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  • Book Review: The Business of Nonprofit-ing
  • Making a Lasting Difference
    I've been struggling to finish "Making a Lasting Difference" by Graeme Reekie since first I received this book about 6 months ago from Wren and Greyhound.  The press is British but I thought the subject would be universal for nonprofits.  Alas and sadly, this is a slow, tedious read filled with platitudes and almost helpful considerations nonprofit managers might want to consider when thinking about how to financially sustain their organizations. I have generally posited that a nonprofit has 4 "pillars" that comprise its DNA: program, management and operations, governance and sustainability.  M. Graeme offers five: involvement ((having community support); Income generation; Innovation ("how to nourish and encourage incremental innovation); Improvement (systems and structures); and impact measurement.  So he and I don't operate from the same lens but his is certainly one perspective. Making a Lasting Difference is constructed in four parts, 20 chapters and 211 pages.  The possibly most innovative content is in Part 2, Chapter 2 where paradoxes, principles and practices of sustainability are presented.  The paradoxes:     a. Change - only by changing can organizations be sustainability, sustainability does not mean sustained, and, the lesson is that an org. must learn, adapt     and  evolve purposefully.  Here the author poses that an org has to have its act together to achieve sustainability     b. Octopus - organizations need to reach out in new directions to grow but growing in too many directions pulls them out of shape; diversified income does     not mean reduced risk; and, an org must focus on core organisational purpose and structure. Here the author says that mission drift will not make you     sustainable.     c. Yes/No the things that an organisation needs to survive can also kill it. Saying yes to everything is fatal; sustainability is about more than just money.      Capacity and quality matter. Understand when, how and what to say no to.  I would offer this is the "stay in your lane" paradox.     d. Efficiency - Efficiency preserves resources but can impair development.  Organisations cannot evolve, adapt or respond without spare capacity.  And     orgs should balance strategy and scrutiny.  They should invest in capacity building. To all of this I just want to say: uh, ok and thanks for the amazing insight.  No, not really!  I would not invest in this book.  You can better spend your time reading the Federal Register looking for grant opportunities (good luck given the current environment) or going through the Foundation Center directory or building an endowment from rich people who loved you (yes, this really is the key to sustainability).  Making a lasting difference may be a good idea when thinking about long-term impact from what your nonprofit does - reading this book will not.
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    Michael E. Batts
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    Sheila Shanker
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    Harvey Chess - grant proposal writing
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    Ram Charan - corporate governance
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    Deirdre Maloney
  • Tiny Essentials of an Effective Volunteer Board
    Ken Burnett
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    Steven Rothschild
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    Mario Marino
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    Paul Schmitz
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    David Meerman Scott, Brian Halligan and Bill Walton
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    Stephanie Agresta, B. Bonin Bough and Jay Miletsky
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    Nancy Lublin
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    Peter Arnell
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    Gabriel Thompson

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December 19, 2009

Not All Nonprofits Have to Be Fully Transparent or Accountable

Faith organizations are essentially nonprofits.  In principal, they exist to address the spiritual and sometimes, temporal needs of their faith communities as well as the greater community.

But, faith organizations aren't exactly nonprofits essentially with thanks to the US Constitution.  Rick Cohen notes in the latest Nonprofit Quarterly Newswire that this complication gets a bit confounding for folks like Senator Grassley, our steadfast watchdog over all things nonprofit.

The topic in particular is the Prosperity Churches. According to Wikipedia:

Prosperity theology (also known as prosperity doctrine, health and wealth, prosperity gospel) is a religious belief centered on the notion that God provides material prosperity for those he favors.[1] It implies both that people who are favored by God will be materially successful, and also that materially successful people are successful because God favored them. The prosperity gospel is often used by its promoters to elicit donations, on the premise that donations will be materially repaid and rewarded through divine intervention.

This is at least a good enough definition for this discussion.  So, according to Mr. Cohen,

(Prosperity) ministries collect donations that count as charitable deductions, they don’t report with anything like the levels of transparency that most 501(c)(3) nonprofits pursue, as Senator Grassley’s frustrated attempts to get basic information on their financial records has revealed. For the most part, nonprofits follow the laws on financial reporting through their IRS 990 forms. These prosperity gospel ministries, like religious organizations in general, have been exempt from that kind of reporting. It may be time for the prosperity gospel ministries, many of which have become quite prosperous through their solicitation of charitable donations, to begin following, or being compelled to follow nonprofit-like public accountability and transparency rules.

So, as much as I might agree in principle with Mr. Cohen, how will such action be reconciled with the Constitution? 

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