Bring up the subject of a nonprofit’s bylaws and you are sure to get an interesting response. For many nonprofit’s, their bylaws are just some forgotten document, full of legalese, gathering dust in a file cabinet somewhere. No one on the current board of directors knows who prepared them, nor what any of the provisions [...]
The Efficiency Trap
Ok, it’s confession time. As a lot of preachers do with their sermons, this article rises of out some self-evaluation I’ve been engaging in since I picked up Timothy Ferriss’s book, The 4-Hour Workweek. While my goals are certainly different from Tim’s (I’m not shooting for a 4-hour week…not yet anyway!), the theme running through [...]
Don’t Avoid Your Nonprofit’s Problems
Imagine this scenario: You are catching up on Facebook one night when you see a post from a friend. Someone you both know has been diagnosed with a horrible disease and given little hope for recovery. You find out later that this person had experienced all the warning signs…pain, fatigue, other clues…for months before they [...]
Questions You Must Answer Before Starting a Nonprofit
So…you want to start a nonprofit. Fantastic! That puts you in pretty good company. In any given year, as many as 75,000 applications for 501(c)(3) tax exemption are filed with the IRS. Less than half survive the process, but there is certainly no lack of interest in doing something charitable. But what does it really [...]
Difficult People on Your Nonprofit Board
Difficult people. Whether it be a co-worker, a neighbor, or even that very special “in-law”, we all have them in our lives. Chances are, you will have one serving on your nonprofit’s board of directors…if not now, eventually. Sort of like death and taxes, there is a certain inevitability to it. Given the volume of [...]
