Management Articles
Blended Value
We tend to divide our world into two parts: for-profit and nonprofit, and never do the two meet. Value is either economic (for-profit) or social (nonprofit). However, Jed Emerson of the Stanford Graduate School of Business has some other ideas. Enter blended value.
This hard divide is a notion that just doesn't work anymore (if it ever did). The reality is that for-profits generate social value: they create jobs, contribute taxes that help build local communities, and their products can improve people's lives. And nonprofits create economic value: they represent 7% of the national GDP (Gross Domestic Product), they create jobs, and they consume goods and services. The following article builds on this paradigm shift. Instead of thinking that we are on opposite sides of a table, imagine the implications of strategic partnerships (with mutual value exchange).
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Board: Procedures for Expense Reimbursement
As with all members of organizations, the directors of boards have the right to reimbursement for expenses that have been incurred on behalf of the organization. Reimbursed expenses can include travel, lodging, telephone and postage.
Calculating Indirect Cost Rates
How do you determine and negotiate an indirect rate for a federal grant?
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Checklist to Assess Financial Activities
The following checklist is a resource developed by staff and volunteers of the United Way of Minneapolis Area for internal use by nonprofit organizations. Management can use the checklist to identify their organization's administrative strengths and weaknesses.
In addition, this tool can be used to assist nonprofit organizations to gain a better understanding of their management needs and/or make improvements to management operations.
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Dealing with Difficult People
"Difficult" is a negative label often applied to employees who display resistance to ideas. The term is used here merely for convenience and should not be used when referring to another person. The following suggestions can guide executives in managing these employees.
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Early Warning Signs of Financial Trouble
Unfortunately, it is much easier to get into financial trouble than it is to get out! Usually, the earliest warning is the first time a nonprofit doesn't have the cash to meet payroll. But there are other warning signs too, some more obvious than others. Use these helpful ten signs as your internal warning system.
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Eight Questions that Every Board Member Needs to Answer
One key to recruiting new board members is anticipating their questions -- and having good answers in hand. Although questions will vary, they will cluster around certain themes. You can anticipate the questions prospects will raise and prepare comprehensive answers ahead of time. Even better, answer these questions before prospects pose them. Here are the main questions savvy board prospects will have, along with ways to respond:
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Financing: Tips for Cashflow Forecasting
Recognizing the importance of cash flow to a nonprofit, Murray Dropkin and Allyson Hayden, in their book The Cash Flow Management Book for Nonprofits, suggested that the idea of cash flow forecasting is based on an organization's operating budget. This involves reviewing and characterizing each line item in the operating budget, and it includes three steps.
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Finding Great Board Members
BoardnetUSA is a unique online resource dedicated to connecting nonprofit boards and new leaders through a website located at www.boardnetusa.org.
The site is designed to be a technological platform for a national network of communities working locally to enhance nonprofit board governance. This growing network of Community Partners work together on populating board rooms as well as individually developing services tailored to their local market.
Click to read the full articleLobby and 501c(3) Nonprofit Organizations
Nonprofits are a lifeline for millions – for battered women, immigrants, homebound seniors, AIDS patients, the 43 million Americans without health insurance and countless other constituents who all too often fall through this nation's safety net. As government itself grows leaner, it is relying ever more heavily on nonprofits to do its work. From a standpoint of good government, the best policy would promote communication between government and its vendors.
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Leader Notes: Become a Pride Builder
It was one of those grunt jobs that employees in any organization might have to do: move a computer center to a new location. Except mortgage lender Fannie Mae asked more than 550 employees to do their "day jobs" all week and then throw themselves into this new task over 13 consecutive weekends, pulling all-nighters on Friday evenings -- without even the promise of extra pay.
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Nine Leader Qualities
We understand now that everyone in an organization is a leader whether they operate with a title or not. Here are nine key qualities people seek most in a leader. Which qualities do you own?
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Nine Steps to Reinvigorating Board Leadership
More than a million nonprofit boards can be found across the United States. Many do not reach their potential because of poor leadership. Often warning signs indicate that a board is not functioning properly.
For example, it may be clear that the board does not consist of the right number of people; the board may spend too much time on trivial matters; or the board chair may hesitate to lead the board in a self-assessment to identify its shortcomings. These and other signs may indicate that it's time to reawaken energy and focus it on the mission of the organization. Following are some key ways to achieve such a revamping.
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Nonprofit Should Not Mean Nonperformance
Nonprofits have organizational missions, and their boards have fiduciary responsibilities to contributors, employees, customers, members, and the environment in which they operate. The most egregiously overlooked problem with nonprofit organizations is that their boards don't seem to realize that the organization exists for a reason that lies outside of the board meeting room.
Surviving Founder's Syndrome
Our organization did not develop a strategic plan before we started and the founder who is not a board member is trying to get everyone to do things his way. How do we handle this situation?
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The Two Most Important Keys to Effective LeadershipA study by The Hay Group examined over 75 key components of employee satisfaction. They found that trust and confidence in top leadership was the single most reliable predictor of employee satisfaction in an organization. Effective communication by leadership in three critical areas was the key to winning organizational trust and confidence:
So in a nutshell -- you must be trustworthy and you have to be able to communicate a vision of where the organization needs to go. |
Try Feedforward Instead of Feedback
Providing feedback has long been considered to be an essential skill for leaders. As they strive to achieve the goals of the organization, employees need to know how they are doing. They need to know if their performance is in line with what their leaders expect. They need to learn what they have done well and what they need to change.
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Understanding Indirect Rates
They may be hard to figure and even harder to recover. But they should never be overlooked.
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Understanding the Fair Labor Standards Act
Are you familiar with the Fair Labor Standards Act? If not, you should be. No one wants to worry about a Department of Labor audit. Each organization should make a point to learn about labor laws that affect them.
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Value Alignment: Walking the Talk
Best-selling author, Jim Collins writes an article for Leader to Leader, the newsletter of the Leader to Leader Institute, which concerns making sure that organizations spend time aligning themselves with their current values and vision.
Here, he challenges organizational leaders to create alignment – alignment to preserve an organization's core values, to reinforce its purpose, and to stimulate continued progress towards its aspirations.
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Valuing Volunteer Labor
Volunteer labor -- skilled and unskilled, professional and "general" – often comprises a significant portion of the in-kind match used by grantseekers to secure federal, state and foundation funding. In the case of federal funding, the basic policy is that volunteer services may be counted as part of your match share if those services are "an integral and necessary part of an approved project or program." Simply put, this means that the volunteer services must be directly related to your proposed project activity. What follows is an excellent article on the "how to" of calculating the value of volunteer time by The Grantsmanship Center
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Volunteers Management
There are 12 basic needs that all volunteers and volunteer leaders share. These are needs that must be met if volunteers are to be successful and if you are to retain them year after year.
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