The Guide to a Modern NPO

whitePaper | February 9, 2022

Charities have an essential function in our communities, delivering a range of social services that would be difficult to provide on a purely commercial or a state-run basis. Essentially, they fill the gaps in society (often by partnering with government) that are not already cared for by central or local government.

whitePaper | February 2, 2022

Employee volunteer programs are a vital part of your corporate social responsibility, employee engagement, and community relations efforts. If done well, your program can play an important role in building nonprofit capacity, engaging employees, serving stakeholders, meeting social impact goals, and ensuring your company’s sustainability – not to mention all the positive impact you will have on the community.

whitePaper | February 2, 2023

A year ago, the phrase “the new normal,” was commonly used to describe expectations for 2022. This year, the word “normal” is largely absent. Nearly every risk report looking ahead to 2023 begins with a litany of disruptions and challenges organizations are facing: COVID-19 variants, inflation, higher interest rates, staffing shortages, cyberthreats, war in Ukraine, supply chain disruptions, increase in energy prices, political and social change, and more.

whitePaper | January 29, 2020

To address high drug prices and the challenges they create for access to drugs, organizations have been exploring and working to create nonprofit pharmaceutical companies. These nonprofit companies prioritize drug access and affordability in the United States as core components of their mission. In the current federal policy landscape, however, there are specific incentives for the operation of for-profit pharmaceutical companies that do not similarly benefit their nonprofit counterparts, as well as several other barriers to sustainability for nonprofit companies.

whitePaper | May 1, 2023

The second part of the annual Grow Together Report surveyed 120 decision makers in nonprofits in April 2023 to understand the current state of nonprofit organizations in Canada. The survey reveals that financial pressures for nonprofits have eased somewhat in the last 12 months, although organizations continue to struggle with rising costs and with securing skilled talent to help drive strategic initiatives, including digital transformation.

whitePaper | March 25, 2020

In their seminal article, "Nonprofit Starvation Cycle", Ann Goggins Gregory and Dan Howard exhort nonprofit finance professionals to report to funders the real costs of running nonprofit organizations. The authors explain that the popular trend to restrict funding to specific programs without accounting for infrastructure expenses leads to an unintended consequence, a "nonprofit starvation cycle", where charities cease to function because they can't pay for overhead costs, such as administrative employees, computers and electric bills. To break this unhealthy cycle, the article encourages nonprofits to recalibrate funder expectations by providing accurate financial reports and other supporting information to reflect the true costs of nonprofit operations.