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.
We are often asked to help nonprofit corporations review their bylaws and amend them as necessary or as desired. Bylaws may need to be reviewed and amended for legal compliance or risk management purposes or to match the existing or desired policies/practices of the corporation. The following are steps...
I’ll be on Nonprofit Radio this Friday at 10:30 am PT / 1:30 pm ET talking with host Tony Martignetti about what nonprofit boards get wrong. Catch us live on Talking Alternative or a few days later on iTunes. You may have heard rumors that your board isn’t perfect. We’ll run through the most glaring offenses you...
While the vast majority of charitable nonprofits are led by board members who want to do the right thing and see their organizations flourish in advancing their mission, we too often read about nonprofit boards that fail to lead their organizations out of trouble. Here are 10 ways nonprofit...
I recently wrote this article on shared leadership models published in The Nonprofit Quarterly on May 30, 2017. Nonprofits considering a shared leadership model would be well advised to review these materials while recognizing that people who talk about shared leadership are not always discussing the same things. In some cases, they...
I’ll be on Nonprofit Radio this Friday at 10:30 am PT / 1:30 pm ET talking with host Tony Martignetti about shared leadership models. Catch us live on Talking Alternative or a few days later on iTunes. We’ll no doubt be talking about some pros and cons associated with several models of shared leadership, including Co-CEOs, distributed...
In our earlier post on the Duty of Loyalty – Part 1, we discussed conflicts of interest, self-dealing (under California law), and excess benefit transactions. In this post, we’ll examine other aspects of the duty of loyalty: confidentiality and corporate opportunities. This post continues to address these fiduciary issues from the perspective of a...
The ABCs of Nonprofits, now in its second edition, is an excellent resource for nonprofits, their leaders, and their advisors on many of the legal issues affecting nonprofits. Author and highly respected nonprofit organizations attorney Lisa Runquist has just made this valuable book available in Spanish. Here’s what Lisa...
A Treasurer is typically charged with overseeing the management and reporting of an organization’s finances. Generally, as with other officer positions, the specific duties of the Treasurer are stated in an organization’s bylaws. Since an organization’s financial management is directly tied to the Treasurer’s responsibilities, the Treasurer’s execution of...
Section 5233 of the California Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation Law defines and prohibits self-dealing transactions. A self-dealing transaction is defined as “a transaction to which the corporation is a party and in which one or more of its directors has a material financial interest and which does not meet the requirements of...
The secretary position of a nonprofit organization plays a critical role in fostering communication and ensuring proper management and utilization of important organizational records. Generally, an organization’s bylaws will set the duties of the secretary, however, duties may change from time to time as may be assigned by the...