Giving Compass' Take:

• Vu Le provides impactful actions that your foundation can complete to improve the sector, your organization, and your community. 

• Which of these actions is your organization prepared to take on? What stakeholders need to be engaged to make these goals reality? 

• Learn how funders can streamline their grantmaking to increase their impact.

Here then are some tangible, relatively straight-forward resolutions all of us, whether we are nonprofits or foundations, should make to ensure that we and our sector have a kickass 2019.

  1. Write and publish one op-ed in the local newspaper. We often complain within our bubble about the general public’s complete lack of knowledge about our sector. Let’s do something about it.
  2. Introduce five of your current donors to other organizations: Let’s end the Hunger Games style of fundraising. Our sector is most effective, and our community is best served, when we nonprofits look out for one another.
  3. Make sure all job postings comply with the Four Rules for Equitable Job Postings: To be equitable, a job listing 1. Discloses salary range and never asks for salary history or salary requirement 2. Does not ask for formal education except for specialized positions (legal, accounting, counseling, etc). 3. Does not exclude candidates with disabilities through requirements like must have working vehicle or be able to lift 50 pounds, unless those are essential duties. 4. Does not exclude candidates with criminal records unless those records are relevant to the current job.
  4. Remove all mentions of overhead or administrative ratio from all your communications: Boasting at your gala about how 100% of donations raised go to programming or saying on your website that 94 cents of every dollar goes to services furthers the destructive overhead myth and screws over the entire sector.
  5. Provide paid family leave: If you do not currently have a policy around leave that includes substantive paid family leave for parents of all genders when they have a new baby through childbirth or adoption, or to take care of family members, or for other reasons, create one this year.

Read the full article about impactful actions your foundation can complerte in 2019 by Vu Le at Nonprofit AF.