An engaged board can be one of the most important organizational assets of a nonprofit. But nonprofit boards are often underutilized and are not always effective in significantly advancing an organization’s mission. Educating boards and executives about their legal duties, practical steps to take to effectively meet those duties, and best practices in mitigating exposure to organizational and personal liability/harm is key to establishing board engagement and effectiveness.
On January 14, 2020, NEO’s Erin Bradrick and Victoria Weatherford of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP will be speaking on Serving on a Nonprofit Board: Issue Spotting & 2020 Ethics Update at the Bar Association of San Francisco from noon to 1:15 pm. The event (also offered as a live webcast) is sponsored...
For 2020, here are 20 tips for new nonprofit board members. Start to get to know your fellow board members, the executive leadership, and some or all of the staff. They are the people who get things done so you’ll want to know with whom you are placing your...
Equity in the Center’s Pre-Convening to Upswell Chicago was held on November 12, 2019 and provided a day-long, deep dive into how to build a Race Equity Culture. EiC described the convening as follows: Plenary sessions and workshops will focus on how to operationalize race equity, highlighting best practices...
Nonprofits have long relied on public trust and confidence that they are operating with good intent. But in recent years, that trust has been eroding. While, generally, the nonprofit sector still continues to be more trusted than (for-profit) business, government, and media, the public trust issue is a serious...
I’ll be on on Nonprofit Radio this Friday, October 9, at 10:00 am PT / 1:00 pm ET talking with host Tony Martignetti about recruiting nonprofit board members. The archived podcast is available here. Our discussion is prompted by a recent blog post I wrote, 12 Considerations Before You Join that Nonprofit Board, which itself...
In our previous post on California Nonprofit Articles of Incorporation, we noted that filing of the Articles effectively forms the corporation. As a corporation evolves over time, provisions in the original Articles may no longer accurately describe what is desired by the corporation’s leaders. When that happens, it becomes...
Are you interested in joining a nonprofit board of directors? Serving as a board member of a nonprofit can be tremendously rewarding and valuable, both to the organization and to you. But there are some things to consider before you join. About You It’s important to be honest and...
The Rebuttable Presumption of Reasonableness procedures, described in Treasury Regulation Section 53.4958-6(a), were promulgated to help charities avoid overpaying certain individuals and entities (known as disqualified persons) that might be able to exercise influence on the charity’s decision-making. Among those included as disqualified persons (DQPs) are: Directors (board members),...
Many nonprofits fail to respect the differences between directors and officers. When an individual holds both the position of director (i.e., board member) and an officer position (e.g., chair of the board), we often see such individual elected for only the officer position. It is then assumed that such...
I’ll be presenting on Governance and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for The Sanford Institute of Philanthropy and The College of Law at John F. Kennedy University on Thursday, May 2. Recent movements have energized the drive towards greater diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) across our society. Nonprofits have played...