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[…]

 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.It’s an election year and it’s important for nonprofits to understand what they can and can’t do when it comes[…]

Life is like a “choose your own adventure” book.With each choice we make, our adventure changes. With one big difference. In a “choose your own adventure” book, we don’t know where the decisions will lead us (unless we look at the end). But in real life, we’re pretty good at anticipating consequences – if we think of it. It’s one of the things that makes us human. Consider – if you look backward, you can probably describe the path that led you to live where you live, work where you work, love[…]

You know who they are.They engage in sidebar conversations with other board members or even the members about what they think is wrong with the board or the executive director or the organization in general. They joined the board simply to promote themselves or their business and then come up with schemes to get the organization to buy their services or products. They ask for special favors such as upgraded airfare or free tickets to a fundraising event or free products from vendors. They[…]

When you travel from New York to London, the shortest flight is about 6 hours and 45 minutes. When you return, the shortest flight is an hour longer. Flying east, we have tailwinds helping us along. Flying west, we’re pushing against headwinds.Every time we make a plan, we’re also making assumptions. Some assumptions are simple and pretty universal – we all experience headwinds and tailwinds in flight.But other times we are making assumptions based on our own experiences, sometimes unaware of[…]

Nonprofit program evaluation refers to the process of gathering data about a service or program an organization offers to determine its effectiveness. Nonprofits that thoroughly and strategically evaluate their programs show a commitment to the communities they serve by identifying their successes and challenges. More and more charitable donors now expect to see an evaluation plan in the programs they fund. The Standards for Excellence: An Ethics and Accountability Code for the Nonprofit[…]

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