By Jan Masaoka, director and editor-in-chief, Blue Avocado |
“What does it say in the bylaws?”
“Does anyone have a copy of the by-laws?”
“I know I got one when I started on the board but . . . ”
Here’s a new idea: a bylaws cheat sheet. Even if there is a copy of the by-laws handy, it’s tedious to have to look over all the legalese when you want an answer to a simple question. So a nice 30-minute Do It Yourself (DIY) project is to create one.
Button TextBy editorial staff, Idealist |
The world is in the midst of what one observer has called an “associational revolution.” New nonprofits are being formed for every sort of purpose on every continent at the fastest rate in history. If you are thinking of joining this vast worldwide movement by starting — or helping to start — a nonprofit, here are some crucial things to think about.
Tip #1: All nonprofits are local. Even the globe-spanning, household-name organizations that operate in hundreds or thousands of places must learn about, and live with, complicated rules that differ greatly from place to place. Almost certainly, the second thing you will do when starting a nonprofit is to register with the local government agency that handles new “nongovernmental organizations” in the community where the organization will operate.
Button TextBy Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors |
Been there, done that. In any endeavor, experience goes a long way. In the Indianapolis’ nonprofit world, wisdom is in no short supply, particularly from longtime executives. Many have seen changes in the field over the course of their careers.
Recently, at the request of Charitable Advisors, five retired nonprofit high-profile executives participated in a roundtable discussion about their careers and shared advice for new nonprofit executives. Participants were:
Habitat for Humanities of Greater Indianapolis hosted the hour-and-a-half roundtable conversation. The executives’ insights will be featured in a series of stories in the next month. This week, we feature these former leaders’ advice for new nonprofit executives. These are the highlights:
WILLIS BRIGHT: I think my advice to an executive director is first of all, know thyself and be passionate about wanting to be an executive director and be clear about the kind of staff you and your board need to achieve the impact that you want in the community.
HOAGLAND ELLIOTT: My advice would be to really believe in your mission and act on it. I think many times it gets left in the drawer. Treat your clients with respect. People who are disadvantaged need more respect than others.
JIM McCLELLAND: I would add understanding your context, understanding where you fit in the communities you’re operating in, where you fit in the fields you’re engaged in and how what you’re doing relates to what others around you are doing. Don’t develop tunnel vision.
ELLEN ANNALA: I’d probably just underscore again the importance of getting it right with your board. Figuring out how to make that work so that’s it’s working for your mission.
Another piece of advice is actually something I learned from watching Goodwill. I remember when I was at Big Sisters thinking when you’re smaller you’re more nimble, and you can turn on a dime. Well, you can’t, because when you’re smaller, it’s real easy to get consumed by survival. I watched you (McClelland) be the nimble one that was able to turn on a dime.
I remember when a contract got pulled, and Goodwill turned right, and part of it was it had the resources to do that.
McCLELLAND: I so agree with you on the nimbleness. If you want to succeed over time, you’ve got to have impact and you have got to know what that impact is. You’ve got to be sustainable; if you’re constantly struggling to keep your head above water, you cannot do a good job of accomplishing your mission. You need a certain level of financial strength if you are going to do the job. The third is the adaptability. You’ve got to be able to adapt quickly and effectively as new needs and opportunities arise, and as the external environment changes. All three of those are absolutely essential over time.
BRIGHT: Jim, you said something earlier that I think is so critical. You talked about your engagement with your colleagues around the country, and finding out what they’re doing, maybe bringing some things back. Part of the tunnel vision that folks get into is just thinking about what they are doing — never even asking folks across town, executives across the street. They especially need those ideas from folks who are doing what you are doing somewhere else. Call somebody else.
BETSY BIKOFF: That’s what my advice was going to be. Go to school on other people, whether it’s next door, across the city. There is always somebody else like your nonprofit somewhere. There are other foundations, other nonprofits, other leaders whom you can ask. Somebody else has probably already invented what you are doing.
McCLELLAND: But not necessarily only in your field. There’s a quote in one of Gary Hamel’s books that says most people in an industry are blind in the same way. They’re all paying attention to the same things, and not paying attention to the same things. You have got to broaden your perspective. Learn, learn, learn, where you can. You’ve got to get outside your own arena, if you’re really going to grow and learn.
BIKOFF: Talk with people outside your age group. If you only talk with people in your own age band, you’re not going to get the other kinds of thinking.
McCLELLAND: And that’s older and younger.
BRIGHT: Borrow freely.
Join JGA as we delve into the latest release of Giving USA: The Annual Report on Philanthropy and uncover what the data says about the state of fundraising and donor trends. We’ll be joined by Patrick Rooney, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Research with the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, who leads the Giving USA research team. Patrick and Angela White, Senior Consultant and CEO of Johnson, Grossnickle and Associates, will help you dig into the trends behind the data in the June 2015 release. You will hear from the experts what these trends mean and how to interpret the numbers and understand their impact on your advancement efforts.
Button TextBy Sarah E. Needleman, reporter, The Wall Street Journal |
What’s different about building a successful for-profit and nonprofit startup?
Not much, according to Paul Graham, founder of Y Combinator, an elite accelerator program in Mountain View, Calif., that accepted a nonprofit for the first time this month, Watsi.org. “You could never tell there was a nonprofit mixed in,” he said in a phone interview on Friday.
Watsi, a medical crowdfunding platform that launched in August, is among 47 startup businesses in the latest Y Combinator class. Past graduates of the competitive three-month program include DropBox, Reddit and Airbnb.
Mr. Graham began thinking about inviting nonprofits to join Y Combinator about a year ago. “I was talking to a friend who wanted to do a nonprofit project and I realized I was giving exactly the same advice I’d be giving to a startup,” he said.
Button TextBy Esha Chhabra, contributor, The New York Times |
In 2013, The New York Times published a case study about a social entrepreneur, Saul Garlick, discussing what kind of legal structure would be best for his enterprise, ThinkImpact, which encourages entrepreneurship in third-world communities. He fundamentally had three options: continue as a nonprofit, go commercial, or find some sort of hybrid route.
The Times asked three experts which option would be best. Pamela Hartigan, director of the Skoll Center for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford, who is constantly advising aspiring social entrepreneurs, suggested that Mr. Garlick hop off the “treadmill of donor dependency.” Jonathan Lewis, a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, and a social entrepreneur himself, also suggested going commercial. Lastly, Shivani Siroya, an entrepreneur who runs InVenture, a hybrid organization, noted that it was possible to raise revenue even as a nonprofit and thus suggested that ThinkImpact should not dismiss a nonprofit model too quickly.
Many commenters agreed with Ms. Siroya, suggesting that Mr. Garlick use revenue streams as a nonprofit to raise money rather than going purely commercial. Others, however, noted that the nonprofit field is evolving and a profit-making enterprise can be driven by social impact and not the bottom line. Several readers pointed to new legal structures like a benefit corporation or L3C, which incorporate social impact into the core mission of a company. The Times contacted Mr. Garlick for a follow-up conversation, which has been condensed and edited, to see which option he chose.
Button TextBy Jeremy York, HR field representative, The Synergy Companies |
Human resource strategy, also referred to as people strategy, is just as important as an organization’s financial, operational, and business development strategies, because a company needs people to achieve its business goals.
Human resources are an integral part of any business, but many times it is one function that falls by the wayside The problem in addressing an organization’s human resource needs often lies in the lack of time, resources or expertise within a company. Many organizations do not have the resources to dedicate a staff member to the HR function, and require employees to assume the tasks. As an add-on, that limits time that can be spent focusing on HR.
Luckily there is a solution — HR outsourcing. HR outsourcing can provide the human resources support and expertise that organizations need to help drive business.
According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), companies outsource HR in order:
to save money — realizing cost savings through efficiency
to focus on strategy — aligning people with mission, vision, values,
to improve compliance — reducing risks through expertise; and
because there is no in-house HR experience — acquiring an expert to lead the way.
HR outsourcing can also help organizations improve accuracy, increasing quality by lessening workloads and by gaining technology advances that they may not have otherwise been able to afford. All can help the organization drive a better bottom line
The most common outsourced HR functions identified by SHRM include both transactional and strategic tasks such as payroll administration, employee benefit administration, training and development and 401K administrations. These are all tasks that can be time consuming and can require advanced skill to ensure compliance with federal, state and local laws. Many organizations find that outsourcing transactional tasks allows staff to focus on more value-added work that links directly to business goals and objectives while outsourcing strategic tasks allows them to acquire the appropriate expertise to execute HR projects successfully.
Several options exist for HR outsourcing, but two of the most common are Professional Employer Organizations (PEO) and HR Consultants. PEOs generally manage all components related to employment and HR (payroll, benefits, tax liability, workers compensation, employee relations, compliance, training/development, etc.) and become the administrative employer or employer of record for employees. PEOs are able to leverage buying power to offer a range of HR services, resources, and employee benefits that small employers may not have the financial capabilities to access. This allows employers to spend more time developing and growing the business without the cumbersome task of managing all of the details of the employment relationship.
HR consultants, on the other hand, take a more “a-la-carte” approach in providing their services. They work with businesses of all sizes and projects of all scopes, both tactical and strategic. Typically HR consultants assist with strategically integrating effective HR processes, programs and practices into daily business operations and usually leave management of HR responsibilities to the client. HR consultants function as a vendor or independent contractor and typically per project or “ad hoc” basis.
Determining whether you should select a PEO versus a HR consultant doesn’t have to be a difficult task. Honestly, it’s about what is the right fit for your organization. In order to understand what makes the most sense for your business, you’ll want to first conduct a needs analysis asking such questions as:
Secondly, you will need to evaluate your current processes and resources understanding the answers to questions like:
And finally, after reflecting on internal capabilities you will need to determine what work to outsource. Ask yourself:
Going through the process above will assist you in determining what option is right for your business so that you can get the right kind of HR partnership to support goals and objectives.
Because the HR function is fundamental to align your people to your processes, you will want to pay special attention not overlook its impact on the bottom line. Inefficient and ineffective people processes, inexperienced people in skilled roles and noncompliance with legal requirements all have a cost. By ensuring you have a strong HR function in place you can help minimize those costs while simultaneously investing in the business.
Jeremy York, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, is a Human Resources field representative for Synergy PEO Services. He provides strategic and generalist HR support to local nonprofit organization leaders and their staffs. Jeremy has over 15 years of human resources experience working as a consultant, director of human resources, and generalist, in the insurance, healthcare, nonprofit, PEO, and other industries. 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 Chris Mennel, audit manager, Alerding CPA Group |
A new proposed accounting standard could dramatically impact the current financial reporting methods for the more than 1.5 million nonprofits in the United States. Financial reporting in nonprofits was largely affected in 1993 by the issuance of Financial Accounting Standard No. 116 and Standard No. 117 – two standards that accountants and bookkeepers have come to know very well.
These standards created the three classes of net assets that are used today (unrestricted, temporarily restricted and permanently restricted) as well as many other financial statement components that small to large nonprofit organizations deal with on a regular basis.
Although these changes have been in place for over 20 years, many non-accountant board members and others continue to struggle with the concepts behind nonprofit financial statements. In an effort to improve the usability of these documents, the newly proposed accounting standard would:
Compiled by Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors |
Emily Denton is a teacher, an original Giving Sum member and board member. What she values most about her experience with the giving circle is the exposure to many exemplary nonprofits in Indianapolis. Those connections have made a different in her classroom.
After meeting with VSA Indiana staff on a site visit, she continued the connection. That connection led to her St. Thomas students volunteering for the Arts-for-All event that was held on the lawn of the governor’s residence, a short walk from school. Her students worked side-by-side with VAS teaching artists to support children with disabilities, and met the state’s first lady Karen Pence.
Based on her experiences, she saw the value in replicating what young professionals were doing with her eighth-grade English students. Four years ago, she used the activity as a motivating end-of-the-year project.
“As a writing teacher, I wanted to create an end-of-year project that would engage students in a meaningful way — but also still require writing.
I told my students a little about Giving Sum and my involvement. The students were especially interested in the philanthropic aspect and were surprised that a relatively small group was able to give a $50,000 grant to an organization each year.
The students bought into this project right away, and I think that was in part due to me opening up about my involvement in Giving Sum and the projects that Giving Sum members had made possible. They were especially interested in the playground we’d built for the children at Coburn Place.
Organizations did not apply; I gave the students a list of nonprofits in our city, explained the request for proposal process that many nonprofits use to fund their programs, and told them they were going to get to create an RFP for the organization of their choice.
Students selected an organization. They did some research individually, and then worked in groups to devise a plan for convincing the class that their nonprofit was most deserving of the grant money. Students spent a week of class time creating presentations with slides to address each requirement of the proposal request. I used a rubric that included all the elements required in the Giving Sum RPF form.
They presented to the class and each student was allowed to vote for one organization, but not his or her own, to receive the grant money. To add to the real-world element of this project, the students were told that one group’s organization would be chosen to receive an actual $100 grant. I actually provided the $100 grant, not the students and made a one-time donation to our class winner — the American Red Cross of Greater Indianapolis.
Volunteering was not involved, although my hope was that through exposure to these organizations, the students would be inspired to get involved in some of the great services these organizations provide in our city.
Junior high is a great age to be exposed to philanthropic and service organizations. St. Thomas students are required to complete service hours throughout the school year. My hope was that the Giving Sum grant proposal model would expose my students to nonprofits in our city, create a little competition through the request process and provide a real-world writing situation.
It is also a great age to introduce service learning and giving circles. Students this age have so much to gain by looking beyond themselves and learning about how many people in our own city are in need. When my students reflect on their time serving others, they often mention how positive and capable the experience made them feel.”
The impact they have on others leaves an impression on them, and they learn more about their own passions through their service. So often teenagers feel that, even if they have great visions, they can’t create real change on their own. Introducing the giving circle model empowers students and demonstrates the larger impact individuals can when they pull their resources for a common goal.”
By Efrem Bycer for The Greater Indianapolis Progress Committee |
Indianapolis has the potential to become one of the most civically engaged cities in America. Currently, Indianapolis ranks 16th, placing it behind many of its peer metros, including Charlotte, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Nashville and St. Louis. To break into the top 10, Indianapolis may seek to apply successful practices in these cities.
This report aims to identify those replicable practices and provide recommendations for short-term and long-term strategies to improve volunteerism, especially among young professionals.
Young professionals, or Millennials, are a focus of this report because of the key role this generation plays in supplying talent to the region’s leading companies. The youngest generation of the workforce, Millennials are staying single longer and waiting until later in life to have children. On one hand, they have time early in their careers to get engaged in the community. On the other, they are an increasingly mobile generation able to move from one city to another
for professional opportunities or a change of pace. Civic engagement and volunteering play key roles in helping this generation develop an attachment to place, a key indicator of an individual’s likelihood to move. This makes volunteerism an important component of any comprehensive talent attraction and retention strategy.
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