Your nonprofit board needs to be kept abreast of skills and knowledge such as understanding financial reports, performing leadership evaluations, fundraising and how to run effective meetings.
But are you helping your board to understand key sector trends that will affect your nonprofit’s future? If you want your board to be one that can set the organization’s direction, they will need this information.
Here are some researched 2015 trends that are relevant for small to mid-sized nonprofits and can help your board prioritize strategies to deal with your nonprofit’s threats and opportunities.
The one-two punch from the 2008 recession of funding cuts plus increased community need has brought home the importance of knowing how to retain current donors. Your board should be tracking staff performance, and its own performance, in this regard. There’s much online information that can be used to refresh your current donor development and retention practices without spending a fortune on consulting.
There’s been a slight easing of the philosophy that one important way to evaluate nonprofits for grant awards is by how low their operating costs are. But nonprofits still are constantly tempted to underreport their operating costs to gain grant consideration.
Your board can educate and advocate with local philanthropists on this issue if you give them the facts. Underdeveloped, a National Study of Challenges Facing Nonprofit Fundraising, has much valuable information.
Governments will continue to shift the burden of caring for our communities’ needy away from their own programs to those of local nonprofits. They will continue to seek ways to reduce nonprofit tax exemptions that help nonprofits to meet their bottom line.
Your board can educate local and state officials on the practical reasons to protect nonprofit exemptions — if you make sure they have the facts to do so.
The need to cut costs and today’s capability for virtual work has led many smaller nonprofits to the use of skilled contract workers to respond to that pressure. Research by the Meyer Foundation and the Management Assistance Group (MAG) reported in the Chronicle of Philanthropy shows that the strategic use of such consultants is allowing smaller nonprofits to benefit from skilled specialists, without the pressure of a weekly paycheck.
Types of consulting work range from back office functions to grant searches and proposal writing to management analyses.
The National Council for Nonprofits reports that more nonprofits and their boards are engaging in nonprofit sector advocacy, rather than only advocacy for their specific subsector.
The above-mentioned pressures are forcing this stance. Train your board in effective advocacy and help them understand what advocacy is appropriate and not against IRS regulations. There’s still much confusion about this.
I suggest a quarterly or at least semi-annual report on the trends affecting nonprofits in your area to assist your board in its work.
Sarah Todd Clark is founder of Calhoun Enterprises, a resource for positive social change. She can be reached at (912) 224-2120 or calhounent@gmail.com.
