You are browsing: Popular Articles
A Board Member’s Guide to Nonprofit Overhead
Calculating overhead rates and managing overhead expense are important staff roles. Board members are not required to know how do staff accounting work, but we do need to bring an informed perspective to our oversight: Harvard’s indirect cost ra …
A Board Member’s Guide to Nonprofit Insurance
Many board members don’t think about the organization’s insurance until something adverse happens. As one Blue Avocado reader commented: “Insurance isn’t sexy, but it’s as essential as a roof over your head.” In these tight times, it’s tempting to make …
Boards Should Only Have Three Committees!
Boards tend to be frustrated with their committees, but often don't know what to do about them. Use this article from consultant David La Piana to kick off a common-sense discussion and make the changes you know you should be making!Most nonprofit …
The Best Route to Approaching Donors: Hand-Head-Heart
As someone who began her career as a fund raiser and migrated to become a funder as head of a large corporate foundation, I have a somewhat unique vantage point on the struggle many nonprofits endure when engaging funders and major donors to support th …
A Board Member “Contract”
One way to be sure that each person on the board is clear on his or her responsibilities is to adopt a board member “contract.” Not intended to be legally enforced, the contract outlines explicitly what is expected of individual board members, an …
Accounting Procedures Manual Template
Has “Create an Accounting Procedures Manual” been on your To Do list for several months now? For several years? You aren’t alone. We often stumble on this task for two, curiously contradictory reasons: Creating an Accounting Procedures Manua …
Nonprofit Budgets Have to Balance: False!
As nonprofits serving people and communities in these difficult financial times, we don’t expect things to turn around for our communities in the near future. Many of us are wondering: how can we achieve a balanced budget in these times? When is it oka …
Can We Fire Someone Who Comes to Work Drunk?
Dear Rita: Our receptionist reeked of alcohol when she arrived at work today. This is not the first time this has happened, especially on a Monday morning. We have spoken to her several times and, as in the past, her supervisor took her aside and …
What is an Advisory Board and Should We Have One?
Recently several Blue Avocado readers have written to say their organizations are considering creating advisory boards or advisory committees of one kind or another. At the same time, others write to ask how to disband troublesome or obsolete adv …
Should Staff Contact with the Board Be Restricted?
Not all nonprofit organizations need or have paid staff. But in those that do, a frequently thorny issue is that of direct contact between staff and board members: Should board members have contact with staff independent of the executive directo …
