Summary: Nonprofit In The News

The two most pressing issues that Greenhill Community Center Face are communication and fundraising. The most important thing in organizational structure is communication. John Carver, created a governance model back in 1997, said there were four areas that policy development should be based on and maintained for a board to lead. One of the areas is Board-Staff relationships. Carter stated that to clearly address common concerns about board members evaluating the CEO is to communicate directly with the staff or volunteers within the organization. (Worth, p.75) The relationship between the staff and board members of the Greenhill Community Center is strained and distant. Fundraising is an integral part of

I would like to focus on one non-profit organization that has been doing very well in the recent years. The name of the organization is St Jude Research Hospital, which deals with the cure and treatment of children suffering from catastrophic diseases. In the five decades, it has been operational, the mortality rate has gradually reduced therefore saving lots of lives. St Jude started its operations in 1962. Danny Thomas was the one who started the organization and was helped by two other close friends (Pui, Pei, Pappo, Howard, Cheng, Sandlund and Gajjar, 2012).

In a recent article, (link to the nonprofits are like VCs blog on .vc), how charities are using their investment portfolios is changing, but many nonprofits are still behind on how to raise money for their foundations. Working on an archaic system of donations, fundraisers, mailers, etc; grassroots nonprofits have typically had a hard time coming into the tech age, and using it to their advantage.

Crutchfield and Grant identify six practices of high impact nonprofits: advocate and serve, make markets work, inspire evangelists, nurture nonprofit networks, master the art of adaptation, and share leadership. All of these practices proved to be crucial in the success of the twelve-featured nonprofits, however, there are two practices that I find to be more intriguing than the rest. “Advocate and serve” and “inspire evangelists” are the two practices that stand out. The practice of “advocate and serve” was a new concept to me, which is, in part, why I found it particularly interesting. The practice of “inspiring evangelists,” is a concept I am familiar with, but I have never seen it articulated this well.

Nonprofits, for the most part, are judged solely on performance. Their organizational capacity refers to how well they serve their constituent group, or achieve mission fulfillment (Paynter & Berner, 2014). Today’s nonprofits are faced with increasing demands for their service, while operating on dwindling funding support. Attainment of organizational capacity, or its hindrance, is dependent on multiple aspects such as structural design, effectiveness measures, sustainability of funding, as well as leadership. Paynter

These challenges consist of risk of reliance on external funding sources and streams, creating a not-for-profit brand, external expectations of partnerships, demonstrating value and accountability to funders, and promoting community engagement and leadership. Lisa M. Sontag-Padilla discusses in her article called “Financial Sustainability for Nonprofit Organizations,” about the risk of reliance on external funding sources and streams in not-for-profits depend on various groups of funding sources of funding to sustain their operations. Not-for-profit organizations rely on funds from numerous sources, like government funds, foundations, donors, grants, and fees. In order for a not-for-profit organization to maintain and support sustainability they would need to develop or revisit their fundraising plans when substantial cutbacks in both government and foundation funds

My first impressions after reading this case study become directed into the realm of politics. This stands as a classic example of the issues that befall nonprofit organizations alike. As the result of being financially dependent upon private or public sectors for funding, the controversy of special interest groups or individuals with their own biases becomes a problem.

When it comes to not-for-profit organizations celebrity endorsements can be a crucial factor for donations from the everyday person. Many celebrities have gone as far as to found they own not-for-profit organizations, one of those celebrities is Elton John, in 1992 Elton founded the “Elton John Aids Foundation” According to the nonprofit organization, over three hundred million dollars have been raised for Aids research and intelligence so far, with over seven million dollars being split between one hundred twenty different organizations and places worldwide. With an average grant size of $102,000, the Elton John Aids Foundation promises that by keeping their costs low, more than 96 percent of every contribution goes straight to grants. With

This study will examine total revenue for for nonprofit arts, culture, and humanities. We will analyze if an increase in an executive director’s salary increases the nonprofit's total revenue. Our hypothesis suggest that if a nonprofit organization will monetarily increase their investment in the executive director then they can expect higher total revenue for the organization.

Very few nonprofit organizations can stay away form cash flow problems. Lack of cash flow makes organizations bank account look appalling. To avoid such a problem it’s important for organizations to keep tracking good will donations, and funding from volunteers (Eisenhaur, 2009).

The market trend for non-profit industry in 2015 includes following factors: First of all, one of the biggest challenges for 2015 will be the squeezed resources. It will be harder for non-profit to find resources to move forward and support nonprofit missions. Secondly, local and state governments will likely continue to shift burden to nonprofits by withdraw the already limited resources to fill their own budget holes or expect nonprofits to fill the gaps themselves. The third trend in 2015 will be the continually increased demands in communities that exceed nonprofit sectors’ current ability to fulfill the needs. In addition, shareholders in nonprofit are becoming more aware of the engagement in keeping up to remove barriers, protect and

One of the greatest organizational concerns and responsibility of the board is finances. The board of directors have a duty of care to keep an organization financially viable, luckily for the Center, the board appears to be successful in this aspect. According to the Center’s 2016 report on Charity Watch, it only spends nine dollars to raise every hundred. In addition to their fundraising skills, only 17% of those funds were spent on overhead costs while the rest is allocated to program expenses (Charity Watch, 2016). These numbers look great and the percentage allocated to program expenses is especially significant for allowing the Center to hire more staff and increase its capacity. Thanks to the board’s oversight and guidance, the Center now has over a hundred employees that serve in eight different programs.

A year later I divested myself of my computer business and was eager to put my new skill set to work as an equity analyst for a wall street research firm followed by several years in middle-markets at Merrill Lynch before launching Lasure Capital Management. Throughout the last twenty years LCM has managed international and global equities on several bank platforms, pension and profit sharing plans and various other middle-market clients. I also served on the board of directors and/or trustees of nonprofits as a way to give back to the community. As a board member the quest to raise new money was ever present. The challenge for many nonprofits is that contributions are strongest in years of strong market performance and lack donations in down markets. Not surprising nonprofits seek to reduce cyclicality of donations. Strategic philanthropy empowers clients to take a more proactive and thoughtful approach and leverages their resources creatively to maximize results where they matter most. The benefits of incorporating strategic philanthropy, which seem so evident today, didn’t happen overnight. Philanthropy has steadily increased since 1954, and the single largest contributor to growth in recent years is the individual investor ($282 billion in 2016), not foundations ($59 billion) or corporations ($19 billion).9 (Wealthmanagement.com , “Who’s

One of the most significant challenges faced by the nonprofit sector are building and sustaining diverse organizations. The nonprofit sector’s collective ability to attract, keep, and advance black people are determined by the caliber of talent and directly impacts their ability to be effective in their initial organizational missions. It’s time for CEOs and boards to exercise leadership by translating good intentions into concrete solutions. Good intentions can only take a company so far, in order for the organization to be true in its inclusion of black people they need to set in motion a plan that in some part was developed by black employees.

This week’s lecture began with Professor Greene talking about how most nonprofits are severely underperform. This could come from the nonprofit sector as a whole grossly misallocate resources and efforts. However, professionals that understand is what nonprofit organizations need so it can make a dramatic difference in the nonprofit sector. Which is important because nonprofit organizations are needed because it handles what the for-profit businesses and the government would not be able to handle or take on.