Truth or Consequences: The Implications of Financial Decisions

by Clara Miller

Does a diversified revenue base make for a more sustainable nonprofit? Does reliance on government funding create financial problems? Does owning a facility improve an organization’s financial health? In a recent study, the Nonprofit Finance Fund strove to prove or disprove these nuggets of conventional wisdom.

A Board’s Guide to Surpluses and Deficits

by Kay Snowden

When it comes to safeguarding the financial health of a nonprofit, board members face an enormous challenge. It’s easy to be the stern voice of financial control from the outside; all organizations should be conservative in their revenue projections and run a surplus every year, just as we should all have spotless houses and raisewell-behaved children. But the real world of compelling needs and limited resources is more challenging.

On the Edge: The Financial Health of Human-Service Providers

Recently, Massachusetts policy makers commissioned a study to determine why the overall financial stability of purchase-of-service providers is at risk. The study highlights why so many nonprofits are financially fragile: many human service and health-focused nonprofit organizations, particularly community-based organizations, do not recover the full cost of services, which translates into deficits that put them at risk.

Navigating the Path of Socially Responsible Investment

by Rick Cohen

Focused on grants and grantmaking, nonprofits all too often overlook the potential of social investment. NPQ reviews a recent report that defines the investment options most important to nonprofits and provides resources and examples,models, and prototypes from which investors and investees alike can learn.

Financial Transactions with Your Board: Who Is Looking?

by Francie Ostrower

Organizations that have financial transactions with their boardmembers walk a fine line where public accountability is concerned, but the practice turns out to be widespread. Excerpted from “Nonprofit Governance in the United States: Findings on Performance andAccountability,” author Francie Ostrower explores the benefits and liabilities that arise when nonprofits purchase goods and services fromboardmembers.

The Slippery Slope of Employment Practices Liability

by Charles C. Hewitt

Employment policies are complex, may vary from state to state, and leave plenty of room for missteps that could cost you thousands of dollars. You can protect your organization by knowing the rules, making them clear and available to employees, and seeking counsel before you make an irrevocable move. The author walks the reader through the basics, from personnel policies to use of legal counsel to liability insurance, and more.

The Shifting Tides of Nonprofit Governance: An Interview with Paul Light

by the editors

Iconoclast Paul Light is good at cutting through the nonsense that clutters nonprofit management. In this article, he raises questions about the intellectual and theoretical underpinnings of competing and sometimes ineffectual approaches to improving nonprofit board governance. In examining these “tides of reform,” Light urges us to move beyond the pablum of rhetoric and politeness.

Mission Haiku: The Poetry of Mission Statements

by Chris Finney

Christopher Finney argues that an organization’s mission statement should be elegant, precise, even poetic. Using the principles of haiku, a form of Japanese poetry consisting of only three short lines and 17 syllables, the author encourages those drafting a mission statement to view the exercise like writing a poem, where every word is at a premium and every syllable holds meaning.

Election 2008: More Organizations Engaging More Voters

by Bridgette Rongitsch

For years nonprofits with advocacy and social-justicemissions have encouraged an active and informed citizenry. Now, however, human-service providers and neighborhood groups have begun to dip their toes into the ocean of voter and civic engagement. Author Bridgette Rongitsch presents the transition of the Minneapolis High Rise Representative Council,which shifted frombasic organizing to building power within a nonprofit community for long-termchange.