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2013
Ten Steps Before Accepting a Nonprofit Board Position
A Post from James V. Toscano & Dania Toscano Miwa What a wonderful tribute and honor to be asked to serve on the board of Directors of a nonprofit organization. Being part of governance of a group providing benefit to society is a unique privilege. Nevertheless, boards have varying cultures, capacities and track records. Before acceptance, it may be wise to do some due diligence to ensure that you understand what you will be doing, what will be expected of you and how successful you will be. Here are ten things to do before accepting the invitation. 1. Read…
08
2013Charity Navigator Meets Reality
A Post from James V. Toscano Notwithstanding self-promotion, “Charity Navigator is American’s largest and most influential charity rater” and self-aggrandizement, “the largest and most utilized charity rating service that exists anywhere,” the New Jersey-based Charity Navigator is realizing the incredible complexity of its task. At first, they presented themselves as charity raters, although they based their rating stars (1-4, with 4 best) only on financial variables. They gradually became more sophisticated on this dimension through critical feedback and through their experience in examinations of large charities with at least $500K in public support and $1M in overall budget. By elimination of the…
28
2012More Money for Good, More or Less
A post by James V. Toscano In a recent posting on “Apples or Oranges,” I suggested a number of problems with Charity Navigator’s methods in trying to combine measures of financial health and of transparency and accountability into some kind of measure of effectiveness. There are number of other organizations besides Charity Navigator attempting to guide donors on the effectiveness of nonprofit organizations, including Hope Consulting, Guidestar, Foundation Center, Better Business Bureau and our own Charities Review Council, to name but a few in a crowded field. Ultimately, at least for now, the holy grail is the attempt to measure and report…
28
2012
Apples or Oranges?
A post by James V. Toscano The news story states that Charity Navigator’s 2012 Metro Market Study “reveals the regional differences in the performance of the nation’s biggest charities.” The study compares the median process scores on Financial Health (FH) and on Accountability and Transparency (AT) of the largest nonprofits in each of the thirty largest metropolitan areas. The study covers 56% of the 5500 charities evaluated by Charity Navigator, accounting for 67% of both revenue and expenditure of the group. Using this process methodology, Houston, Kansas City, St. Louis, Cincinnati and Portland are highest rated, while Orlando, Tampa/St. Petersburg,…
10
2012Impact Measurement – Part Two of Three
A post by James V. Toscano There is currently considerable buzz about performance, outcomes, results and other measures of impact in the nonprofit world. Foundations and corporate funders are now interested in what the results of the inputs of their grants are. Individual donors are told that they should also be very interested in what their gift dollars produce. In the Part One, questions on the uses of epidemiological variables and the need for standardized measurement and agreement on those measures were raised. In Part Three, the necessity for empirical testing to really determine causality will be explored in some…