Nonprofits love volunteers. After all, they are the lifeblood of many organizations. When budgets are tight— and they always are with nonprofits— volunteers take up the slack.

So, how do you recruit volunteers who will integrate well with your paid staff, perform the functions they are assigned, and stick around?

Recruiting those committed and talented volunteers does take time and a strategic approach.

An example from my past— I was a regular volunteer for my alumni organization and usually said, "Yes" when asked for anything. At one meeting, I was asked to run a particular volunteer effort and said, "Yes," without really thinking about it. As the officer who had asked me walked away, I suddenly realized that the volunteer position was going to take place during the time my son was scheduled for an extensive surgery and recovery period. Not a good time to volunteer.

So, I quickly found the officer and explained that I wouldn’t be available this time. She looked put out and walked away.

Did they ask me to volunteer again? No, they did not. I subsequently took my volunteer efforts elsewhere.

Best Recruiting Strategy
What works best? Honesty is number one!

How many times have you been told that "It will only take a little time" to do a particular volunteer effort? After you’ve been roped into it— and you feel…

Welcome to Research Friday! As part of a continuing series, we invite a nonprofit scholar, student, or professional to highlight current research reports or studies and discuss how they can inform and improve day-to-day nonprofit practice.

Earlier this year, Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF) received 4,600 responses to our annual 2012 State of the Sector Survey. Since then, we’ve been using these data to share key nonprofit sector trends on issues like the rising demand for services, shrinking government support, and the precarious financial health of organizations. This week’s installment of Research Friday looks at what the survey results tell us about nonprofit board engagement in tough times.

Since 2009, our survey has asked nonprofit leaders to indicate what management actions they are taking to cope with the recession. In both 2009 and 2010, nonprofit leaders told us that they were "engaging more closely with the board" by increasing the number of annual meetings, sharing new types of reports, or in other ways. In those years, nearly two thirds of respondents (59 percent and 60 percent, respectively) ramped up their communication with the board. So what happened in 2011, and what are respondents planning for 2012?…

Question: This question was recently posed to the ASU Lodestar Center’s “Ask a Nonprofit Specialist”:

Every time the financial report is made at my organization’s Board meeting, the members seem to either fixate on a number that is not especially meaningful or the opposite: their eyes glaze over in boredom. How can I make the reports more meaningful? One member suggested we use a dashboard to report our finances? What do you suggest?

Engaging members of a nonprofit Board of Directors in the organization’s financial affairs can be challenging, given the diverse skills and expertise Board members bring to the work. This Board member’s experience is very common. It’s not easy to report on financial statements in an engaging fashion. However, since financial accountability is one of the most significant legal and ethical responsibilities for nonprofit Boards of Directors, effectively engaging the Board in financial matters is critical.  Consider the following background information to improve your organization’s financial reporting and the Board’s engagement in your organization’s financial affairs.

Board Financial Responsibility
A nonprofit Board of Directors has 2 essential financial responsibilities:  

1. Ensure assets are protected and used to support the organization’s charitable purpose in compliance with regulations and standards…

Welcome to Research Friday! As part of a continuing series, we invite a nonprofit scholar, student, or professional to highlight current research reports or studies and discuss how they can inform and improve day-to-day nonprofit practice.

The past decade has been rife with ideas on how to scale up successful nonprofit organizations. Calls for scaling have been amplified by the recent economic recession, which brought increased demand for social services coupled with shrinking government dollars. But a structural problem remains: philanthropy does not typically have available capital for scaling.

The Social Impact Bond (SIB), developed in the U.K., was recently adopted in Massachusetts. The SIB is not a traditional bond; rather, it is a capital equity investment pool.i As I discussed in my last blog post, with SIBs, money is paid up front to a nonprofit organization, which in return commits to predetermined benchmarks. The investors assume the risk that the nonprofit organization will meet the benchmarks and alleviate the social problem.

But what if the nonprofit organization was to assume the risk? What if the organization only received payment if the outcome was achieved? This type of bond is called a surety bond, specifically, a Human Capital…

Nonprofits have a unique character in our society. And it is not just their legal status. This legal status recognizes that nonprofits exist for more than a bottom line. Nonprofits exist for the community.

Most nonprofits don’t think of themselves as a political organization. Yet, nonprofits by their nature are an integral part of any community’s life. Nonprofits fight poverty, provide great venues for art and music, challenge homelessness, help organize civic life, promote the common good and a host of other functions that puts human community and the common good before profits and a narrow band of investors.

Nonprofits have distinctive characteristics such as: focus on mission and community benefit, the work as a calling, a unique satisfaction while making a difference over making money, loyalty and relationships which can create a unique sense of community and cohesiveness among staff, board and volunteers. These special attributes provide a new fertile ground for empowering people being served as a source of great political power.

Nonprofit employees, boards, and volunteers have common goals, shared values, professional interests and motivations for services. This is what keeps them together, not the possibility of profits, or even raises. They share a mission of community service and benefit. In the 21st century, the workplace, especially the nonprofit workplace, takes on a new meaning and…