Nonprofit Sector

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 25 jul 2014

The recent survey of 150 US nonprofit foundations and endowments found that more nonprofits are prioritizing the implementation of effective risk management strategies to preserve the longevity of their organizations and missions. Main highlights of the survey are - (46%) Place greater value on positive risk-adjusted returns than on overall portfolio returns when evaluating investment success; (44%) Not confident that sufficient time is being spent in assessing the impact of potential market shocks on the ability to spend/achieve mission; (49%) Lack confidence that the investment committee has identified all key portfolio risks. According to Mary Jane Bobyock, Director of Nonprofit Advisory Team at SEI, '48 percent of nonprofits are currently using or considering the use of an outsourcing provider to help manage the portfolio.' Read on...

MarketWatch: SEI Poll - Nonprofits Focus On Risk Management In 2014
Author: NA

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 30 jun 2014

Businesspeople have skills and expertise that can benefit nonprofits for better operations and governance. On the other hand by joining nonprofits and their boards, business executives not only provide value to themselves but also their employers. According to research by City of London, there are increased skills among volunteer leaders in categories including team building, negotiating, problem solving and financial knowledge. Moreover research by Deloitte shows that among socially engaged employers, 87% of employees had an improved perception of their company and greater loyalty. Nick Hurd, UK Minister for Civil Society, points out that potential trustees should look for opportunities to align board service 'with a social issue they care about.' Read on...

NonProfit Quarterly: The Skills Businesspeople Gain on Nonprofit Boards
Author: Eileen Cunniffe

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 31 may 2014

Nobel laureate, Professor Muhammad Yunus, build the idea of microcredit and developed the concept of social business to solve social problems and created a substantial number of social entrepreneurs. According to him, 'application of social business concept in overcoming unemployment can produce a sustainable solution.' He is now embarking upon next level of social business concept, where loan or microcredit borrowing is displaced by equity investment in prospective social businesses, to tackle the problem of large number of youth unemployment. Social business funds are created for this purpose and the New Entrepreneur initiative was launched alongwith the Design Lab platform to bring entrepreneurs and investor funds together. (Social Business Funds -> Equity Investments -> Entrepreneurs -> Employment). This concept will be further expanded into self sustainable, unemployment and social problem free, autonomous Social Business Villages. Read on...

Huffington Post: "We Are Not Job-Seekers, We Are Job-Creators"-- Turning Unemployment into Entrepreneurship
Author: Muhammad Yunus

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 27 may 2014

The purpose of nonprofits is to utilize the public donations and contributions in the most efficient manner for their stated causes and in the best interest of the communities they intend to serve. But sometimes this is far from true. According to the Charity Navigator website, 'Many of the charities with CEO's making more than US$ 250000 a year use less than 60 percent on average of their revenue for their stated goals, this means that these organizations are using at least 40 percent of donations for administrative and fundraising costs which includes very lucrative salary packages for Executives.' Some of the negative issues regarding nonprofits that hinder their proper functioning and achieve their social causes include - Greed and misrepresentation at the top; Bureaucratic functioning particularly for large nonprofits; Government regulations, restrictions and bureaucratic hurdles; Multiple regulating agencies. Recent report by Connecticut Institute for 21st Century states, 'The contracting process is difficult at best, it is inconsistent across agencies, time consuming and inherently unfair to nonprofit service providers. This has led to mistrust between the nonprofit community and the state and a nonprofit community resistant to systemic change.' Brookings Institute study justifies the mistrust that people have on charities & nonprofits - 'Just 11 percent of the public think that nonprofits are spending their money wisely and only 19 percent feel that they do a good job of running their programs effectively.' Smart and streamlined regulations that put a cap on executive compensation, limit administrative costs, improve efficiency and innovation, bring transparency and honesty and at the same time protect the whistle-blowers who report wrongdoings, will ensure proper functioning and best possible use of public money by NGOs. Moreover a rating system can be evolved that should be based on the parameters that indicate whether the organization is meeting its stated goals or not. Read on...

OpEd News: For Profit - Why the Non Profit System can't seem to get it right
Author: Cory V. Clark

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 08 apr 2014

A team of economists, Esther Duflo & Abhijeet Banerjee (both from MIT) and Arun Chandrashekhar & Matthew Jackson (both from Stanford), in their research paper 'The Diffusion of Microfinance', explain the effects of providing information first to the well connected people on the popularity of socially beneficial programs. They termed this new measure of social influence as 'diffusion centrality'. Researchers examined the spread of microfinance in India through word of mouth and found that when socially well connected individuals were the first to know and gain access to these programs it increased the participation by 11%. The surveys for the study were mainly conducted in the select villages of the state of Karnataka in India. The study also found that participants in the microfinance programs are more effective in dissipating information to others - 7 times more than those who know about the programs but not participating. The research can be utilized by microfinance institutions and nonprofit poverty alleviation groups to evaluate the most effective methods to introduce and implement such programs in local settings. Read on...

Asian Scientist: How Anti-Poverty Programs Go Viral
Author: Peter Dizikes

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 27 mar 2014

Access to timely and effective healthcare in developing countries, particularly in the remote and underpriviledged areas, is challenging with prevalence of smuggled and counterfeit drugs, the inefficient supply chains, insufficient resources and poor economic conditions. A panel of experts suggest ways to enhance global healthcare delivery: David Jamieson (Crown Agents, USA) - Multi-sector partnerships bring together unique qualities and boost project's capacities. Tamsin Chislett (Living Goods, Uganda) - Make logistics technology easy to use for consumers and healthcare workers. Andreas Seiter (World Bank, USA) - Create new drug payment systems that ensure against corruption. Simon Berry (ColaLife, Zambia) - Partnerships with governments should run down to the community level. Rose Reis (Center for Health Market Innovations, USA) - Emerging pharmacy chains lead to better, cheaper drugs; Don't overlook informal healthcare providers. Mandy Sugrue (mHealth Alliance, USA) - Work at the community level. George Jagoe (Medicines for Malaria Venture, Switzerland) - New technologies should be adapted to fit broader needs. Read on...

the guardian: Healthcare logistics - delivering medicines to where they're needed most
Author: Name

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 23 feb 2014

Social media can be an effective tool to engage and involve audience towards the causes of NGOs and nonprofits. But there is more to it then just creating a profile and posting updates at any of the available social media platforms. One of the most important component is understanding the target audience and to focus all social strategy on them. Moreover social media can provide an opportunity to expand the existing user base that is developed by the website and other marketing channels. Article provides three step guide to better understand the audience - (1) Determine a Social Media Target Audience (2) Find Out How the Target Audience Uses Social Media (3) Do Some Internal Digging. Read on...

Huffington Post: Non-Profits and Social Media: 3 Steps to Defining Your Audience
Author: Tulani Elisa

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 31 jan 2014

Human resources are critical component of any organization. They provide their skills and services in exchange for wages and other benefits. Moreover organizations try to care for their employees and provide them better environment for enhanced productivity and efficiency and generally would like them to be happy and satisfied. But when it comes to volunteers, they are not paid employees and give their important time to charities and nonprofit organizations due to their personal commitment to a particular cause. They also act as unofficial community ambassadors for the charity's work and without their valuable contribution it would become difficult for nonprofits to fulfil their commitments and objectives considering their limited finances and budgets. Therefore it becomes important for these organizations to have a caring and supportive work environment and provide a positive volunteering experience. According to research by YouGov only 42% of those who volunteered in past 12 months in UK had a happy experience. Russel Findlay, CEO of London Youth Games Foundation, explains how his charity is able to attract more volunteers than others in UK and provides suggestions to charities to make volunteering happier and more fulfilling - Make it fun; Meaningful roles; Appreciation. Read on...

the guardian: What can charities do to improve the volunteering experience?
Author: Russell Findlay

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 30 jan 2014

In a recent research based on a Pollara-BMO survey it was found that wealthiest Canadians will give an average $5127 to charities this year in the following areas - Medical Research (72%), Children's Charities (38%), Community Programs (36%), Religious Institutions (33%), Animal Welfare (24%), Education (18%), Arts (16%), Political Causes (13%), Environment (13%), Foreign Aid (13%). In another research by TD Bank it was mentioned that new generation of Canadians are more community-minded than previous generations and would like to see the impact of their contributions. The bank suggests better decision making when planning to donate - Define shared values; Have a plan and do research on charities; Find tax efficiencies; Consider an endowment. Read on...

The Star: Wealthy donate most to health, kids' charities
Author: NA

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 27 jan 2014

Harvard University's Center for Nonprofits estimates that US-based nonprofit organizations have about US$ 40 billion fraud losses every year. While a Washington Post analysis of filings from 2008 to 2012 found that top 20 nonprofit organizations have a combined loss of more than half-billion dollars due to unauthorized uses of funds. Professor Eugene Fram of Rochester Institute of Technology have some suggestions for the boards of charitables - Audit committee to review annual audits; Supervise executive compensation & other financial activities; Annual review of conflict of interest policies; Honesty background of new hires; Interactions with external auditors without the presence of management. He also suggest a list of questions that should be asked with the auditors to ascertain any financial wrongdoings and ensure fraud prevention. Alert, attentive and proactive boards can create environment of honesty and deter happenings of fraud. Read on...

Huffington Post: Nonprofit Fraud Robs Charities of Substantial Dollars
Author: Eugene Fram

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