The Latest
Take the Guess Work Out of Non-Profit Gift Giving
Here and there throughout the operating year, a non-profit will give different kinds of gifts. It might be a gift when an employee reaches a work milestone. It might be a gift to thank a summer student. It might be a farewell gift for a departing board member. There is nothing like the...
Create a Program Evaluation to Gather Useable Information
Evaluation, measurement, KPIs and assessment are all part of the work of a non-profit. Feedback is collected to help determine if the organization is meeting its strategic priorities. But that flow from strategic plan to program to feedback and back around, can feel overwhelming and the creation...
This Meeting Could Have Been an Email
With the shift to a digital workplace these last couple years, virtual meetings have become the norm. Without having to worry about a meeting location, catering preferences, drive time, or road conditions, meetings became easier. Easy meetings soon became meeting more often, which turned...
Filing System Basics for Non-Profits
I remember a conversation I had with a colleague from another organization. She confessed she had all her hard copy files in order but didn’t really understand how to make a computer filing system. Whenever she created a document on the computer, she would print a hard copy for filing but leave...
Create an Agenda for ANY Meeting
From board meeting to staff meeting, or member’s meetings, a successful agenda will help to keep the discussion organized and orderly. Agendas that are poorly constructed will waste attendee’s time, important decisions might be missed or handled incorrectly, and an inexperienced meeting chair...
Non-Profit Budget Basics
A non-profit budget is a partner to the operational plan. Together they provide the road map for what the organization aims to work on for its operating year. It sounds so simple, but when it comes time to sit down at the computer to create a new budget, that blank spread sheet can make the...
The Impact of a Non-Profit’s Vision and Mission Statements
When a non-profit first starts up, a handful of strategic documents are created to chart the course for the road it will travel over the years. Each year after that, the non-profit will hold a strategic planning session to examine the needs of clients/stakeholders/members and adjust the...
Why an Executive Director Shouldn't be a Jack of All Trades
There is an expectation, real or perceived, that the executive director of a non-profit needs to be a jack of all trades – someone who picks up all the left-over little tasks and handles them as part of regular work duties. The executive director is often expected to handle all the accounting,...
How to Write a Job Description
A clear job description is an important part of every position. Potential employees want a clear picture of the position before applying, to be sure the job is the right fit for them. Current employees want a clear picture of the work they’ve been hired to complete. Employers need a place...
Honest Actual Costs
I want you to compare two scenarios. In example #1, a new executive director is looking at the budget numbers for fundraising events for the last year. She doesn’t understand what she’s doing wrong. The cost for prizes is 25% more than it was in the years when her predecessor planned the...
What should be included in board meeting minutes?
Board meetings can be complicated and messy, filled with opinions, side conversations, heated debate, dead silence, …and also all the official decisions the board makes. How do you know what to record in the minutes? Board meeting minutes are the official and legal record of decisions made at...
How to Plan a Board Meeting
A non-profit board meeting has a lot of components. There are the standing agenda items to be discussed, reports to receive, research to evaluate, and decisions to be made. What goes on behind the scenes to prepare for a board meeting? When do you start planning? What documents do you...
Understand the Basic Financial Statements for Non-Profits
Each month a non-profit executive director will prepare basic financial statements for the board or finance committee to review. The statements need to be approved following the reporting process outlined in the organization’s policy. It is rare for a board to approve the monthly...
A 5-Question Social Media Audit
Social media is everywhere. It has become a major communication tool both personally and professionally. But with multiple platforms and increasing pressure to be available 24/7, it can be easy for a non-profit to jump into more social media than it can handle. Once the reality sets in...
The Emergency Red Binder – Peace of Mind for HR Emergencies
What is the emergency red binder? Let’s imagine you’ve just won the lottery (sigh); 60 million dollars in your name, received the very day after the board chair chewed you out over a trivial matter. Think you’ll give two months’ notice before you leave? I think we’re talking more about a text...
Can you describe what your non-profit does, in ONE sentence?
Non-profits are complex organizations. There are usually many programs, many services, different clients, and a complicated set of strategic priorities and outcomes driving the work. If you had to condense all of it into one simple sentence, could you do it? Not a marketing ploy. There...
How to debrief, well, …anything
In the heat of the moment, everyone has a comment (or 15) about the workshop/event/meeting they are experiencing (usually about the bad coffee). A week later, at the official debriefing meeting, the comments have dried up and no one really has anything to share. Don’t waste an opportunity for...
What do you do when a board member goes rogue?
Has there been a time when a board member didn’t follow policy and no one, you or other board members, said anything? Has a board member reported tasks that they’ve handled when they were neither asked, nor given the authority, to handle those tasks? Has a board member been making decisions...
The Board Speaks With One Voice
When a non-profit board is being developed and new members added, there is excitement to embrace the diverse perspectives of a wide range of stakeholders. But having many different voices at the table can sometimes make it challenging for a board to make decisions. If a board doesn’t...
Getting Started with Board Recruitment
Your non-profit has done the work. You’ve got a nominations committee ready and willing to get to work finding new board members. There’s a team of other board members and staff helping to build a list of names of potential nominees and keeping a keen eye out for more names to add. But...
Nominations Committee
On paper, its easy to have a full and complete list of potential candidates to join a non-profit board of directors. Doing the work of speaking to all those candidates can be a challenge. Who takes on this important job? Dumping the recruitment task on the same group of board members each year...
6 Actions to Reduce the Stress of Being a Non-Profit Board Treasurer
Perhaps the most avoided position on a non-profit’s board of directors is that of Board Treasurer. The Board Treasurer is responsible for overseeing all aspects of a non-profit’s financial system, from policy development to internal controls, from budgets to the annual audit, or from...
The Role of a Non-Profit Board Vice-Chair
A non-profit board has many tasks to handle, and if there is no paid staff team, that list can become quite long. While the Board Chair is the leader of the board, the job is usually too much for one person. That’s where the role of Vice-Chair (Vice-President, etc.) becomes important. The level...
The Role of a Non-Profit Board Chair
Non-profits are complicated entities. There are strategic priorities to fulfill, board meetings that need to follow protocol, and often a team of volunteers who are helping to do the work. In a small non-profit, with few, or no, employees, the Board Chair is a critical position for...
How to Make Non-Profit Deposits Easy and Accurate
Payments and registrations are coming in and, frankly, starting to pile up. People will not be happy if their cheques are not deposited right away. A deposit is needed, and some sort of log is required. Writing up the bank deposit page is only one piece of processing accounts receivable. Each...