Understanding the Philanthropic Character of Communities

whitePaper | July 16, 2022

For many years, the charity watchdogs contributed to the myth that nonprofits should be spending 0% of their funding on professional staffing and operations. Nonprofit sector observers and researchers ultimately coined a name for this counterproductive level of frugality: the Nonprofit Starvation Cycle.2,3 In a nutshell, when an organization’s infrastructure is not funded or “fed” to the degree necessary for it to thrive, it cannot accomplish the work it was founded to do, and it chronically underperforms. The nonprofit itself is actually starving.

whitePaper | November 18, 2021

Your organization is here to help the world, but is your message clear enough to accomplish your goals? Can you clearly define the problem you are trying to solve? What is your organization’s culture? Do you trust your data?

whitePaper | January 16, 2020

Grant writing success comes with experience. Done well, it can change the landscape of your nonprofit and the lives of your clients. Adding grants to your fundraising strategy can be daunting, but by emulating these traits of experienced and successful grant writers, you can increase your likelihood of success when submitting requests.

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 24, 2021

In 2011, Jared, Joel, Jon, Jordan, J. Austin, Josh, and Jesse Stanley formed Stanley Brothers, a for-profit proprietary hemp company. A year later, Paige Figi contacted Stanley Brothers looking for a non-intoxicating natural alternative for her five-year-old daughter, Charlotte. Charlotte suffered from Dravet syndrome, a rare, severe form of epilepsy that caused her to have an average of 300 seizures a week—one every thirty minutes. With the help of the Stanley Brothers’ hemp product, Charlotte’s seizures reduced to just one a day, and in 2015, Charlotte was able to attend school for the very first time.

whitePaper | June 1, 2022

When you are trying to get to the same place as everyone else, you can use the same map. But when you are blazing your own trail, those directions might help you get started, but they won’t get you where you ultimately want to go. With financial reporting, you need the standardized reports that everyone uses—such as a cash flow statement or budget to actuals—to give you an understanding of where you sit financially. These reports also help you see how you compare with industry benchmarks and other not-for-profit organizations. Knowing that the entire industry is seeing their expenses increase because of inflation makes your tighter margins easier to understand.