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Stance: The ED’s Role and Attitude in Strategic Planning
An overlooked — but crucial — element in strategic planning is the attitude or stance that the executive director takes to the process. Jeanne Bell of CompassPoint suggests a variety of roles and stances that will be appropriate: As we exp …
Getting Real About Real-Time Evaluation
Every once in a while a field creeps closer to actually being helpful to nonprofits. Thanks to evaluators Clare Nolan and Fontane Lo for explaining a type of program evaluation — and how to make it work for you. Have you ever had an evaluat …
Questions to Ask Prospective Board Members
A coffee date isn’t a good idea only for beginning, tentative romances. A coffee or lunch date is an easy way to meet with individuals who may be good candidates for your nonprofit board. If you spend a few minutes ahead of time thinking about wh …
I Survived an IRS Audit
Uh oh. We are all afraid of getting audited by the IRS, but we don’t really know what would happen in one. Here is the True Life story of an environmental organization’s audit, how they survived, and their tips for the rest of us. It’s th …
The Automatic Nonprofit Salary Calculator
Jon Pratt of the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits uses a tongue-in-cheek version of the familiar Salary Calculator model to comment trenchantly on the indiscriminate — and not so indiscriminate –differences in how nonprofit staff get paid:How muc …
Executive Director Evaluation Survey Form
In the last issue of Blue Avocado, we discussed how board evaluations of executive directors (CEOs) are different from all other performance evaluations in the organization. These differences — including the limited ability of board members to observe …
The Philanthropic-Consultant Industrial Complex . . . editor notes issue #74
You’ve probably heard of the 5% payout requirement for foundations . . . but most people mistakenly believe this means that foundations must grant out 5% of their assets each year. Actually, foundations must spend 5% of their assets each year . …
Evaluating the Executive Director
Are you sighing just from having read the title of this article? Why does this topic make us all feel so tired?Virtually everyone agrees that boards should conduct performance reviews of executive directors (EDs or CEOs). Even so, the predominant pract …
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 …
The Governance/Support Model for Nonprofit Boards
Much of the confusion about board responsibilities is confusion between what the board does (as a body) and what individual board members should do. Most of the prescriptions for boards confuse the two, saying “The board should _____” without mak …
