A–Z for Nonprofit Organizations

By Guerlince Semerzier

There are a lot of things to say about all these characteristics, but I would prefer not to bore you with a lot of details. The focus would be to compress the most important knowledge into a few words. Each chapter would run through the English alphabets A to Z and would carry just enough for your assimilation and employability.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796055986

Guerlince Semerzier

AUTHOR’S BIOGRAPHY Guerlince is a business development and nonprofit organization consultant with over twenty years of executive and project management experience in various sectors. He has worked for several companies including Tufts University, Cambridge Health Alliance, State of Massachusetts and Wayside Youth and Family Support Network, and Massachusetts General Hospital. He also advised and consulted with several businesses and organizations: Haiti Ventures, Yondernet Media Group, Roman Kreyól, US Haitian-American Chamber of Commerce, EPECARE Inc., Somerville Haitian Coalition, and Together for Better Future Inc. As a motivational speaker, Guerlince has been a guest lecturer, presenter, and panelist at numerous conferences, high schools, colleges/universities, churches, and companies. He wrote several magazine articles regarding the Haitian Diaspora community, and he’s been featured in many different news programs, such as NPR, Voice of America, WGBH, Boston Haitian Reporter, WBZ News, FOX25 News, and New England Cable News. He is the founder and executive director of Enfome Inc. (www.enfome.org), a collaborative social impact Haitian-American 501(c)3 nonprofit organization based in the Boston metropolitan area. The organization serves as an empowerment platform to help promote Haitian philanthropic causes to advocate for equity and effective resources for Haitian nonprofit organizations. He conducts international sustainable project development, business development, and organizational development training workshops for various grassroots community organizations in the Diaspora and Haiti. Following the Haiti 2010 earthquake and 2016 Hurricane Matthew, he helped coordinate major community humanitarian relief efforts and galvanize community mobilization resources from local, state, and federal level. Guerlince has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Salem State University. He is a 2011 graduate fellow of the Tufts University Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI). He is also a 2017 graduate of Tufts University/Tisch College (Institute of Nonprofit Practice) Nonprofit Leadership Management.

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Copyright © 2019 by Guerlince Semerzier.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2019912762

ISBN:              Hardcover               978-1-7960-5600-6

                        Softcover                978-1-7960-5599-3

                        eBook                     978-1-7960-5598-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Rev. date: 08/28/2019

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Accounting

Board

Communication (Marketing)

Donors

Evaluation

Fund-Raising

Governance

High Value

Innovation

Job Description

Knowledgeable

Leadership

Membership

Networking

Optimisim

Planning

Quality

Report

Sustainability

Transparency

Uplift

Volunteer

Winnable

Xoxo

Yes (Can-Do Attitude)

Zappy

References

INTRODUCTION

As the name implies, nonprofit organizations (NPOs) are outfits set up for the main purpose of providing succor for the populace or a particular sector of an entire environment without really putting into consideration profits to be made by stakeholders and/or owners of such nonprofit organizations. In his book, Anheier (2000) quotes Hudson (1999) and Paton (1996) as identifying value orientation as the essential feature of nonprofit organizations: A non-profit organization is a combination of different motivations, standards, challenges and practices.

According to Wikipedia, a nonprofit organization (NPO), which is also known as a nonbusiness entity or nonprofit institution, is dedicated to furthering a particular social cause or advocating for a shared point of view. In economic terms, it is an organization that uses its surplus of the revenues to further achieve its ultimate objective rather than distributing its income to the organization’s shareholders, leaders, or members. Nonprofits are tax-exempt or charitable, meaning they do not pay income tax on the money that they receive for their organization. They can operate in religious, scientific, research, or educational settings. The NPO owes it to itself and to the public the accountability, trustworthiness, honesty, and openness to every person who has invested time, money, and faith into the organization. Nonprofit organizations are accountable to the donors, funders, volunteers, program recipients, and the public community.

Going further, Wikipedia states that public confidence is a factor in the amount of money that a nonprofit organization is able to raise. The more nonprofits focus on their mission, the more public confidence they will have, and as a result, there is more money for the organization. The activities a nonprofit is partaking in can help build the public’s confidence in nonprofits as well as show how ethical their standards and practices are.

They are not solely set up for the purpose of lining up the pockets of organizers with cash. This is to say that whatever moneys are made are wholly channeled into what the organization stands for. Nonprofits might be set up to reduce child abuse, protect the environment, or promote music or the performing arts. Obviously, the organization should act in a rational manner to achieve set objectives, i.e. operate efficiently and effectively, and for the benefit of the mission primarily—and only secondarily for the benefit of the board, managers, or staff (Anheier). However, nonprofit organizations are to be structured ordinately if they must generate income to feed the course they are created for.

Machuca (2017) describes a nonprofit organization in an online article as one serving public or mutual benefits and interests. Being a nonprofit does not mean that the organization does not generate profit but simply that it doesn’t generate revenue for the purpose of harvesting income. They typically serve a scientific, religious, educational, or charitable purpose and, with recognition by the IRS, are tax-exempt.

She goes on to opine that nonprofits can take the form of anything from soup kitchens, local churches, and homeless shelters to labor unions, museums, universities, and hospitals.

Helmut K. Anheier says in a paper he titled Managing Non-Profit Organisations: Towards a New Approach that like all organizations, non-profit organizations vary much in terms of mission, size, mode of operation and impact … some are closer to the model of a government agency; others may indeed resemble the business firm; and yet others may be little more than an informal network. To him, non-profit organisations tend to be more complex than business firms of comparable size. For these reasons, you should not go all out to use the model of business management for your nonprofit organization no matter how challenging this may sound. Despite all the variations, Anheier (2000) opines that a nonprofit organization must be organized in structure enough to prevent it from being confused with an informal institution, and it must be separate from the government in its setup. He says further that it must be able to govern itself yet be totally based on voluntary input.

Despite their diversity in structure and driving ideology, NPOs are identical in that they all have to provide management dynamisms, be accountable in audits, and obey tax statuses of corporate and private donors. The article goes further to indicate thus:

• Provisions for the amendment of the statutes or articles of incorporation and management provisions

• Provisions for the amendment of the statutes or articles of incorporation

• Provisions for the dissolution of the entity

• Tax statuses of corporate and private donors

• Tax status of the founders

Machuca (2017) writes also that nonprofit organizations allow people to come together and join resources in order to achieve goals that benefit the purpose for the organization’s being. In so doing, the revenue generated by the nonprofit organization is used for the betterment of the mission they seek to complete.

There are a lot of things to say about all these characteristics, but I would prefer not to bore you with a lot of details. The focus would be to compress