Monday, April 14, 2008

Picks of the Week: April 13-19, 2008

Website of the Week -- Community Leadership Association

The mission of the Community Leadership Association is to strengthen and transform communities by enhancing the capacity of inclusive, community leadership development efforts. Through training seminars, annual leadership conferences, collaborations, partnerships, and educational publications, the Community Leadership Association seeks to inspire and encourage community leadership programs across the country and to help them address issues of vital importance to their respective communities. The website includes a discussion forum, a directory, access to publications, information concerning professional development, list of awards given, conferences, and memberships. Go to: http://www.communityleadership.org.


Publication of the Week -- Ethical Fundraising: A Guide for Nonprofit Boards and Fundraisers by Janice Gow Pettey

From the publisher: Ethical Fundraising is an invaluable collection of essays based on the rich experience of philanthropic leaders. The book is full of cases, anecdotes, codes, and other hands-on material as well as wise reflections on the central role of ethics in fundraising. The book offers a range of practical tools and techniques to incorporate ethical standards and practices in nonprofit fundraising Featuring contributions from a host of well-known and respected senior-level fundraising professionals, Ethical Fundraising provides clear and concise explanations of common ethical fundraising challenges along with practical case studies to stimulate thought and discussion. Essential topics are covered, including:
• Appearance of impropriety
• Rights of donors
• Tainted money
• Using donations as intended
• Choosing a leadership role
• Ethical decision-making
• Restoring public confidence in the nonprofit sector
• The ethics of grant making and grant seeking

Click to preview this book on Amazon.com


Trend of the Week -- Survey: Many Non-Profits Fall Short on Ethics

Fraud is as prevalent in nonprofit organizations as it is in business or government, and misconduct in these organizations is at the highest level on record according to an Ethics Resource Center (ERC) survey. The ERC, an 85-year-old Arlington, Va.-based group devoted to research and the advancement of high ethical standards, used the Opinion Research Corp. to poll 3,452 employees and received telephone responses from 558 employees in the nonprofit sector between June 24 and Aug. 15, 2007. Fraud, in the Ethics Resource Center’s National Nonprofit Ethics Survey, consisted of lying; the alteration of documents, including financial records; and the misreporting of hours. Additionally, the survey found, six types of misconduct posed high risk to the nonprofit sector: discrimination, sexual harassment, misuse of confidential information, lying to stakeholders, improper hiring and safety violations. The ERC surveyed employees in business and government during the same period as well. In the business sector, 56 percent of employees surveyed said they observed misconduct, as opposed to 57 percent in the government sector and 55 percent in the nonprofit sector. The survey shows that rate of observed misconduct in nonprofit organizations is at the highest level since the ERC began measuring it in 2000, when it was reported by 46 percent of respondents. In 2007, more than half (55 percent) of nonprofit employees observed one or more acts of misconduct. To download a copy of the report, go to: http://www.ethics.org/download.asp?fid=131.


Resource of the Week -- Resources for Organizational Sustainability

The US Department of Labor’s Center for Faith-based and Community Initiatives has complied an extensive list of web-based resources on various aspects of organizational sustainability. The resources are organized in the following categories: Building a Sustainable Initiative, Collaboration and Identifying Stakeholders, Leadership and Board Development, The Business Plan for Nonprofits: Creating A Case, and Additional Resources. Go to: http://www.dol.gov/cfbci/tlc/sustainability.htm.


Tech Tip of the Week -- Calculate Remaining Days in the Year in Excel

Have you ever wanted to calculate the number of days remaining in the year? If the date is in cell A1, use the following formula:

=DATE(YEAR(A1),12,31)-A1

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