America’s historically black colleges and universities are facing a hard choice: continue struggling for much needed funds or accept a donation from David and Charles Koch. From one perspective, this is a win-win scenario. The colleges get funding in the face of decreases in government funding and aid and the Koch brothers will perhaps attract …
Posts Categorized: Board
Vendor Warning
Do you check references before you engage vendors for your organization’s fundraising events? If not, you should. The New York Times Haggler recently reminded us why. In a recent post, the Haggler investigated a company called CreditCardMachineRentals.com, which charged a nonprofit a wrongful late fee of $8,100 for returning borrowed credit card machines weeks late …
Who's Protecting My Donation from a “Significant Diversion”?
Donors around the country are asking themselves that since The Washington Post published a series of articles reporting that more than 1,000 nonprofit organizations have reported a “significant diversion” of assets since 2008. A significant diversion is one that is more than the lesser of $250,000 or 5% of an organization’s gross receipts or total …
Horror Stories from the Trenches
With Halloween quickly approaching, now is the time to face your non-profit demons. Do you consistently lose sleep worrying whether your non-profit is operating lawfully? Do you ever wonder whether you should be doing more as a director? Stop burying your head in the sand. Instead join Arthur Rieman, managing attorney of The Law Firm …
Choose Grant Recipients Wisely
How carefully does your nonprofit’s board choose grant recipients? If you don’t know, here is a wake-up call. One Fund Boston, the 501(c)(3) established to assist victims and families affected by the Boston Marathon bombings, recently approved payment of $480,000 to an individual who is now charged with defrauding the fund. There’s good news for …
Another View on Nonprofit Effectiveness
Has all the recent news about how to measure nonprofit effectiveness left your charity confused? The Direct Marketing Association Nonprofit Federation, a national association of charities and their direct marketers, thinks it has the answer – a set of fundraising principles. The Federation based these principles on how it believes “legitimate” charities conduct fundraising. It …