Given the many crucial issues facing nonprofit organizations and the people they serve, it is more important than ever that charities become involved in the public policy debate. Yet too many people mistakenly assume that it is illegal for nonprofits to lobby.
To the contrary, federal laws actually exist to encourage charities to lobby within certain specified limits. Knowing what constitutes lobbying under the law, and what the limits are, is the key to being able to lobby legally and safely. This article represents a vastly simplified summary of some of the laws and regulations governing charitable lobbying. The complete laws are much more complex, so consult your attorney or accountant for professional advice.
By Christine H. O’Toole, freelance writer, Heinz Endowment |
When Patricia Arquette used her Oscar acceptance speech to demand fair pay for women, it wasn’t just Hollywood stars who gave her a rousing ovation.
Television viewers saw actresses Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lopez cheering as Ms. Arquette declared, “It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all, and equal rights for women in the United States of America.” Some 2,400 miles away, women in Pittsburgh’s nonprofit sector applauded, too.
Recent analyses of the region’s nonprofits have revealed a significant pay gap between men and women executives. The studies include a report that Bob Orser and Rita Haronian of the Nonprofit Compensation Associates prepared for the Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management at Robert Morris University. It shows that although 64 percent of executive directors at nonprofit agencies in the Pittsburgh region are women, their average pay was just 75 percent of the average salary for men — $101,475 compared to men’s $135,170. Overall, women’s nonprofit pay has stalled at 74 cents for every dollar earned by men, even as women comprise 74 percent of all employees in the sector.
By Mark Miller, Reuters reporter, Minneapolis Star Tribune |
Women who work full-time, year-round, made just 79 cents for every dollar paid to their male counterparts in 2014, U.S. Census Bureau data show.
But the injustice of the gender pay gap also impacts retirement security.
A woman who works full-time over a 40-year period loses $435,480 in lifetime income (today’s dollars) due to the wage gap, according to the National Women’s Law Center, a nonprofit legal and advocacy group.
The income gap translates directly to lower income from Social Security and pensions — since those benefits are determined by wage history — and it hampers the capacity of women to save for retirement.
And since women typically live longer than men, savings often must be stretched across more years of retirement.
Paying women less than men for the same work has been illegal since 1963. Seven years ago, President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which makes it easier for workers to challenge pay inequality. He announced last month that employers with more than 100 workers will be required to start reporting compensation data by gender to the federal government.
By Jeremy York, HR field representative, Synergy |
As an HR professional, managers often ask for advice on how to best manage their millennial staff. Many of them express frustration that the traditional management methods used in the past are no longer effective.
Why? It’s because millennials are unlike any other generation currently in the workforce. They work differently, think differently, and have different expectations from employees we have managed for years.
First of all, who are millennials? Millennials were born from 1981-2000 and are often referred to as “Generation Next.” They are fiercely independent and value achievement, diversity, work/life balance and open communication. Millennials grew up with technology at their fingertips, had a best friend named Google, and received recognition not just for winning, but for participating.
As for the workplace, they have very high expectations of company culture and see no value in negativity or conformity. Millennials do not just want to come to work, do their jobs and go home. They want involvement, a sense of purpose and belonging and personal development. They believe it is important that they mold themselves into socially responsible and compassionate people, working to make a difference in whatever they do. Millennials see the workplace as a venue to achieve their own individual goals. It is this millennial point of view that makes them so vastly different from the generations who precede them.
So how do we manage them if they’re so different? The key to managing millennials is the ability to adapt management approach to motivate and engage this group in order to meet their needs.
This means:
Creating informal, team-oriented workplaces that allow for creativity and collaboration.
Understanding that individual goals come first, followed by work goals.
Creating engaging experiences with a variety of activities, fostering strong team relations.
Providing regular feedback and identifying how work relates to the “big picture.”
Understanding that you have to earn respect no matter what your title —“Respect me to be respected.”
As of 2015, millennials are the largest generation in the workforce according to the Pew Research Center and learning how to manage and engage them is critical to a business’ future success.
While changing how we’ve always done something isn’t easy, a new paradigm is essential to attract and retain the best talent. Millennials have grown up with choices and this is no different for them when determining a place of employment.
To learn more about millennial traits, I recommend the article “10 Millennial Personality Traits That HR Managers Can’t Ignore.” This provides a great overview of what managers must understand about millennials in order to ensure an effective management approach.
Jeremy York, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, is a Human Resources Field Representative for Synergy PEO Services. With over 15 years experience, he provides strategic and generalist HR support to local nonprofit organization leaders and their staffs. Jeremy has a bachelor’s degree from Purdue University in Organizational Leadership and Supervision and a master’s degree from Indiana Wesleyan University in Management. He is the current director of certification for the Indiana State Council of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and serves on the IndySHRM board of directors as the past president.
By Chip Heberden, president and owner, Netlink, Inc. |
The turmoil of a typical workday creates endless opportunities and constant pressure to do many things concurrently. Our technology lets us conference call during our commute, email during meetings, and channel the great football commentator John Madden by handling a continuous stream of inbound pings as we work through workday requests from co-workers, customers, clients or our social network.
Multitasking is the universally accepted vernacular we use to reassure ourselves that our technology is allowing us to do more, keep up and get better all the time. Whether it’s the constant pull of texting, tending to the requirements emails, which would be better suited to a phone call), your mind has many opportunities to get sidetracked with the fix of the moment.
Growing up with technology, this situation seems natural: why not attend a meeting and catch up on your email at the same time. Or document your lunch with via Instagram for your personal network while out to eat with co-workers. Multitasking means you are getting it “ALL” done at once, doesn’t it?
By Walter Frick, senior associate editor, Harvard Business Review |
In October 2000, Jack Welch announced the biggest deal of his 20-year tenure as head of GE: a $45 billion merger with Honeywell. Shortly thereafter he was forced to retire, due to GE’s mandatory retirement policy for CEOs turning 65.
More than a third of S&P 500 firms have a mandatory retirement policy for their CEO. Their aim is to drive out executives who are past their prime. But are such policies a good idea?
By Adrienne Roberts, reporter, Detroit Business Daily News |
The Detroit Police Athletic League announced it raised $12 million and will be able to break ground in April on its new youth sports complex and headquarters at the site of the old Tiger Stadium in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood.
“For many years, the corner of Michigan and Trumbull and Tiger Stadium was where many young athletes began incredible careers enabling them to give back to their communities,” says Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan. “It’s meaningful that this site will honor many of those individuals while becoming the newest complex for more Detroit kids to receive the kind of mentoring and support through sports programming that Detroit PAL provides.”
By Andrew Keatts, Kinder Institute for Urban Research for The HuffPost Impact |
For all the resources and attention paid to combating poverty, the whole endeavor suffers from relatively limited data.
A new measure that debuted this fall aims to correct that problem.
Researchers at Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy partnered with Salvation Army to develop the Human Needs Index, a real-time measure of poverty that they hope will better inform both policy makers and service providers of the true on-the-ground needs of poor Americans.
The Charitable Advisors team is excited about upgrading its Nonprofit Job Board. The change will take place early next week, and we want you to be prepared. The primary change in the new system is that both employers and job seekers will have on-line accounts to help make the job search and candidate review process easier.
In 2015, nonprofit employers posted nearly 1,000 nonprofit job openings on the Central Indiana Nonprofit Job Board. Many nonprofit employers tell us that we are their #1 source to find and hire new employees.
On Monday, Charitable Advisors’ Nonprofit Job Board will upgrade to the latest version from our vendor, ExactHire. Employers will still post ads by e-mailing to ads@notforprofitnews.com and job seekers will still find job openings using newsletter links or by clicking “Nonprofit Job Board” on the website home page at www.CharitableAdvisors.com .
Job advertisers –
What’s the same? – Employers will still submit ads to Kristen at: Ads@NotforProfitNews.com . Ads will be promptly posted and all ads received by 10 a.m. each Monday will be included in Tuesday’s newsletter. Invoices will be e-mail shortly after posting. Find complete job posting info at: https://charitableadvisors.com/post-a-job/indianapolis/
What changes? – Each employer’s designated contact will have an account set up by Kristen that will provide easy, on-line access of all applicants for the advertised position. This will eliminate employer e-mails for each applicant. Employers still have the option to link job seekers directly to their websites or internal job boards.
Job seekers –
What’s the same? – Job seekers still are able to view all job postings at no cost and without any login. Job postings in the newsletter will link to the specific job. Alternately all postings can be accessed by going to CharitableAdvisors.com and clicking on “Nonprofit Job Board” at any time. Job board postings will be updated multiple times each week.
What changes? – When an applicant is ready to apply for a position, he or she will be asked to set up an account with a password. Each time he or she applies for a position, it will require a login to his or her account to apply. There are two primary benefits to this new process – 1) job seekers will not need to input basic contact information with each application, and 2) the system will keep a record of all the positions/employers for personal reference.
If you experience problems or have questions, we encourage job seekers to reach out to Julie at Julie@CharitableAdvisors.com and employers to correspond with Kristen at: Ads@NotforProfitNews.com. Charitable Advisors will develop an FAQ for future reference.
By Stefanie Krievins, coach and founder, Radiancy Coaching Partners |
According to a recent Compass Point nationwide survey, half of all development directors anticipate leaving their current jobs in less than two years. This is coupled with 25 percent of executive directors reporting that they fired their last development director.
The survey also concludes that an underlying cause is development directors are feeling solely responsible for the organization’s fundraising. Expectations are not aligned across the organization when it comes to raising the money needed to successfully deliver the mission.
The secret to high-performing organizations is that responsibility is shared between the board, the executive director, the development director and all staff.
Here are five key questions that the board, executive director, and development director can ask to ensure that the organization is creating a high-performing development function:
What is the realistic capacity of our organization’s development staff and the technology we use to manage donors and donations?
Beyond the development director, who is soliciting directly and serving as an ambassador for the organization?
How is philanthropy and fundraising valued across the organization?
Is the development director a true key leader in the nonprofit’s organizational planning and strategy?
Are we treating people (donors, staff, and volunteers) as people and not just revenue sources or resources for the mission?
Here’s a sixth question: What does it reveal when these roles compare their responses?
The Compass report had some troubling statistics that points to the revolving door in our development functions. While Central Indiana has some fantastic philanthropic resources, we see the 18-to-24 month development director turnover, too. As a donor, I receive no individualized connection for most of my gifts.
There are some steps all organizations can take to support the development function AND the development director. Coaching is one tool to help fix this situation.
Fundraising employees and leadership can benefit from coaching in a variety of ways:
Finding focus for an individual development team member
Managing for accountability and follow through
Understanding communication and work styles individually and as a team
Supporting employees to determine what they need to be satisfied and successful in their jobs
Specifically, career coaching can help development directors land their ideal job, one that matches their skills with their compassion and that they can stay in long enough to have a significant impact.
Let’s keep asking the hard questions.
There are many factors that cause disengagement, unhappiness and ineffectiveness in the development director role.
I want to hear your thoughts. In the month of February, my colleague, Jeremy Hatch, a national fundraising consultant, and I will be discussing the predicament of development departments.
Stefanie Krievins is the founder, coach and trainer at Radiancy Coaching Partners. She has a master’s degree in nonprofit management from SPEA at Indiana University, completed credentialed coaching training from Erickson International, and has more than a decade of employment and volunteering in the charitable sector in Central and Southern Indiana and nationwide. She lives in a low-income neighborhood in Indianapolis as a way to stay connected to the causes she’s most passionate about: homelessness, food insecurity and helping each person get the resources he/she needs to be their most joyful self.
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“James” was a client who found the specific mission and role where he could contribute to the culture of philanthropy. When we first started working together he knew that helping kids was where he wanted to focus his career, but that’s a pretty broad scope for a job. He was already in a role where the organization helped kids, but in an indirect way, and felt stressed and unfilled. Everything seemed like an uphill battle.
His role for the nonprofit was extremely broad (annual fund, major gifts, marketing, special events, etc., etc.) and the organization wasn’t investing much in their fundraising beyond this one position. In essence, fundraising was just the job of the development director and it got done by hosting special events.
We worked together for a couple of months so he could determine that helping educate kids was the specific mission he wanted to be part of. He also wanted a more specific role that focused on corporate philanthropy or major gifts. It was an easy, “Yes,” when he interviewed for and was offered a job focusing on major gifts that funded international children’s education and healthcare.
