Finance & Fundraising

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 26 jan 2015

Nonprofits are always in need of support through funds, volunteers, materials etc. But if the nonprofit is a small one than the required help is even more. Jacqueline Wilson, founder of PrimeParentsClub.com, provides her opinion on why smaller nonprofits should be the focus of support of individuals and families - (1) Small nonprofits have little or no staff at all. (2) Salaries are super small (or non-existent) at smaller nonprofits. (3) Smaller nonprofits would go out of work without your help. (4) Small nonprofits rely on the kindness of strangers, i.e. anyone who can pitch in for support. (5) Smaller nonprofits aren't on the radar of big company donations. (6) Smaller nonprofits have even smaller marketing budgets. Read on...

Huffington Post: 6 Reasons Small Non-Profits Need Your Family's Help More Than the Bigger Non-Profits
Author: Jacqueline Wilson

---

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 31 dec 2014

Nonprofit funds are often acquired through donations, grants, fundraising, endowments, membership, and program fees and services. Although there are differences in nonprofit and for-profit models but success of both depends on similar operational effectiveness. Nonprofit leaders should follow the art of risk taking and strategic innovation that entrepreneurs follow to be successful. Professor Emad Rahim of Bellevue University suggests the following five key elements that nonprofit leaders should consider to operate like a startup - (1) A Nonprofit is a company (2) Operating effectiveness is essential (3) Donors are essentially customers (4) Good publicity can boost donations (5) A nonprofit has competitors. Read on...

Forbes: 5 Competitive Advantages To Help Nonprofits Think Like Entrepreneurs
Author: Emad Rahim

---

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 08 sep 2014

Donor support is the single most critical component that makes or breaks nonprofits. Most nonprofits spend a substantial part of their efforts to attract and nurture donors. Fear of failure often add to the worry of losing donor support. Main aim of social enterprises is to solve societal and community problems and they can do better if they embrace failure and learn from it. Epaminondas Farmakis, president and CEO of Elpis Philanthropy Advisors, suggests most common fear of failures - (1) Failure to Profit (Social entrepreneurs focus on providing sustainable social solutions to the communities they serve and also balance it with offering attractive returns to their investors. They need to have a right fit between investor values, community requirements & return on investments. Shareholders must understand that the primary goal of a social enterprise is to serve the community. (2) Failure to Measure (Since there are no clear methods of measuring nonprofit's success, there is always some ambiquity. So there has to be an understanding among the stakeholders regarding this. Researching on direct impact of donations for improvement of society can be one of the measure of their success. (3) Failure to Innovate (Social innovations go through a similar process of iterations and experimentations as for-profit innovations. And failure is part of the process. Learning from mistakes should happen all the time). Read on...

Devex Impact: 'Failing up' for social enterprise success
Author: Epaminondas Farmakis

---

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 27 aug 2014

The increase in the number of nonprofits in the past decade, up by 25% to more than 1.5 million in US, is leading to hightened competition among them to attract donors. They are utilizing innovative methods to efficiently market their cause to attract and retain givers. B2B brands are trying to act like B2C for customer engagements. But they can go a little further and try to emulate the nonprofits to nurture and cultivate passionate and loyal customers. Although the passion that exist for a nonprofit cause is hard to be imbibed in for-profit customers but businesses can learn few lessons from them and try to bring their customers closer to the brand. The four lessons that B2Bs can learn from nonprofits are - (1) How to market to donors (Effective use of social media and crowdfunding sites to get the message go viral); (2) How to build and use advocates (Use of brand advocates and trusted referrers); (3) The importance of transparency and public perception (More transparency and accountability leads to trust. Engagement in social causes and social responsibility creates positive perception); (4) The importance of personality and tone in communications (Nonprofits take on personality attributes to their branding & communication channels - trailblazer, cool, bold, innovative, friendly etc). Read on...

MarketingProfs: Four Things About Branding That B2Bs Can Learn From Nonprofits
Author: Rolf Wulfsberg

---

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 | 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 | 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

Latest             ⊲ Newer Posts             Finance & Fundraising             Older Posts ⚬             Last

---

the3h | glomc00 | ilmeps | mawdesigns | anasmark | ilmeds | read | contact