A few weeks ago, Blue Avocado published a great post about the value of Dashboard reports:

Imagine getting a dashboard like this at every board meeting. With a glance, board members could see how the organization is doing and start asking the important questions. The board would also be able to discuss what indicators should be added to the dashboard and which might not be necessary…

It’s hard to imagine driving a car without quick, ongoing access to a speedometer, fuel gauge, or gear position. An organizational Dashboard can be the same, fast way to check in on basics . . . so you can pay more attention to where you’re going.

It was a timely article, because we had just revamped our own dashboards.  We wanted to make sure we were giving the board and staff the most useful metrics about our finances, programs, and other work.  The end result is more useful dashboard for board and staff, but just was useful was a by-product of the process.  It forced all of us to take a step back and consider what information we’re sharing and why.

As the Blue Avocado article states, it doesn’t tell us where we’re going, but it provides critical information that allows us to focus on our work and the road ahead.  A tool that helps you cut through the noise and focus is a great asset.

For more on dashboards, read What Gauges Belong on Your Dashboard? or Seth Godin’s post, Dashboards.

Overhead

There is an interesting debate swirling about nonprofit overhead expenses.  Are they an investment in infrastructure,  money that could be better spent on programs, or something in between? Do donors care?  Should they?  This is Kate’s take:

Here’s my soapbox

I agree that it’s wise to “Do the same due diligence on your donations that you would your investments or your business.” But when I review an investment opportunity, I review based on the expected criteria for a successful business – profitability, market share, and returns. I don’t review their overhead and management costs. So why would overhead be the criteria for a charity?

…Do some due diligence on charities before you donate, just as you would for an investment or business opportunity. Pay especially close attention to how successful the nonprofit has been at achieving its mission. Do they provide information about how effective their programs are and what impact they have on the people and communities that they serve? Do they have a way to measure and communicate progress and/or success?

Join the conversation at Balancing the Mission Checkbook, facebook, or follow the example of Rich Cowles from Charities Review Council and blog about your position.

Late July Harvest

Mergers

• Joining Forces in the Back Office – Lodestar Foundation Resources
• Nonprofit mergers: Putting the best foot forward

IRS Updates

• IRS Releases Final Regulations for Returns of Small Groups
• IRS Training Materials – Governance

Other Resources

• Workshop Resources, Questions and Answers
• Nonprofit Leadership 601: New to Running a Nonprofit: Here’s an Overabundance of Resources
• Turning Crisis Into Opportunity: A Conversation With Two Nonprofit Sector Leaders

Crowdsourcing: What’s Working, What’s Not

A few weeks ago, Kate issued a call for “stories of change and transformation” and in the comments we talked a little bit about how we could leverage the power of our online community and crowd source this. I’ve had a few conversations about tools and tags, but before we jump into tactics, I wanted to ask:

• Is this happening elsewhere?
• Is anyone interested is collaborating on this kind of project?

Let me know in the comments.

The Center for Budget Policies and Priorities

The Center for Budget Policies and Priorities has a Special Series Economy Recovery Watch where they post regular updates and analysis on the stimulus package, the state budget crisis, and other economic news.

• Recovery bill’s “Fiscal Stabilization Fund” is important to protecting education and averting state and local budget cuts that would further weaken the economy

The Stabilization Fund would provide funds to partially close state and local budget shortfalls and allow states to avoid some of the most harmful actions they otherwise would have to take to meet their balanced budget requirements.  In particular, it would help avert damaging cuts in state aid to education at a time when school districts are reeling from declines in property taxes caused by sinking property values.

Additional Useful Resources

• What Nonprofits are Saying About the Bailout: A Fast Roundup from Blue Avocado

• From the Cohen Report:
  • What Can Nonprofits Look Forward to in the Economic Stimulus Bill
  • Ensuring a Timely Economic Stimulus: The Benchmark of CDBG Expenditures

• The Artful Manager asks Stimulus or pork byproduct? on the NEA’s possible inclusion in the stimulus package

• Economic Stimulus Package’s “Infrastructure Financing Tools” – a Boost to Charities

The Minnesota Angle

• Impact of federal economic recovery bill on Minnesota

• Update: The stimulus challenge from MPR

Updates

• Sources: Tentative deal reached for $780 billion stimulus package

• Democratic officials say tentative stimulus deal reached

Harvesting the Web

• From Philanthropy Potluck:
  • Nonprofit Survival: Four Steps to Take Now
  • Filling the Gaps: Expectations vs. Reality

• Blue Avocado: The Nonprofit Layoff Issue

• From Scott Russell at MinnPost: One more way nonprofits can save a little money

• Q&A with Nell Edgington – Accelerating Social Innovation

• Global Social Investment Exchange on Philanthropy 2173
  

• Avoiding the Sirens Song of Social Media Fundraising – The Great Social Media Debate?

Minnesota Budget Update

• From Smart Politics a Humphrey Institute blog: Minnesota’s 2010 Budget Deficit Among Top 10 Largest In Nation

• Pawlenty budget makes things worse a Star Tribune editorial written by Dane Smith of Growth and Justice and Nan Madden of the Minnesota Budget Project

• Finance and Commerce
  • Even the small state agencies are taking a hit
  • Pawlenty’s HCAF proposal could cost Minnesota federal stimulus dollars
• Politics in Minnesota:
  • How much would it cost to leverage the additional $2 billion in health care money in federal stimulus package? No one knows
  • The T Word: Which taxes to raise? Five ideas that are circulating at the Capitol

• State think tank leaders find little common ground on economic issues

• From the Star Tribune: Editorial: Tobacco bonds aren’t a lasting fix
  

The Nonprofit Angle

• Nonprofits lobby for fair tax hikes to avoid drastic cuts from MinnPost
  

The Local Government Angle

• The City of Minneapolis: Cuts to the City’s 2009 budget

• Pawlenty plans to cut funds for local governments

• Minnesota Budget Bites has the rundown on the unallotments: Ready, set,cut!!

• More from Budget Bites, House asking for your ideas on how to close the budget deficit

Here’s what the Minnesota Budget Project will be saying this session: State policymakers must take a balanced approach to the state’s budget deficit and avoid policy choices, like excessive spending cuts, that make the economic downturn more painful. The deficit is simply too large to take raising revenues off the table.

• Update: Pawlenty announces short-term budget cuts

• MinnPost asks Deficit spending: Why shouldn’t Minnesota do as the feds do?

But some are asking, what good is a balanced budget if it means widespread slashing and burning to eliminate jobs and services, especially in tough economic times?

• CBPP’s article on the long-term impact: Restoring Fiscal Sustainability Will Require Major Changes to Programs, Revenues, and the Nation’s Health Care System

While the long-term problem should not deter policymakers from dealing with the short-term crisis, policymakers will need to demonstrate to the public and the lenders who finance our short- and longer-term borrowing needs that they are prepared to move the budget toward a sustainable long-run path when the economy improves.

We encourage you to share your ideas with the Minnesota House.  You can chime in about the federal budget and spending priorities on change.org and change.gov.

MCN’s Forum on the Economy

On Tuesday, MCN hosted a forum on the Nonprofit Fundraising and Economic Outlook in 2009.

It included updates from the 2008 MCN Salary and Benefit Survey, the 2008 Minnesota Nonprofit Economy Report, a new 4th Quarter survey of nonprofit fundraising, and the state’s November Economic Forecast.

More on the Forum

• Economic briefing for nonprofits offers some optimism, plus reality checks and strategies, for 2009 from Scott Russell at MinnPost

• Notes from MCN’s Economic Briefing from Philanthropy Potluck

•  Nonprofit Survival: A Special Broadcast on MPR’s Midmorning with Jon Pratt from MCN, Jim Farstad of Intermedia Arts and Melissa Brown, director of research at the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.

Read the Reports

• Nonprofit Current Conditions Report

• Nonprofit Economy Report

• The Economy and Charitable Giving: Special Briefing November 2008

Other Resources

• Blue Avocado brings you Twelve Blue Avocado Days of Christmas, our favorites:
  • Seven pairs of bad shoes
  • Two unbalanced budgets

• 20 Emergency Funding Sources for Nonprofits from Fieldstone Alliance

• Kristin Giantris of NFF offers advice in the New York Nonprofit Press Dec. 2008 issue.

• Join the Discussion: Service Response

Paul Schmitz, a member of the Transition’s Innovation and Civil Society Team, kicked off the Change.gov discussion on service by asking to find out more about the social causes and volunteer efforts making a difference in your communities.