Jennifer E Goldman, Nonprofit Consultant

Somewhere in time it became standard practice for nonprofit organizations to plan a balanced budget for their upcoming fiscal year. I don’t know where that came from, but can we please send it back? Ask any small business owner and they will tell you that the bottom line matters. They’re looking to be profitable in their year. They want their budget to indicate sustainability and growth. They’re ok with expenses going up as long as income increases even more. I encourage nonprofit organizations to adopt this mindset as well. How will your nonprofit be able to serve your community next year if you aren’t making money? Your annual budget should be a reflection of your growth plans, your program development , and the increased impact you plan to make in your community. Here are a few examples of things I encourage you to STOP doing to your nonprofit budget: ·         Stop purposely making your income and expenses equal – for two basic reasons. If y...

And start funding planning for your programs, your overhead, your growth. When I was the Executive Director of a small nonprofit, I can remember feeling like I spent all of my time either fundraising through special events or running the special events. We needed the event to add money to our bank account to keep us afloat until the next special event. Essentially, each event was paying for the overhead and event expenses. It was a vicious (and exhausting) cycle. I’ve been working on two basic things with my clients recently: Proving your value by showing the impact your organization has on its community Raising the funds you need to sustain and grow your nonprofit in a way that allows you to focus on your mission and your programs. By fundraising through events, nonprofits are rarely introducing people to their organization, their mission, their impact and importance. It’s the equivalent of a retail shop having a sale or hosting a pop-up. You may get a bunch of people excite...

I spent five years as Executive Director for a small nonprofit organization in Northern Virginia and I constantly felt like I was running behind the 8-ball…and never catching up. It felt as if I could do that job 24/7 and never have any less to do. I was the proverbial chicken running around with its head cut off. And then I started my own company. Foolishly thinking I’d be a better boss than my board. Turns out that 8-ball scenario was all my own doing and that damn thing kept on rolling ahead of me, always just beyond reach. So I stopped running. After a year in business, working seven days a week, at all hours, I sat down (though I have no idea where I found the time) and thought to myself, “I did NOT start a business to run myself into the ground!” And the changes began. It was time to slow my roll. Let someone younger and faster go chasing magic balls. I’ma sit right here and figure out a better way. At that point, a winery was one of my clients and they needed a ton of ...

You’re a nonprofit leader. People are in awe of what you can accomplish; how much you can get done in a day. But are you a manager? Do you ever feel like you’re so mired down in the day-to-day minutiae that you just don’t have time to see the big picture? No time to implement new processes or ideas? Being an Executive Director is a BIG job especially when you’re leading a little organization, one with little to no staff, save for you. And that’s when it’s especially important to operate like a manager; like the CEO that you are. In my experience as a former (“recovering”) Executive Director, our board met once a month and it somehow always turned into an idea mill. By the end of those meetings, board members had scads of new, fabulous ideas. For ME to plan and implement. My to-do list got longer every time they met. Not to mention all the suggestions and ideas I fielded from donors and well-meaning community members. So what’s an ED to do with a to-do list a mile long (and growing) and...

If you’re struggling to find support for your nonprofit organization, you may want to begin tracking certain data to help you build a more compelling narrative. The more you understand what your organization has accomplished, in specific quantitative measures, the more your stakeholders and prospective supporters will be able to grasp the magnitude of the importance your nonprofit has in the community. Nonprofits that aren’t able to show their value, in both quantitative (numbers) and qualitative (narrative) ways often find support lacking in the following ways: Board member disengagement and/or dysfunction Not enough volunteers signing up Volunteers who step forward but don’t commit or follow through Donations waning in number and/or amount Grant applications rejected Partnerships dissolved or waning in commitment The more data you can collect during your fiscal year, the easier you’ll find it to tell your organization’s story. The method of data collection isn’t important – it can be...

I don't actually mean you. I meant me. I did it wrong. Not ALL of it, but certainly some of it. And maybe you are, too... Despite the fact that that line ( You're doing it wrong! ) came from the movie Mr. Mom , pointing out that the daddy was doing school drop-off/pick-up incorrectly, I’ve come to realize that being the mommy doesn’t give you any better instincts. Forget parenting, just being a human can be difficult to comprehend some days. You can see why I’ve been in therapy more than once in my lifetime. Turns out my first hurdle was mommy vs. daddy in a bout of marriage counseling. What I learned is that I’m one of those people who does it all. Sometimes because I have to, when there’s no one else willing to share the load. And sometimes because in my head, it’s just easier and faster to do it myself instead of explaining it to someone else. Or because I shouldn’t have to ask, so I don’t. Or because I know I’ll do it the way I want it done – and isn’t that really better an...