Within the nonprofit sector, there is a lack of leadership and staff diversity. According to a study conducted in 2011, 86 percent of nonprofit board members are Caucasian (Schwartz, Weinberg, Hagenbuch, & Scott, 2011). The same study reports that the nonprofit workforce is made up of around 82 percent Caucasian, 10 percent African-American, five percent Latino, three percent classified as other, and one percent Asian individuals (Schwartz, Weinberg, Hagenbuch, & Scott, 2011). Katherine Cecala (2016), the current President of Junior Achievement of Arizona, shared research revealing that the human service subsector tends to have more women as a whole, yet Caucasian men tend to hold the majority of the higher-level positions. A lack of leadership and staff diversity poses problems - particularly for human service organizations - because it affects their ability to fulfill their mission. 

Many nonprofits whose missions have a human welfare component are addressing issues that occur as a result of a lack of inclusion and respect for the rights of people who are not part of the dominant culture in America. However, these same nonprofits rarely have leadership and workforces reflective of their mission and the communities the organizations serve. Author Jeanne Bell states, “while the nonprofit sector regularly discusses and addresses programmatically issues of race and class, recent studies reveal a sharp disconnect between our values and our…

Volunteer retention is important in nonprofits because many nonprofits rely on volunteers to provide services. It is an issue in both large and small organizations because no matter the size, nonprofits rely on volunteers to carry out their mission. Volunteer retention is the ability to keep volunteers involved in an organization. Retention of volunteers comes from a fulfilled commitment and the hope that they will renew that commitment to the nonprofit.

Volunteer retention is an important aspect of a nonprofit because nonprofits spend tons of money on marketing, recruiting, training, and replacing volunteers (Jamison, 2003, p.115). If nonprofits can increase volunteer retention, they can use the money they would otherwise spend to market and recruit for volunteer positions towards further training and development of volunteers and staff, thereby decreasing volunteer turnover. Volunteer retention improves if an organization focuses on what motivates a volunteer and builds volunteer management programs and appreciation experiences around those motivations.

Despite the large number of volunteers in human service nonprofits, there is a high level of dissatisfaction with the volunteer experience. Jamison (2003) found that 40% of volunteers were dissatisfied with how they are managed and only 20% were pleased with how…

Just days after we rang in the new year, a storm blew through Denver, Colorado. While the flakes fell outside, inside there was a flurry of ideas, conversation, and learning at the Nonprofit Leadership Alliance's Alliance Management Institute (AMI). Twenty-two students from the ASU Nonprofit Leadership Alliance Student Association joined hundreds of the brightest future nonprofit professionals from 33 campuses across the country. Our students engaged in three days of workshops and brainstorming sessions across a wide variety of topics, including: leveraging social entrepreneurship, organizing grassroots social movements, and building strategic partnerships.

One particularly proud moment for the ASU delegation was cheering for junior Lindsay Zapata as she presented her Undergraduate Best Practices…

What criteria should nonprofits consider before accepting a social impact investment?

Recent trends in philanthropic giving indicate that the new generation of donors has a high interest in ensuring that their donations generate outcomes (Flandez, 2012). Donors are becoming increasingly vigilant and have rising expectations of nonprofit agencies. As a result, an emerging method of investment, called social impact investment, has investors monitor the outcomes produced by their donations while simultaneously producing profit from their investment. Nonprofit executives must be cognizant of these trends, as they may provide insight into the motivations for giving. They may be some useful considerations for nonprofits to consider in order to boost their finances and maintain their donor base. At the same time, nonprofits should be aware of the challenges and limitations to this emergent form of funding.

The Nonprofit Finance Fund defines social impact investments as “investments that intend to generate positive social or environmental impact along with financial return.” Though the practice is decades old, the term was only coined in 2008, making it a relatively new field of study. Despite its recent emergence, it has gained rapid popularity, with an estimated $300 billion in impact investments in 2014, and an estimated $500 billion expected by 2019 (Sirull, 2015; Monitor Institute, 2009, p. 5).

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As nonprofit leaders, we’re paranoid that our funding will suddenly dissipate. We obsess about the grants that won’t fund and the donors that will move away.

The bread-and-butter funding that enables our work may dissipate due to any number of external factors. An election cycle, a bad day for the stock market, a poorly attended gala, and even an extended vacation by a wealthy donor can raise our blood pressure and force programmatic cutbacks.

So why do we think we’re different from anyone else?

Most families and businesses are one bad month away from crisis. Nonprofits are no exception. The difference is that nonprofits have learned the incorrect lesson that more money is always available so long as we do more fundraisers. Nonprofits have learned to diversify revenue largely as a response to mid-20th century funding patterns. Our paranoia about losing our funding has led us down a bad path toward over-diversification as a fiscal strategy.

Herein lies the problem. Diversification is not a strategy - it’s an investment. And investments are risks.

Revenue diversification is just not affordable for every organization. In theory, an organization can resist economic shocks by spreading out its income sources from a mixture of grants, donations, fees, corporate gifts, social enterprise, and special events.

Most nonprofits can’t manage all those different funding sources. When nonprofits attempt to…