With the recent pandemic, civil unrest and racism conversations front and center, nonprofit organizations are working overtime to serve communities deeply affected by these issues. On top of it all is the reality that the diversity needle has not moved much in board of directors’ positions at nonprofit organizations. A 2017 survey from Board Source shows that 84% of members on nonprofit boards identify as Caucasian, which does not sway far from the 2015 survey.

A board of directors is a legal requirement to establish and maintain a nonprofit organization and helps to ensure the organization achieves its stated mission and meets the expectations of stakeholders, according to Nick Price. Yet, many nonprofit boards do not reflect the communities in which those same organizations are serving.

As our country continues to diversify, our nonprofits should strive to achieve a level of diversity on their boards that meets that of their current constituents and community. What can organizations do to amplify their diversity? The following five recommendations can help a nonprofit establish diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies that can help with overall success.

Promote diversity and inclusion throughout the organization

Nonprofit leaders should have ongoing discussions on inclusion and diversity, establish best…

The Council of Nonprofits defines capacity building as “whatever is needed to bring a nonprofit to the next level of operational, programmatic, financial or organizational maturity, so it may more effectively and efficiently advance its mission into the future.” Nonprofits can build capacity through investments in infrastructure.

Infrastructure has three main components: administrative (technology, systems, and software), human capital (people, paid and volunteer, and their knowledge and experience), and financial capital (money for short- and long-term operations).The 2018 State of the Sector Survey from the Nonprofit Finance Fund found that 86% of nonprofits saw increasing demands for services and 57% would not be able to meet those demands. Investments in capacity building infrastructure can ensure that nonprofits meet demands while growing sustainably.

From the funder’s perspective, the components not directly related to program delivery are many times labeled “overhead.” The problem of overhead funding has been a decades long issue within nonprofits. Gregory and Howard conceived the cycle of nonprofit starvation. The cycle begins with funders that can have unrealistic expectations about what nonprofits should be spending on overhead. On average, funders allow 10-15% of funds to go towards…

In the spring of 2020, as COVID-19 and the uncertainty of how to react spread across the United States and Canada, people holed up in their houses and apartments. Many people worked from home, if their work could be done that way. They ordered goods from Amazon rather than drive to the store. Students gravitated to online classes. Restaurants shut down. As nonprofits limited worker contact, many shuttered or adjusted programs and asked their volunteers to stay away. Even if volunteering was an option, many volunteers opted to stay home, either to protect their health or to help take care of their stay-at-home family. Our routines were disrupted, and volunteerism was a casualty. And *poof*… the volunteers were gone.

On the other hand, in this age of electronic networking and virtual technology, we shouldn’t say that the volunteers disappeared. The COVID-19 pandemic heralded the boom of Zoom, when people who had never been in a video conference before were suddenly in them all the time. And while most volunteering is traditionally in-person and face-to-face, many organizations have been hosting virtual volunteer assignments for several decades. What was new in the spring of 2020 was the scale of need to adopt information technologies to do our work, including providing opportunities for volunteers.

For the past year, I have been studying how volunteer managers (in nonprofits and government) have approached various technologies during…

According to an article from the Public Administration Review, to “improve organizational performance,” nonprofit leaders should dedicate adequate money and resources to information technology .This means that each nonprofit must be technologically educated, have the needed digital infrastructure, budget for future needs, staff appropriately, and use digital analytics for highest impact.

These disciplines are not what we have seen in much of the American nonprofit world, as 72% did not have a digital strategy before the coronavirus pandemic. Not surprisingly, those that did have a digital strategy have done far better. “Larger, contextual shifts” (e.g. pandemics, climate change, economic variations, and donation ups and downs) should be assumed as inevitable future dynamics.The reason that we begin with the question – How can nonprofits strategically implement digital tools to achieve impact? – is because our society has shifted from being a “civil society” and into a “digital civil society,” according to a report from the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. Technology and connecting…

When the pandemic hit in early 2020, most found that their typical and secure lifestyle came to a halt, and many of the employed were re-assigned to work remotely, or joined the increasing statistics of those unemployed. Questions arose within the human resources industry regarding the impact of this COVID-19 isolation, and its impact on the holistic well-being of employees.

Many of us find enjoyment and purpose in our daily routines, and when our access to these familiar activities is limited or lost entirely, we notice the emotional toll. For those individuals that have been re-assigned to work from home, the isolation can quickly become overwhelming, especially if one is also trying to manage the responsibility of caregiver aside from their usual job duties.

On the other hand, workers who were obligated to report in-person to their job, such as those within the healthcare and human services sector, faced a level of uncertainty about the prospects of falling ill or being able to meet the new overabundance of demands of today’s world. These stressful experiences create a burden that nonprofit workers are bearing, but it is the responsibility of leaders to find feasible ways to support their well-being as much as possible.

Holistic wellness

Supporting worker well-being is intended to nurture the multi-dimensional components of wellness that can improve the overall…