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[…]

Moving Ahead with Board Orientation?In this time when we are all struggling with so many issues related to the pandemic, some of the more “regular” issues (tasks that we typically address annually as part of the regular flow of business) also surface as unexpected challenges.  We know that for many nonprofits, the spring is the time when important onboarding takes place for incoming board members.  Can this occur in the midst of the pandemic with stay-at-home orders and no in-person meetings? […]

In the midst of the current coronavirus pandemic, many nonprofits are faced with tough choices related to raising the necessary resources to meet their missions and support the great needs of the communities they serve. The Standards for Excellence: An Ethics and Accountability Code for the Nonprofit Sector provides guidance for how organizations should act when planning resource development and states, “An organization’s resource development program should be maintained on a foundation of[…]

Nonprofit leaders around the country are working hard to continue to meet their important community missions in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis. With this in mind, we’ve been engaged in analysis around which aspects of the Standards for Excellence program could play a role in helping prepare a nonprofit for the turbulent and uncertain times that we are all facing. We’ve heard from nonprofit leaders that they are grateful that the Standards for Excellence program helped them to develop policies,[…]

This has been an exceedingly stressful time for people, a time of uncertainty and mixed messages and having to adapt to a new style of operations. For some, this pandemic has meant that operations have ceased; but, for many, your programs continue.Your nonprofit's revenue may be significantly lower for the next few months now that physical interaction is a safety hazard, and stay-at-home orders are in effect in many states. Nonprofit fundraisers and programming cannot proceed as anticipated, and[…]

"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[…]

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has published interim guidance for businesses and employers to reduce the spread of COVID-19 by managing risks of potential exposure. One measure the CDC is recommending is social distancing (remaining out of congregate settings, avoiding mass gatherings, and maintaining distance from others when possible). However, nonprofit boards must continue to govern, and meetings may be even more critical for direct service providers during these difficult times.  The[…]