Category: "Best Practices"
May 26, 2020
Two Truths and a Lie: Fundraising in a PandemicMy dear friends, colleagues, soul sisters and brothers in the Development department… I see you. You work your tails off when times are flush, and now in the middle of this pandemic and economic fallout, you’re pushing yourself to even more extreme limits. You carry the weight of the organization’s worry within you. You pore…
April 27, 2020
Sisyphus Had It Easy: The Case for Nonprofits to Prioritize Long-Term Solutions Even When Short-Term Challenges AboundPhilosophers would contend that Sisyphus had it rough, rolling his rock up a hill only to see it roll back before he reached the top – then doing it all again, over and over, in perpetuity. As agonizing as Sisyphus’ plight may have been, it’s nothing compared to the existential financial and mission challenges nonprofit…
October 15, 2019
Nonprofit CFOs Shape their Legacy by Defining and Communicating the Big PictureYou are the CFO of a nonprofit that’s focused on long-term mission fulfillment, financial sustainability, and organizational independence. How do you guarantee that your legacy is aligned with the organization’s long-term success? You may have thought that years of successfully ensuring your debits equaled your credits, that audits ran smoothly, and that financial reports were…
March 5, 2019
Skating The Edge Between Risk and Reward at Your NonprofitEvery nonprofit faces risk, but it doesn’t have to be a liability. Learn to take a holistic view of risk and use the unexpected to your advantage. What if your funding was cut by half overnight? It might sound impossible, but given the precarious financial situation most nonprofits face, it’s a very real risk. You…
August 7, 2018
It’s an Open Book: How Nonprofits Can Achieve Financial TransparencyAll charities differ in their missions, but all are alike in one important way—to succeed, they must practice financial transparency and accountability. In fact, Charity Navigator, the nation’s largest and most-utilized evaluator of charities, uses these values as key criteria in rating nonprofits. Charity Navigator defines transparency as “an obligation or willingness by a charity…
June 29, 2018
Reap the Benefits of Your Hard Work: Practical Strategies for Using Impact DataCan you imagine spending months tending to your garden, only to let the vegetables you’ve been growing rot before anyone can enjoy them? Hardly. Yet when it comes to data collection and use, many organizations do just that. They toil away setting up plans to deliver services and track results. They pour sweat and tears…
May 21, 2018
7 Steps to Nonprofit Risk ManagementNonprofits face risk on all sides. In a March 2016 report, Oliver Wyman and SeaChange Capital Partners list some of the difficult conditions under which nonprofits must operate. Among these are: Tackling society’s hardest problems Limited funding Increasing costs for services Recruiting and retention Ever-changing operating environment These experts conclude, “It is no surprise that…
May 14, 2018
A Nonprofit’s Guide to Government ComplianceCompliance is a hefty responsibility for nonprofit organizations; indeed, more so than for-profit companies. As the firm Harbor Compliance points out, there’s a good reason for that—nonprofits are exempt from federal corporate taxes and can receive public funding. Both the IRS and states have requirements for nonprofits. The penalties for noncompliance can be severe. A…
May 7, 2018
Integrating Systems to Reduce Financial Risk for NonprofitsNonprofit organizations demand a lot from their software. According to a 2015 survey conducted by Software Advice, a company that provides research and online reviews of fundraising software, nonprofits want greater functionality and tools from their investments. Not only that, they want their fundraising/donor management programs and other platforms to work seamlessly together. In fact,…
April 16, 2018
How To Reduce Financial Risk for Your NonprofitMany nonprofits walk a razor-edge financially. Nonprofits address society’s most difficult issues, compete for limited funding and struggle to find and keep qualified staff to run their organization. A new report by Oliver Wyman, SeaChange Capital Partners, and GuideStar, which examines the finances of more than 219,000 U.S. nonprofits, reveals sobering realities: Around 50% have…
February 26, 2018
Get a View into Your Nonprofit’s Outcomes with DashboardsDashboards provide a window into your organization’s performance and financial health. With the increased emphasis on outcomes—defined as a change in skill, knowledge, attitude, behavior, condition, or status—nonprofits must demonstrate the progress of those outcomes in a visual, understandable way. An article in Nonprofit Quarterly notes that a dashboard must: Align definitions of success across…
February 23, 2018
The True Costs of Nonprofit Budgeting with ExcelExcel is the go-to reporting and budgeting tool for countless finance teams, including financial planning and analysis (FP&A) professionals. In fact, there are more than one billion users worldwide—that’s about one in seven people! Excel is comfortable and familiar, but for growing nonprofits, it can be a real drag on your budgeting processes and productivity….
