Nonprofits boards: Blessing or bullshit

Anyone who has read my blog for any period of time or has been a nonprofit grad student of mine knows how I feel about nonprofit boards. Most are just deplorable – wasting precious staff energies and bringing nothing to the board table.
We need a “Jack Kevorkian” for nonprofit boards – cutting the [...]

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A donor bill of rights

Philanthropy is based on voluntary action for the common good. It is a tradition of giving and sharing that is primary to the quality of life. To assure that philanthropy merits the respect and trust of the general public, and that donors and prospective donors can have full confidence in the not-for-profit organizations [...]

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What the election results mean for nonprofits

In the November 8, 2006 issue of The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Leslie Lenkowsky, professor of public affairs and philanthropy at Indiana University highlights the election’s impact for people in the nonprofit world. Some bode well for charities:

Improving financial aid programs for college students
Support for immigration overhaul
Cleaning up the campaign finance system

But don’t expect any [...]

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I thought Sarbanes-Oxley didn’t apply to nonprofits

You’d have to live in a cave not to have heard of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act passed in 2002 in response to a tidal wave of corporate misdeeds. The law requires that publicly traded companies adhere to significant new governance standards that broaden board members’ roles in overseeing financial practice and auditing procedures.
While it is [...]

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