Article Series.
New Board Member Planning and Preparation Series
Serving on a nonprofit organization’s Board of Directors can be a rewarding and often life-changing experience. The first year of Board service will set the stage for the remainder of your time on the Board and directly affect opportunities for engagement, impact, visibility, quality of experience, and advancement.
This 4-part series aims to help new Board members set basic goals and develop realistic expectations for success during this critical early stage of their Board tenure.
Pathways to Effective Board Leadership Series
To be an effective Board member you must consider how your own passion and capacity to serve align with the needs and expectations of the nonprofit organization you will represent.
This 4-part series will help you assess and choose the leadership path that is best aligned to the organization as well as yourself, so that you will be in a position to complete your Board service without regrets or second guesses.
Board Meeting Basics Series
Board of Directors meetings are an essential vehicle for the oversight and governance of nonprofit organizations.
This series covers the basics of nonprofit Board meetings, including whether Board members are allowed to vote by email, frequently misunderstood concepts such as “simple majority,” “absolute majority,” “motions,” and “resolutions,” and best practices for keeping Board meeting minutes.
Budget Building Essentials Series
There are many layers to the annual budget building process, but staying focused on tried-and-true budget building practices will help ensure that the budget serves as a thoughtful benchmark for use and allocation of your nonprofit organization’s valuable yet limited financial resources.
This series explores essential budget building concepts and strategies to help nonprofit organizations better assess capacity, improve performance, and deliver on mission and promises, including the role of nonprofit budgets, budgeting for revenue and support, preparing a budget for salaries and labor costs, and using a functional approach to the expense budget.
Effective Financial Messaging Series
How financial information is presented and communicated is as important as the financial information itself. Accurate and timely financial reports are essential, but reports that are overly complicated and hard to read are almost useless and tend to be ignored.
This series covers some key tactics to enhance the effectiveness of your nonprofit organization’s financial reporting, addressing topics such as financial dashboards, key performance indicators (KPIs), monthly distribution of financial reports, and building trust and connection with financial reports among the Board, management, and staff.