Question: This question was recently posed to the ASU Lodestar Center’s “Ask a Nonprofit Specialist”:

Every time the financial report is made at my organization’s Board meeting, the members seem to either fixate on a number that is not especially meaningful or the opposite: their eyes glaze over in boredom. How can I make the reports more meaningful? One member suggested we use a dashboard to report our finances? What do you suggest?

Engaging members of a nonprofit Board of Directors in the organization’s financial affairs can be challenging, given the diverse skills and expertise Board members bring to the work. This Board member’s experience is very common. It’s not easy to report on financial statements in an engaging fashion. However, since financial accountability is one of the most significant legal and ethical responsibilities for nonprofit Boards of Directors, effectively engaging the Board in financial matters is critical.  Consider the following background information to improve your organization’s financial reporting and the Board’s engagement in your organization’s financial affairs.

Board Financial Responsibility
A nonprofit Board of Directors has 2 essential financial responsibilities:  

1. Ensure assets are protected and used to support the organization’s charitable purpose in compliance with regulations and standards…

Welcome to Research Friday! As part of a continuing series, we invite a nonprofit scholar, student, or professional to highlight current research reports or studies and discuss how they can inform and improve day-to-day nonprofit practice.

The past decade has been rife with ideas on how to scale up successful nonprofit organizations. Calls for scaling have been amplified by the recent economic recession, which brought increased demand for social services coupled with shrinking government dollars. But a structural problem remains: philanthropy does not typically have available capital for scaling.

The Social Impact Bond (SIB), developed in the U.K., was recently adopted in Massachusetts. The SIB is not a traditional bond; rather, it is a capital equity investment pool.i As I discussed in my last blog post, with SIBs, money is paid up front to a nonprofit organization, which in return commits to predetermined benchmarks. The investors assume the risk that the nonprofit organization will meet the benchmarks and alleviate the social problem.

But what if the nonprofit organization was to assume the risk? What if the organization only received payment if the outcome was achieved? This type of bond is called a surety bond, specifically, a Human Capital…

Nonprofits have a unique character in our society. And it is not just their legal status. This legal status recognizes that nonprofits exist for more than a bottom line. Nonprofits exist for the community.

Most nonprofits don’t think of themselves as a political organization. Yet, nonprofits by their nature are an integral part of any community’s life. Nonprofits fight poverty, provide great venues for art and music, challenge homelessness, help organize civic life, promote the common good and a host of other functions that puts human community and the common good before profits and a narrow band of investors.

Nonprofits have distinctive characteristics such as: focus on mission and community benefit, the work as a calling, a unique satisfaction while making a difference over making money, loyalty and relationships which can create a unique sense of community and cohesiveness among staff, board and volunteers. These special attributes provide a new fertile ground for empowering people being served as a source of great political power.

Nonprofit employees, boards, and volunteers have common goals, shared values, professional interests and motivations for services. This is what keeps them together, not the possibility of profits, or even raises. They share a mission of community service and benefit. In the 21st century, the workplace, especially the nonprofit workplace, takes on a new meaning and…

Welcome to Research Friday! As part of a continuing series, we invite a nonprofit scholar, student, or professional to highlight current research reports or studies and discuss how they can inform and improve day-to-day nonprofit practice.

Do you have passion for social good and want to step out and lead it? Or maybe you have a great idea to create your own business, but want to balance making a profit with creating social impact?

Let’s face it, sometimes we struggle between our commitment to helping society and our personal needs for monetary income. In the finance class of the MNpS program at ASU, we were introduced to a fascinating article by Jim Fruchterman: For Love or Lucre. He suggests that all social entrepreneurs should balance the following four factors when deciding on a legal structure for their venture:

1. Motivation: how strong is our motivation for a social mission vs. making a profit?
2. Market: who are the customers we want to serve, and what is the competition?
3. Capital: how much money do we need to get the venture started and keep it going, and how important are tax considerations?
4. Control: how much control and decision power do we want to have in our enterprise? Are we willing to share it with the community, a board, investors, or partners?…

A while back, you might remember seeing a beautiful infographic about the social media practices of the top 50 nonprofits. When I first came across it, I was really excited. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that these were not ranked in terms of social media use, but rather based on net income. This is absolutely a valuable metric, but I was curious how this data might vary if the list was based on organizations with the strongest social media presence...the ones we stand to learn the most from.

When I could not find up to date lists containing this type of information, I figured the first step would be to gather it myself. Here is a taste of five different lists I have built over the past few months. For a legend explaining how the rankings are computed, scroll down past the lists.

Top 10 Organizations in Terms of Facebook Likes

1. Invisible Children (Shot from 26th to 1st in under 2 weeks after release of the Kony 2012 video)
2. National Public Radio
3. WikiLeaks
4. TEDTalks
5. United States Olympic Committee
6. UNICEF
7. Livestrong
8. PETA
9. (RED)
10. Humane Society of the United States

View all 50 top nonprofits on Facebook (including logos & like buttons)  

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