Category: Uncategorized

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 are like many development staff people, you need to be constantly vigilant in determining whether or not your organization should even ACCEPT a gift in the first place.  Some gifts that may show up at your organization’s front door might actually cause your organization more harm than good—and these gifts should be refused.  As the Standards for Excellence: An Ethics and Accountability Code for the Nonprofit Sector® states, “An organization should have policies in place to govern the acceptance and disposition of charitable gifts that are received in the course of its regular fundraising activities. These policies should include procedures to determine any limits on individuals or entities from which the organization will accept a gift, the purposes for which donations will be accepted, the type of property which will be accepted, and whether to accept an unusual or unanticipated gift in light of the organization’s mission and organizational capacity.” You will also want to be sure that your board has formally reviewed and approved the policy.

Did you know?  Our educational resource packet, “Fundraising Practices” includes model gift acceptance and fundraising policies. The packet is free and available to Standards for Excellence Institute® members.  It is available through the members only section of our website.  Hard copies are also available upon request.

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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 for a well-composed board are personally committed people, people who possess the specific skills needed to accomplish the mission, and people who reflect the diversity of the community served.  Having a board full of personally committed people, who cannot fundraise, follow-through, understand financials, or strategize, will not make for an effective board.  Skillful people with access to resources who do not attend board meetings cannot fulfill their legal responsibilities as board members. And a board that lacks the ethnic, geographical, or gender diversity of the community served by the organization, can hinder the board’s ability to make decisions in the best interest of that community. These three ingredients are essential to all nonprofit boards!  Paying attention to this careful balance in the board room will produce great results.

Did you know?  Our educational resource packet, “Board Composition” includes a board composition analysis tool to help you visually map the skills and diversity of your board.  Use it to identify gaps that you need to fill. The packet is free and available to Standards for Excellence Institute® members.  It is available through the members only section of the website.  Hard copies are also available upon request.

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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 hold ultimate responsibility.  For instance, we certainly want to do all that we can to avoid appearing foolish by transposing a set of numbers or forgetting a decimal point.  We also want to do all that we can to avoid statements that are misleading or patently incorrect.

As the Standards for Excellence: An Ethics and Accountability Code for the Nonprofit Sector® states, “Nonprofits should assure that any educational information provided to the media or distributed to the public is factually accurate and provides sufficient contextual information to be understood.”  There are so many ways to be sure that we meet this particular standard.  One practical first step might be to institute a checklist for items to check on before any written document is released to the public.  Another step to consider is to have a second, or third, or fourth set of eyes reviewing all written reports before their release.

Did you know the Standards for Excellence® program’s educational resource packet “Nonprofits Efforts to Educate the Public” includes a publications checklist that you can employ in your own work to do you part to proofread and double check your documents? The packet is free and available to Standards for Excellence Institute members.  It is available through the members only section of our website.  Hard copies are also available upon request.

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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 all?

Your best line of defense is a well-crafted, conflict of interest policy that defines conflicts of interest and explains how board members, employees and volunteers, should disclose those interests.  Having board members, employees, and volunteers who have significant decision-making authority sign the conflict of interest policy when they first engage with your organization shows that you take this issue seriously.  Making sure that employees, board members, and volunteers disclose their conflicts of interest in writing on an annual basis reminds everyone to do the right thing.

Did you know the Standards for Excellence® program’s educational resource packet “Conflict of Interest” includes a step-by-step guide to creating your conflict of interest policy and annual disclosure statement?  The packet is free and available to Standards for Excellence Institute® members.  It is available through the members only section of the website.  Hard copies are also available upon request.

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