We expect a lot from our board members – time, money, connections, influence, talents, just to name a few.  During your board recruitment, you probably spent a lot of time figuring out what each person can contribute.  While we expect that our compelling mission should be enough to keep them motivated and contributing their maximum potential, what we fail to remember is that each one comes to us with a particular need. Some like the opportunity to achieve something great and to be recognized for[…]

Anyone who works with volunteers realizes that their contributions of time and energy are anything but free! Recruiting, screening, training, and supervising volunteers take a substantial amount of time and effort. Appropriate management of volunteers is essential. Volunteer policies help with volunteer management by guiding, directing, and clarifying an organization’s relations with its volunteers.Volunteer policies also communicate to employees that volunteers should be taken seriously. Like[…]

What resolutions have you made to give your nonprofit a fresh start in 2009? Maintaining a well-functioning, motivated board is probably somewhere near the top. Absent, unmotivated board members, who fail to participate in governing the organization, could be keeping you from doing this.Addressing noncompliant board members can be a challenge. It is difficult to reprimand veteran board members or ask them to step down. The Standards for Excellence® recommends that boards put certain practices[…]

As the economy forces us to face leaner times,  now is a good time to tighten your nonprofit’s purchasing practices and policies.  A good purchasing policy serves as a tool for maximizing available resources of funds, personnel, and time.Now pause.  Pull your policy off the shelf.  Dust it off if you need to.  Read it carefully to make sure that gives clear guidelines on how purchases should be handled in your organization.  For example, does your policy cover the research and selection of[…]

If you are like me, January is the time to be sure that all of those less than perfect holiday presents have a good home.  Whether it’s the fuschia mock turtleneck or the fish shaped salt and pepper shakers, I like to be sure that all of my holiday presents are properly acknowledged and put away (or given away) before the start of the year. Many nonprofit development offices have a similar task before them, not only at the end of the busy holiday season, but throughout the year.  In fact, if you[…]

It is often said that baking is a science because there is little room for improvisation.  Just a little more flour and too much mixing could turn a fluffy cake into a loaf of bread.  However, in cooking, there is more room for error.  Creating a board of directors is both art and science. A great board will require a specific mix of “ingredients” that must be carefully calculated to ensure the desired result. However, no one recipe will fit all organizations.Three of the essential ingredients[…]

What did we ever do before spell check?  Remember the days when we all had dictionaries at our desks so that we could be sure that our letters included the most appropriate words, spelled and used correctly?  In today’s world, we tend to let our computers autocorrect our mistakes and move on from there.  While auto correct catches a lot of mistakes like spelling and verb tense, our word processing program will surely not correct inaccuracies in our writing.  For these issues, we must continue to[…]

The marketing director of your nonprofit outsources all of your printing jobs to her brother-in-law’s printing company.  In return, he gives her field-level season tickets to the Yankees’ game.  A board member convinces your nonprofit to purchase a building in an “up and coming” neighborhood.  He fails to mention that his company is the principle developer of that neighborhood. Sweetheart deals... influence-peddling... using your employers’ property for personal gain.  How does one avoid it[…]