater amount experience than I could have hoped for. I started working with Maryland Nonprofit in mid-January of 2020 and I couldn’t have asked for a better start. To begin with, I was provided with projects[…]

YIKES! It’s Budget Time!You are all doing incredible work, finding ways to continue to provide vital services AND maintain viability even when confronting the reality that the current fiscal year’s budget is gaining greater irrelevance under the extraordinarily ‘abnormal’ operating conditions of the COVID-19 response. The current reality of what predictable expenses and revenue are, is not only different, but wholly unimagined.So then, what does a healthy & realistic budget process look like[…]