audit comitttees

Measuring Nonprofits’ Impacts: A Necessary Process for the 21st Century

 

Measuring Nonprofits’ Impacts: A Necessary Process for the 21st Century

By Eugene Fram      Free Digital Image

Unfortunately, outcomes and impact are often unrelated, which is why a program that seems to produce better outcomes may create no impact at all. Worse, sometimes they point in opposite directions, as can happen when a program works with harder-to- service populations resulting in seemingly worse conditions, but (has) higher value-added impact. … Rigorous evaluations can measure impact (to a level of statistical accuracy), but they are usually costly (a non starter for many nonprofit), difficult and slow. * But how do the medium and small size nonprofits measure actual results in the outside world such as enhanced quality of life, elevated artistic sensitivity and community commitment?

A Compromise Solution:

To close the gap, funders and recipients would need to agree to apply imperfect metrics over time. These are metrics that can be anecdotal, subjective or interpretative. Also they may rely on small samples, uncontrolled situational factors, or they cannot be precisely replicated. ** This would require agreement and trust between funders and recipients as to what level of imprecision can be accepted and perhaps be improved, to assess impacts. It is an experimental approach

How To Get to Impact Assessment:

1. Agree on relevant impacts: Metrics should be used to reflect organizational related impacts, not activities or efforts. Impacts should focus on a desired change in the nonprofit’s universe, rather than a set of process activities.
2. Agree on measurement approaches: These can range from personal interviews to comparisons of local results with national data.
3. Agree on specific indicators: Outside of available data, such as financial results, and membership numbers, nonprofits should designate behavioral impacts for clients should achieve. Do not add other indicators because they are easily developed or “would be interesting to examine.” Keep the focus on the agreed-upon behavioral outcomes.
4. Agree on judgment rules: Board and management need to agree at the outset upon the metric numbers for each specific indicator that contributes to the desired strategic objective. The rules can also specify values that are “too high” as well as “too low.”
5. Compare measurement outcomes with judgment rules to determine organizational impact: Determine how may specific program objectives have reached impact levels to assess whether or not the organization’s strategic impacts have been achieved.

Lean Experimentation

The five-point process described above closely follows the philosophy of lean experimentation, ** now suggested for profit making and nonprofit organizations.

Lean allows nonprofits to use imperfect metrics to obtain impact data from constituents/ stakeholders over time. Under a lean approach, as long as the organizations garners some positive insights after each iteration, it continues to improve the measurement venues and becomes more comfortable with the advantages and limitations of using these metrics.

Organizationally the nonprofit can use this process to drive change over time by better understanding what is behind the imperfect metrics, especially when a small sample can yield substantial insights, and actually improve the use of the metrics.


* https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2012/07/24/using-imperfect-metrics-well-tracking-progress-and-driving-change/
** http://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_promise_of_lean_experimentation

The Possibility Of Fraud – A Nonprofit Board Alert

The Possibility Of Fraud – A Nonprofit Board Alert

By: Eugene Fram              Free Digital Image

“According to a Washington Post analysis of the filings from 2008-2012 … of more than 1,000 nonprofit organizations, … there was a ‘significant diversion’ of nonprofit assets, disclosing losses attributed to theft, investment frauds, embezzlement and other unauthorized uses of funds.” The top 20 organizations in the Post’s analysis had a combined potential total loss of more than a half-billion dollars. *

One estimate, by Harvard University’s Houser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, suggests that fraud losses among U.S. nonprofits are approximately $40 billion a year. **

Vigilant nonprofit boards might prevent many of these losses. Here’s how:

• Have an audit committee charged with reviewing the overall results of a yearly independent audit conducted by an outside auditor.
• Carefully oversee executive compensations, pension benefits and other finance activities.
• Conduct a yearly review of conflict-of–interest policies, have employees/board members sign a conflict-of-interest statement and have board members involved with development of IRS Form 990 before submission.***
• Assure new hires are well vetted for honesty by searching background.
• Meet with external auditors at specified times, including an executive session without management present.

• Ask the auditors:
1. Have they perceived any fraud problems?
2. Are internal controls adequate, e.g., those handling financial matters must take at least two weeks vacation per year so their duties can be temporarily assigned to others?
3. Are financial records accurate? To what extent were material mistakes located or was there an increase in non-material mistakes?
4. Do the proper managers or officers properly authorize activities and expenditures?
5. Do all assets reported actually exist?
6. Is the organization performing any activities that might endanger its tax-exempt status? For example, provide misinformation on the IRS Form 990.
7. Is the organization paying its payroll taxes, sales taxes and license fees on time? ****

Trust But Verify

Some board members argue boards can do little to prevent fraud. I argue that every member should know enough about finances to raise issues about questionable activities. At the least, everyone in the organization should be alerted to the fact that board members are paying attention to the possibility of fraud. That knowledge, in itself may deter some people from trying to steal.

* Joe Stephens & Mary Pat Flaherty (2013) “Inside the hidden world of thefts, scams and phantom purchases at the nation’s nonprofits,” Washington Post, October 23rd.

**Janet Greenlee, Mary Fischer, Teresa Gordon & Elizabeth King, “An investigation of the fraud in nonprofit organizations: occurrence & deterrents, “ Working Paper#35 hauser-center@harvard.edu.

***https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract id=2604372

****More actionable details can be found: Eugene Fram & Bruce Oliver (2010) “Want to avoid fraud? Look to your board,” Nonprofit World, September-October.
Eugene Fram (2013) “Preventing and managing leadership crises in nonprofit organizations, “ in Handbook of Research on Crisis Leadership in Organizations, Andrew J. DuBrin, editor, London, Edward Elgar International Publishing.

Is Your Nonprofit Board Chair Productive?

Is Your Nonprofit Board Chair Productive?

 

Is Your Nonprofit Board Chair Productive?

By: Eugene Fram         Free Digital image

Hundreds of articles have probably been published about the skills and abilities nonprofit CEOs need to have to meet the challenges of the nonprofit environment. These include: reduced funding, increased use of technology and increased responsibilities for fundraising.

Relatedly, nonprofit board chairs have been encountering escalating challenges to recruit able board personnel. Current chairs must develop a more active partnership with the CEO in fundraising and lead the board in making difficult financial, technology and other strategy decisions.

To address these challenges, following are the attributes that I think a nonprofit board chair should have to be productive, within the confines of being a volunteer (part-time) chairperson.

• Great Communication Skills: Current issues can be so pressing that chairs will need to be the types of people who don’t limit their board communications to regular meetings. Those who head the board must be in positions to return phone calls or other communications promptly and proactively seek the counsel of directors as needs arise. As a communicator, the chair should listen intently as well as provide outward-bound communications.
• Understands Importance of External Stakeholders: Traditionally chairs have not have much contact with external stakeholders. This is rapidly changing as funders want more assurance about board overview involvement in the grants they award; those providing gifts want more assurance that the intent of donor is being clearly recognized. The chair understands that an organization’s modern stakeholders range broadly from vendors to staff/management to donors. She/h understands that the nonprofit board represents the interests of a community, profession or trade association.
• Manages Board as an Organization: The chair makes certain that all directors understand their roles to overview, to have robust compliant financial and legal processes and to generate civil meeting discussions. He/s is able to abort any board attempts at micromanaging the executive group or staff. Board decisions should be viewed as being democratically developed, even when there is not unanimous agreement.
• Positive Relations With CEO: Mutual respect between the two is the hallmark of the relationship. Differences are settled without rancor, understanding that each role has boundaries – the board has the final word on policy and strategy while, at the same time, the CEO has final authority on operational decisions.
• Acquainted With Technology Basics: Since the use of technology is pervasive, the chair should be able to intelligently lead the board discussions on major technology issues. These currently include the use of the Internet, use of cloud computing and social media. Discussions can range from purchasing technical hardware and software to questions of privacy protection.
• Strategy/Policy Development: The chair has major responsibility to see that these topics are placed on the agendas, and, where approved, are implemented on a timely basis. Over the years, both issues on FP and NFP agendas have not been given the discussion time they deserve. These topics can range from pension reforms to whether or not an organization should have an acquisition/merger strategy.

The challenges facing nonprofits, their CEOs and board chairs have escalated and will likely continue to escalate. The managerial requirements for nonprofit CEOs have risen. But it has not been the same for the board chairs. Although a part-time position, nonprofit boards and their stakeholders should realize that they need to elect people with leadership know-how. They are not necessarily the people who make the largest financial donations. The two can be the same, but nomination committees must be certain that whoever is chosen to preside as board chair has the requisite skills to do so.

A Nonprofit Board Must Focus On Its Organization’s Impacts

A Nonprofit Board Must Focus On Its Organization’s Impacts

By: Eugene Fram        Free Digital Image

“One of the key functions of a (nonprofit) board of directors is to oversee (not micromanage) the CEO, ensuring that (stakeholders) are getting the most from their investments.” * State and Federal compliance regulations have been developed to make certain that boards have an obligation to represent all stakeholders.  These include the staff, community, donors, foundations and clients, but not only the staff as some nonprofit boards have come to believe.   Following are some inherent problems.

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Does Your Nonprofit Have A Process For Implementing Strategy?

 

Does Your Nonprofit Have A Process For Implementing Strategy?

By: Eugene Fram           Free Digital Image  

My observation is that intense interest in nonprofit organizational strategy only takes place  very three or five years when the strategic plan needs to be reviewed.  The cause, as I see it, is that substantial numbers of nonprofit board members and senior managers lack substantial strategic  backgrounds and interests to enable them to give the plan implementation attention. Most boards I have encountered are fortunate to have one or two  board members with broad based strategic experiences. With nonprofit board members rotating every four to six years, it’s likely that any board member will only participate in one strategic plan change experience.  Also some nonprofit CEOs and senior managers can be directly appointed from staff positions, lacking knowledge of strategy development.    

Based on a survey of commercial organizations by McKinsey, it appears that these boards and their managements have similar strategic challenges as nonprofits. * 

Following (in bold) are McKinsey’s three suggestions for implementing strategy development and my suggestions for adapting them to nonprofit organizations (more…)

Anticipating Tomorrow’s Nonprofit Crises Today

 

Anticipating Tomorrow’s Nonprofit Crises Today

By: Eugene Fram            Free Digital Image

In the decades in which I have been a nonprofit/business board member or consultant, I fortunately have only been in the mire of a crisis situation twice.   In both cases, the board was totally unprepared to take appropriate actions to minimize the turmoil that followed.

Following some guidelines that nonprofit boards can use to plan to respond effectively to crises in the 21st century: *

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Do Nonprofit Board Members Face Cyber Security Risk?

Do Nonprofit Board Members Face Cyber Security Risk?

By: Eugene Fram      Free Digital Image

Nonprofit board members may seem far afield from the concerns of nonprofit directors, except for the giants in the area, like AARP. However, think about this hypothetical scenario.

A group of high school students hacked into the computer system of a local nonprofit offering mental health services and gain access to records of clients, perhaps even placing some of the records of other teenagers on the internet.

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What Makes A Great Nonprofit Board Member?  Some Unique Suggestions!!!

What Makes A Great Nonprofit Board Member?  Some Unique Suggestions!!!

By: Eugene Fram          Free Digital Photo

Viewers may question my taking time to develop this post when a Google search, using the above title, shows about 22 million listings recorded in 0.96 of second! The answer is that I located a board article with a few interesting insights, relating to for-profit boards, that also can be useful to the selection of nonprofit directors. * Following are some of the unusual ideas.

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Dysfunctional Levels in Nonprofit Boards & Organizations.

Dysfunctional Levels in Nonprofit Boards & Organizations.

  By: Eugene Fram                 Free Digital Image

 Articles and studies from a Google search on “Dysfunctions in Nonprofit Boards & Organizations,” yields 3,530,000 items in .53 of a second. These items show dysfunctions on charter school boards, church boards, healthcare boards, trade associations, human services boards etc.

Rick Moyers, a well-known nonprofit commentator and nonprofit researcher, concluded:

“A decade’s worth of research suggests that board performance is at best uneven and at worst highly dysfunctional. ….. The experiences of serving on a board — unless it is high functioning, superbly led, supported by a skilled staff and working in a true partnership with the executive – is quite the opposite of engaging.”

These data and comments can lead one to conclude that all nonprofit boards are dysfunctional. I suggest that nonprofit boards can generate a range of dysfunctional behavioral outcomes, but the staff can muddle through and continue to adequately serve clients.

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Unwritten Protocols for Directors Can Boost Nonprofits’ Effectiveness
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Unwritten Protocols for Directors Can Boost Nonprofits’ Effectiveness

By:  Eugene Fram                                        Free Digital Photo

Nonprofit boards are governed by a series of obligations —some are clearly defined as legal responsibilities such as financial actions. Others, however, are less clearly defined and relate to people who are, in some way, associated with the organization. Guidelines to these diverse interactions are not typically archived in policies but are important to the overall professionalism of the board. They include consideration of its: board structure, internal operations, recruitment methods and leadership style.

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