Nonprofit Governance: Law, Practices, and Trends by Bruce Hopkins
In this comprehensive, one-stop resource, Hopkins and Gross deftly summarize the law that exists and explain and evaluate the many good governance principles that have been promulgated. Nonprofit Governance helps leaders and managers of nonprofit organizations, and their lawyers, accountants, and advisors, to:
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Archive of posts filed under the Governance category.
Weekly Resource Showcase
Weekly Resource Showcase
Begging for Change: The Dollars and Sense of Making Nonprofits Responsive, Efficient, and Rewarding for All by Robert Egger
In Begging for Change, Robert Egger looks back on his experience
and exposes the startling lack of logic, waste, and ineffectiveness he
has encountered during his years in the nonprofit sector, and calls for
reform of this $800 billion industry [...]
Business check-up
A wise friend posted this weekend, in Twitter, “Treat
your business as your #1 customer.” Now, I’m not sure if that is Mia’s original
thought, but it was quite timely for me.
Once a quarter, Esther Fleming and I set aside a weekend
to work on our businesses. We call them,
If I Only Had A Weekend (IIOHAW). Our [...]
Member networks
Nonprofit organizations are only as strong as their members. So, questions you should ask yourself as you start your nonprofit: Who’s benefiting from your organization’s mission? How do you keep lines of communication open among your members? What questions do they have that others may be able to answer? Consider creating an environment, such as [...]
Sarbanes-Oxley Act 2002
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was enacted in 2002 in response to scandals involving several public corporations such as: Enron, Tyco International, and WorldCom just to name a few. The reason why this is important to your nonprofit is that it is a public company, and is therefore subjected to the regulations within the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
Now, [...]
What are you reading?
Things change constantly in such a regulated industry as the not-for-profit one. So how are you keeping up with the changes?
Here are some of the things I read:
The Chronicles of Philanthropy
Nonprofit Times
Foundation Center’s newsletters (I’m subscribed to a few of their newsletters.)
I read not just for updates and changes to the industry, [...]
Evaluating community services
It is prudent to check what the community that you serve thinks of the programs you offer frequently. I would recommend that you institute this process every year, and six months after a new program has been introduced, at the least. You’ll know exactly when this should happen as it is (or should be) stated [...]
Children count
A board consists of individuals who can actually make decisions, especially financial ones, and therefore, adults sit on boards and govern the organizations. However, there are instances where a board would opt to have an advisory team that properly represents the demographics of their targeted audience, children.
Just recently an example of this was seen [...]
Directors & Officers Insurance
Directors & Officers Insurance (commonly referred to as D&O insurance), is often overlooked by nonprofits for the simple reason they are uncertain whether or not they really need D&O coverage. Read this article noting compelling reasons to protect your organization. This should reassure you that D&O insurance has significant value to even the smallest [...]
Five things to know when creating policies and procedures
Setting up a nonprofit is complicated and overwhelming. So, make the creation of your policies and procedures basic. Here are five things that will help you to keep it simple:
Keep it general- At this point in the creation of your policies, your goal is to keep it basic. You are only doing the [...]
