Value, don’t Punish
I keep hearing that economic recovery depends upon the return of small businesses to a position of strength. While nonprofits are, by no means, the largest part of the economy, we are an important factor that everyone seems to want to ignore. And that just isn’t right.
According to a Small Business Administration report released in February, there were 27.3 million small businesses (defined as business with fewer than 500 employees). The nonprofit sector stands a tad below that at approximately 1.5 million.
A 2009 Congressional Research Read more
Zero Sum Pie Tastes Bitter
Why does the scrutiny always get focused on the charities instead of the funders? Are the latter immune from wrong-doing or questionable-doing? And I am sure in far too many circles, the mere fact that I’m suggesting that a funder might do wrong is blasphemous and minimally cause for tar and feathering. After all, look what happened to Rell Grrls when an employee tweeted about Comcast! But two different articles, read hours apart, just got me thinking.
Go get the nonprofit! The New Jersey Division of Read more
Second-Class Citizen
We recently got a request from a smart executive director who wanted to enroll in our Certificate in Nonprofit Management. She thought it would be a good thing for her, as she could learn new things, get a refresher on old things and expand her network. But, she didn’t know how to justify this to the Board. Her request: did we have any data that showed the benefit of pursuing this professional development opportunity?
What? Isn’t what she enumerated justification enough? If need be, however, there Read more
Getting Extra Credit
It’s late afternoon and I’m sitting on the porch of my sister’s slice of Northern Michigan heaven, working on my computer. My niece, a freshly minted Ivy League MBA, joins me and asks me if I’m done working. Almost, I respond, trying to finish a blog post I started before I left on vacation. But I confess that it no longer inspires me. “Write about bonuses,” she says. “How do you feel about bonuses?”
Having just been joined by my sister, an elementary school teacher in Read more
No Leftovers Please
I don’t like being considered second best. Yet, when I hear people looking to the nonprofit sector as the top choice for their “encore career” (don’t even like that term!), that’s what I hear.
Oh, now that you have done the real work of your life, go to the nonprofit sector. Forget that thinking! We are not second best. Not good enough for the first choice of a career, but okay for the encore—the light, flip, “everyone can do it at the drop of the conductor’s Read more
Sink or Swim
I have been saying it for years: don’t throw them into the deep end without first teaching them to swim. It is true of both children (that’s a joke) and nonprofit board members. Don’t ask and pressure them to fundraise until you have taught them how. Makes perfect senses, but it is amazing how frequently this doesn’t happen.
I don’t know the drowning statistics, but I do now have fundraising statistics. Cygnus Applied Research conducted a survey of donors that included almost 3,500 current or recently-resigned Read more
I Give to Charity
How do you say this without coming off like a spoil sport? I really am not in love with all of these “jump on the bandwagon” campaigns and new websites that let you buy whatever you want -from your routine shopping at Sam’s Club to your jewelry and shoes to your home redecorations at special online sites–while giving some percentage of the purchase price to charity.
On the surface, this sounds great. How could I possibly be against that when I call myself a champion of Read more
Ink on my Fingers
Funny what we will and won’t do, to what we can and can’t adjust. A voracious reader, I love my e-books. I can take as many books as I want wherever I go to fit my mood, whatever it is, and I don’t need to schlep an extra suitcase. I will not, however, read a newspaper on line. Couldn’t figure out why, what was stopping me, until recently.
It was the May 5 issue of The Chronicle of Philanthropy that helped me to understand why. Online, Read more
We’re in This Together
I usually don’t play favorites within the nonprofit sector. I advocate on behalf of the entire sector, not one part. But everyone doesn’t play the same way
Arts and culture groups: you are not the only part of the nonprofit sector that enriches our communities! If I read one more article, op-ed piece, blog post or tweet that touts the singular benefits that arts and culture organizations bring to a community, I am going to scream. Why do you push the rest of the sector out Read more
Are We Better Off?
Recently, the IRS published the list of the 279,595 nonprofits which had their nonprofit status revoked for failure to file a Form 990 for at least three consecutive years, a requirement put forth in the Pension Reform Act of 2006. Taken in the larger scheme of things, 280,000 out of a total of approximately 1.6 million nonprofits is about 18%. Since that release, newspaper headlines around the country have been reporting the local numbers, which vary depending upon whether reporting on a town, county or Read more
