Tag Archives: philanthropy

A Conversation With Naomi Levine

She’s the free-spoken executive director of the Heyman Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising at New York University. We sat down for a lively chat last year at the Helmsley Park Lane Hotel, where I hosted a reception for my radio show. (We were in the Leona Helmsley suite. Woo hoo!)

Mrs. Levine shared her thoughts about professionalizing fundraising and enhancing its stature; the role of trustees; government oversight; motivation for small charities; and the future of the charity community. The video is below.

I’ll also play the interview on my show this week (along with Marc Ecko and Craig Newmark interviews).

My YouTube channel has over 70 high def videos with the likes of Seth Godin; Majora Carter; Rachel Sklar; Charles Best; and my stand-up comedy. Check it out!

Nonprofit Radio for March 2, 2012: BFD: Board Financials Dilemma

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

Sponsored by GE Grace corporate real estate services.

Listen live or archive:

My Guests:Andy Robinson and Nancy Wasserman: BFD: Board Financials Dilemma

Andy Robinson
Nancy Wasserman
What do you do for board members who can’t read your balance sheet? The authors of “The Board Member’s Easier Than You Think Guide To Nonprofit Finances” can answer that. Andy Robinson and Nancy Wasserman explain why understanding finances is critical so board members preserve your good work and protect themselves. Do their eyes glaze over when the numbers come out? We’ll help your board achieve financial literacy.

Please take a moment to take the survey for this week’s show with Andy and Nancy!

You’ll find it below. If you could also share it with other nonprofit professionals, I would appreciate it. The more people who take it, the better the results and the better the show! Thank you!

 


Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world’s leading questionnaire tool.

Here is a link to the survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/QGRZ57C


Top Trends. Sound Advice. Lively Conversation.

You’re on the air and on target as I delve into the big issues facing your nonprofit—and your career.

If you have big dreams but a small budget, tune in to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.

I interview the best in the business on every topic from board relations, fundraising, social media and compliance, to technology, accounting, volunteer management, finance, marketing and beyond. Always with you in mind.

Sign-up for show alerts!

“Like” the show’s Facebook page.

Make sure to tune in at 1pm ET on Friday and participate in the live tweet by following the #NonprofitRadio hashtag on Twitter.

Here is the link to the audio podcast: 081: BFD: Board Financials Dilemma

Sponsored by:
View Full Transcript

Transcript for 081_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20120302.mp3

Processed on: 2018-11-11T22:48:47.684Z
S3 bucket containing transcription results: transcript.results
Link to bucket: s3.console.aws.amazon.com/s3/buckets/transcript.results
Path to JSON: 2012…03…081_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20120302.mp3.284929625.json
Path to text: transcripts/2012/03/081_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20120302.txt

Dahna hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent, i’m your aptly named host and its march second, two thousand twelve well, i hope you were with me last week because there were some excellent interviews last week like this one take on teens aria finger she was that she is the ceo of do something dot or ge, and she had ideas for motivating teens and getting their passion points, finding their passion points to get them engaged in your work. Also pursue your hero’s journey. His journey took him across the u s in a vw microbus, inviting two hundred of the country’s most famous and powerful to coffee. Eric sapper stine is chief creative officer at living wonder, and he shared some of his amazing lessons. Both of those were pre recorded at last year’s next-gen charity conference, then last week also had going greater into google search. Maria simple, the prospect finder and our regular prospect research contributor, dug deeper into google search how do you search results different when you’re logged in or not logged in? Plus advanced search tips? It was a short course on search to help your prospect research this week b f d board financials dilemma of course that’s what b f d means what do you do for board members who can’t read your balance sheet? The authors of board members easier than you think god to non-profit finances, i can answer that. Andy robinson and nancy wasserman explain why understanding finances is critical to board members so that they preserve your good work and protect themselves to their eyes glaze over when the numbers come out, we’ll help your board achieve financial literacy also, roughly thirty two minutes into the hour on tony’s take to my block this week is our irs is helping you. They’ve got some helpful web content on a new site for non-profits i’ll talk a little about that we’re live tweeting the show this week as we do every week. Join the conversation, use hashtag non-profit radio if you have questions for our guests, send them bye twitter using that hashtag this show is supported by g grace corporate real estate services and i’m very grateful for their support even though i just flubbed that sentence, i really am grateful for their support now we take a break. And when we return, b f d board. Financials dilemma. Stay with me. Yeah, you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Durney are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you, too? He’ll call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight, three that’s two one two, seven to one eight, one eight, three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help bilich we take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police call a set to one, two, nine six four three five zero two for a free consultation. That’s lawrence h bloom two, one two, nine, six, four, three five zero two. We make people happy. Hyre oppcoll. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com. Metoo welcome back, it’s, b, f d board, financials dilemma andy robinson provides training and consulting for non-profits in fund-raising board development, marketing and earned income. He specializes in the needs of groups working for human rights, social justice, environmental conservation, historic preservation and community development. Nancy wasserman has over twenty five years of experience in community finance and social enterprise development her particular skill is working with clients on projects that must satisfy both financial and social or community goals. They worked together to co author of the book the board members, easier than you think i’d to fund to non-profit finances published by emerson and church, and i’m very glad that their collaboration brings them both to the show. Andy nancy, welcome. Thank you. Thankyou. Tony. Pleasure to have you about both. Andy. Pleasure to have you back. Good talk with you again. Thank you, nancy. Why is this important for board members to care about the financial condition of a charity? Because that’s, really? What? Your charges as a boardmember. You have the responsibility to make sure the organization is achieving its mission. And the way the best way to do that is to make sure it. Has the resource is it needs to do it, and the financial statements and the finance non-profit finances how, you know, pretty quickly, what’s going on, especially if you’ve you’ve got that information. You also have some responsibilities to the community to deliver non-profit and that does achieve its mission and does it in a responsible and raducioiu fiduciary appropriate way so boardmember czar have a fiduciary duty to the charity, right? Absolutely. To the charity and to the public at large. Okay, s so why do you say the public at large? What? Because the in the u s the internal revenue service typically gives charity’s a ah non-profit designation, which allows them to receive contributions and issue tax deductible receipts and because they us is forgoing that tax, um, on knows on those dollars and giving the public a public benefit, the irs exercises oversight of non-profit charities and make sure that they really are delivering on their charitable purpose. So there is some public money in here it’s foregone before gone tax revenue at at a bare minimum, often there’s also direct public money from government grants or government contracts. And how about financial problems that can occur within the within the within the charity, like you bring out an example in your book of people not getting their salaries paid things like that, you know you there. Is that that oversight potential here you you are running a small business on dh. You want to make sure that your employees they’re well cared for, that you’re achieving your mission in the world at large sometimes in charities will see folks, you know, giving up salary on dh or deferring payment out of the goal of achieving the mission of the organization in the long term that seriously hurts the organization because people are really watching what’s happening with the money. Where is it coming in? Where is it going? Out? And andy isn’t their potential personal liability for board members when when their problems like this. Like nancy’s describing? Well, let me first cubine disclaimer here, which is that neither nancy nor i or attorneys then we can’t give people legal advice. Okay, well, there’s, no way haven’t nobody’s given you. The listeners have not given you a retainer fee, so you know, okay, i won’t play this. Um, if there is nonpayment of payroll taxes for example, of accusation goes into debt, doesn’t pay the irs or state taxing agencies boardmember czar individually liable for that? Um, most expenses boardmember czar protected from being personally liable on, but there are some exceptions, so i don’t know that that’s what drives this conversation? I mean, four members are simply looking at the balance sheet as a way of making sure that they’re not personally liable. That’s one level on this conversation, but there’s a whole lot more levels having to do with stuff that nancy was talking about. You are we being efficient? We meeting our mission? Are we tracking our work so that we know we’re being effective and that’s really what financial management is about? Indeed, okay, there’s certainly a whole spectrum of reasons why boardmember should care. I just wanted to bring out the last one, which is there is the potential of personal liability. Um, let’s see, wei have just about a minute before a break, and i’m hoping, nancy, why don’t you introduce the idea of the the financial dashboard? And then we’ll talk a lot more about it right after this break? Sure, the financial dashboard is something we introduced. That really gives you a one page sense of how’s, the organization doing what what i’ve found happens with a lot of non-profits is that they, um, they give their boards just reams of paper. And all of a sudden you get the budget and the the performance in the balance sheet and there’s, fifteen pages of financial statements and most boardmember zeev unwanted, who do know how to read. Financials don’t plow their way through it. And so the dashboard is is essentially a one page opportunity to get a sense of how are you operating financially? Are you being efficient, and are you having an impact and let you do it in a fairly simple way? And we’ll talk a lot about that one pager right after this break, i hope you stay with us. E-giving ending duitz e-giving ding, ding, ding, ding. You’re listening to the talking alternate network e-giving. E-giving good. Are you stuck in your business or career, trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one, two, seven, two, one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people be better business people. Hi, this is psychic medium. Betsy cohen, host of the show. The power of intuition. Join me at talking alternative dot com mondays at eleven a. M call in for a free psychic reading learned how to tune into your intuition to feel better and to create your optimum life. I’m here to guide you and to assist you in creating life that you deserve. Listen. Every monday at eleven a, m on talking alternative dot com. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics, politically expressed, i and montgomery taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Welcome back for b f d board, financials dilemma my guests or andy robinson and nancy wasserman, co authors of the board members easier than you think guide to non-profit finances and well, we’re live tweeting the show and we have a guest live tweeted this week. She is mazarene treyz is from austin, texas. Mazarene hello, thank you for doing the live tweeting today you can follow mazarene her ideas at wild woman fund on twitter and you conjoined, of course, the conversation right now using the hashtag non-profit radio and andy, i want to throw a question to you quickly. We got a question on twitter from mazarene what if an executive director was found stealing one of the things nancy and i were talking about that kind of fraud issues earlier? Would you give them a second chance? Oh boy, well, i’d be curious to hear nancy’s answer to this. My initial response no, followed by it depends and, um actually was on the board of an organisation where we found the opposite problem, which was the board of executive director was pouring money into the organization. He emptied out his retirement account, but it wasn’t telling. Anybody? He did this because thie grants weren’t coming through, and he was too embarrassed. So that’s a that’s, a that’s, a problem of being over generous, though it is paying for it himself. Yeah, we ended up filing the guy. Yeah, and the reason was he wasn’t disclosing to the board with the board needed do its job, right? Right. And i would say the issue in that case isn’t so much as, uh, misdirection lying. So i am. I am, you know, obviously kept is a bad thing, but the board needs full disclosure from the executive director to be able to do their job. Well. And i know that’s really where i would go on that. How about you, nancy? Andi was curious to hear your answer. I know. I would say again, like andy, it depends probably depending on the amount of severity and this situation. You know, if if the executive director was borrowing twenty dollars, from the petty cash when they forgot to bring their wallet toe work one day um, clearly that’s not not egregious enoughto fire somebody. But if they’re helping themselves to the to the checking account and redirecting grants into their own bank account? Yeah. Probably caused tio tio fire them even if they pay it back, right? That really? Because they pay back with interest, that really doesn’t matter, does it? I mean, the thing about non-profits is, you know, they’re not your own private fiefdom or your own private business there. Is there a community engagement where the reason you know you have? Ah, board of directors that are the final legal responsibility for the organization. So you really shouldn’t be operating it like your own private business. Let’s, talk a little about the dashboard now, nancy, the financial dashboard we introduced earlier it’s a one pager which i think will be a relief to people that they’re not getting a sheath of financial forms and balance sheets. But what? What do you think? What key parts that should be in this financial dashboard that sort of streamline the overview for board members. I would say that that there’s really three parts to it there’s a financial part where you’re looking at, you know, sort of what’s our total budget. Um, you know, every board member of every organisation should be able to very quickly say whether the organization is a three hundred thousand dollars a year organization or five million dollars a year. Organization. That’s sort of a basic sense of scale. Um, are we making money or not? Do we have net income? Hyre, uh, do we have cash on hand? Those kinds of questions do we, uh, do we have network? So we you know, if everything had to be liquidated today, um, would there be any, any money leftover or any value left? Geever um, that that was tangible value? Not just, uh, goodwill? Um, we also want to be looking at at how efficient the organization is and efficiency changes, depending on what the organization does it it’s really sense of being able to measure you you against yourself or against industry standards and it’s, you know, the level of what it costs to deliver services, for example, to severely challenged populations versus what it takes to deliver services toe highly educated people in an urban area where they’re all easily able to get to something. The costs levels are going to be different, and and we’re not saying that they should be the same, but to know what it costs for you. To serve your clients, what it costs to have volunteers and then the impact and i don’t know, andy, if you want to talk a little bit about that impact, how you measure whether you’re meeting your mission or not, and they’re often knew miracle measures that you can think about, you know, if you’re a land trust, how many acres air you preserving? If you do mentoring with children, how many adult children matches do you have? I sometimes this is long term tracking, which is hard for a grassroots organizations to do, but in most field there are ways of measuring your impact in terms of the number of clients you’re serving, or the number of audience members who are involved and hopefully there’s some measures that you can come up with that act, the quality of your work as well. Okay, so people here is we could get this all on one page. He would have data from two years ago. You’d have data from last year. You’d have data from the current year. He could lay them out and see what the trends are. All right, that’s, the financial dashboard i love how you guys have this little dance worked out where nancy talks about the financial and efficiency parts, but then she throws it over to her co author, andy for impact, and you have it all worked out, sort of sort of taking the show over, but okay, it’s, in a good way, which which leads me to a question i said, i have to ask when two of when you co author a book, how do you decide whose name comes first? Did you just do alphabetical order? Did you flip a coin or i see i’m too narcissistic to co author with anybody but but how did you guys work that out? How did you decide that? Andy andy’s alphabetically? First on first names on last names on the honest truth is he did a lot of the writing work where as i did helped him with content, so it was very easy for andy to go. All right, so if i had come in, you wouldn’t have looked only at martignetti you would have lost her, looked at toni, and then i’d have fallen maybe to the bottom, which is probably what i would have had much to contribute to this. So you’re wise not to take you anywhere, even though i pitched you. Otherwise, you name is well known in a certain community. We might have put you first on the your publisher would never have approved that one of the questions that we ask before the show that relates to what we’re talking about now is, do you believe all your board members have at least a general understanding of your financial position? And seventy percent said yes, thirty percent said no, so that’s, pretty good, seventy percent, but the thirty percent. They’re not really very confident, right genera, and that was just a for general understanding. Okay, so the, uh, that’s the dashboard. Andy, should these things be devoted only to you the authority of the finance committee? No. I mean, i think a really good use of the finance committee is, well, stuff down. Rest of the board can understand. It provides thing and support to the rest of the board. Serve as mentors and back-up for the people on staff. We’re doing this. This book is not about house staff. Members need to do financial management mohr effectively. But the reality is a lot of people who are executive directors or even finance directors need help. And one of the goals of finance committee is to give them that help when they need it. So away to think about this is excuse me. If the board is operating at a high altitude and the staff is down on the ground slashing through the week, the finance committee is sort of in the middle there, providing a bridge between those two groups of people. And so that means that financial dashboard is for the whole board to review, right? Yes, absolutely. Was that a heck? Yes. Was that you could say? Hell, yes. Okay. Okay. Wei have another question on from twitter. Reminding listeners you can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit. Radio board members need to look at the impact of the organization. Andy, i guess this is for you since you talked about impact, how do you measure if you’re meeting your mission or not? I guess she’s looking for a little more detail. Okay, well, obviously depends what your mission is. There are some standard benchmarks for how you’re doing. Uh, if you work with substance abuse, there are networks that do that that can talk about ways of tracking your impact. For example, how many people come through a program, get clean and stay ugly if you are a food bank and you’re delivering food to the community? There’s a number of metrics there that come out of arika america’s harvest, i forget the name of the national network, but they’ll tell you how much money you should be spending more or less based on the population that you’re serving and how much when he pounds of food you can put out into the community pretty much every non-profit, um, subset has symmetric that irrelevant, and the trick is to learn the ones that are relevant. Your type of organization and then trying to adapt them to your particular need. And that would be important for the executive director toby recognizing certainly, and then right. And then conveying that too. Lord. Yes. And in some cases, depending on the size of the organization, there is some board work to help find those numbers. I mean, i work a lot with really small organizations who has a staffer overwhelmed and it be great to say to a finance committee on a volunteer basis, i’m trying to figure out what the relevant metrics are for i type art type of organization who would be willing to do some research and bring that back to us. Doesn’t aboard metoo. But, you know, in the larger organization, yeah, that’s gonna fall staff one of the other questions we asked pre show was, does your board have a committee devoted to financial issues? About eighty percent said yes and the remainder roughly twenty percent said no, nancy does there? Does there have to be a finance committee? There does not have to be a finance committee. I think it really depends on the size of the organization. The level of support. That the director might need you know, how complex the organization is and a zoo also how savvy the board is. If most of the board understands financials and feels quite comfortable with it in a small organization, you could get away without a finance committee. I’d say you want one in any organization that’s about to undertake any kind of major financial growth or change or, uh, new initiative in a larger organization. It just is a great way to assist either the finance manager or the executive director and developing budgets and exercising oversight, because things don’t happen exactly as people planned them with me today. Or andy robinson and nancy wasserman, co authors of the board members easier than you think guide to non-profit finances, let’s, let’s talk some about diversifying income sources. Nancy, you make a point of of having that in a couple of chapters of the book, why is that important? First, you never want to be totally reliant on just one thunder. You don’t want to be in a situation where if that one funders suddenly says, we don’t like what you’re doing, um, that you’re suddenly scrambling in having to find other. Ways to support your activities and your programs on what you do for this, folks. I think we’ve seen a lot of that in our recession. Agencies that rely exclusively or too heavily on, say, government fees for services or maybe even government agency grants, oer and oer foundation grants those of all sources that have been cut back. Indeed, that’s, true and that’s, part of what it’s both diversifying types of financial support but also the number of supporters within each types. So you’re not totally reliant on just one foundation or won a charitable donor-centric donors on dh foundations and government and your own revenues. If there’s a way for you to do that, we have a comment again from twitter. I’m just going to point out tio, the person who wrote that, john, that we did talk earlier about individual personal liability for non-profits. You may have missed that part of the show, but you can always catch it on the archive on itunes on our itunes pages non-profit radio dot net. Then what are andy some of the sources of income that non-profit might look to that that they’re not currently exploiting. So there’s three big buckets here, tony, the first buck, it is private e-giving private giving is foundations, corporations, individuals and, of course, lets people leave behind when they pass away the big category there’s individuals within private e-giving about eighty percent of the money year after year comes from people, and most of the groups that i work with don’t invest enough time and energy using money from individual donors. So that’s the first category second category is public funding that goverment funding from the state local, regional, municipal, all the government levels. And as you already indicated, this is a shrinking resource right now and the groups that i think you’re getting hammered the worst during the recession or they were relying on government. The third bucket is earned income, which is non-profits arching for the services they provide or in some cases selling goods, unity, and of the three that’s the biggest of all this is sort of the surprise for people is that earned income is about the same amount as private and public funding. Put together when you look at all the non-profit across the country that’s. Interesting. Yeah, you don’t generally see that in in fund-raising reports like e-giving yusa, because earned income is not part of their there. Sorry about private philanthropy there now very clear, the numbers a little skewed, because if you’re a private college and you’re charging tuition, that shows up has earned income. If you’re a private hospital and you’re charging non-profit hospital in, you’re charging for medical services that shows up as earned income, so those numbers really sort of skew the data. But i’ll i worked with a number of organizations where i’m always pushing him to say, is there something you do that you could package up cell? Do you have some skill that people would buy from way have to take a break? We’re going to talk more about earned income right after this break, stay with us. Dafs you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics, politically expressed hi and montgomery taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com i said we’d come back immediately and talk about earned income, but even though i am narcissistic, i forgot it’s it’s, my this is my turn now so it’s time for tony’s take two for a moment or two. My block this week is our irs is helping you. They’re new site is called i r s stay exempt and of course there’s a link to it on this week’s block post, and that site has courses and webinars and other resource is that the irs has produced for new organizations and for existing organizations, and then they have a section called also in depth topics, and i have links not only to that site but to a few of the topics that i know that charity struggle with and that i’ve had guests on to talk about applying for tax exemption, unrelated business income and four o three b retirement plans and the unrelated business income actually is sort of a spin off topic from what we’re about to i’m about to talk about with my guests earning income so the content from the irs it’s all plain language, it’s really very easy language. Teo to grasp it’s a little hokey in some places. There’s, an instructor named coach in a bunch of the bunch of the content you’ll learn from from that guy coach. But, you know it’s, an enormous bureaucracy trying to be accessible and helpful. And i admire that so on my block this week, our irs is helping you, my blog’s that tony martignetti dot com and that’s the new girl from what it used to be. Tony martignetti dot com that is tony’s take two for friday, march second, two thousand twelve it’s march already. And this is the ninth show of two thousand twelve. Andy robinson and nancy washington. And with me, we’re talking about b f d board. Financials dilemma. Andy earned income. What? What kind of charity possibly do? What’s a should be looking at tio. Try to make some money off their activities. Their work? Well, the question i always have groups that air wondering about this is what you have. What, you two or what do you know somebody else onto have or do or no most non-profits during the service business way deliver services. Sometimes we have expertise in that area and, you know i mean there’s a structure brainstorm that people could do around this. A lot of what we do in the nonprofit world is give it away, and the really entrepreneurial organizations look at what they’re giving away and they say, it’s paying market for this and, you know, we can we can spend the rest of the show talking about this. I don’t know if you want to, but, um, there’s a lot of opportunities there, and i see many, many organizations could be more self sufficient financially if they got at figuring out what they know and how to package it up. Okay, is there an example you can share with us? Ah, charity that didn’t realize what they had and and then ended up being able to exploit it and make some money from it. Well, i’m the author of a book on the subject about selling social change, and but my favorite ample of this, um, you know, for a group for years in tucson, arizona, caldnear search their seed bank on made of american crops and you know, what they do is protect eats from going extinct by planting them and growing them and distributing them and probably thirty percent. Of their of their income, its seed sales. I mean, there’s the bank and they receive selling what they recently started doing, which was fascinating as they opened something they called state school. And these are people who want to learn about how to protect seeds, grow them as amount of the next generations, really about sort of biological and genetic buddy, okay, money, and they come to arizona for a week and they get trained and everything you need to know to run your own. C back and it’s, an organization that was sitting on this for probably thirty years, only recently realized that people would pay for that knowledge in a classroom setting. Oh, they have been doing that all for free while they hadn’t been training other people. They’ve been taking care of this, but they hadn’t been teaching on. I said, okay, and they realised there are there, you know, the whole renaissance of local agriculture in our country right now. And they thought we could tap into this there’s a market here for people who want to learn how to do this. And so they started doing this, and they’re doing this four or five. Times a year and it sells out, and they’re starting to move it around to other parts of the country. So i mean that’s one example that’s an example of knowledge, they had a knowledge and a skill that was very marketable that’s, right? And until you have you know what, you need a finalist for better words, does he need someone in the organization who had an entrepreneurial gene who can look around and say, you know what, somebody’s going to want to buy this and not every non-profit is blessed with people who think that way, and i think part of what nancy and i are trying to do in our professional lives is to get more of that thinking out into the non-profit community. Andy related. Teo diversifying income. I had a comment from linkedin this woman had just had a board meeting this earlier this week regarding the need for transparency and distribution of responsibility when it comes to finances, bookkeeping and reporting function of their historic non-profit theater, they’ve been doing their thing, they’ve been doing things their way a long time on dh one big problem is that they have a banker on the board and he doesn’t see the problems s so it sounds like and and then she says i was able to get the check writing privileges moved to another person. This is sort of segway ing into ah, conflict of interest conversation. But it sounds like maybe he was the only one writing checks. Um, i secured a nice grant from a foundation and they want a financial audit. I’m moving for a review. However fear we won’t get any more money once it’s known how ignorant the board is about accountability. Nancy drew and he’s laughing. Nancy let’s, bring you back. What would you what would you say there? Well, you know, how are we defining accountability here? Is there a lack love? But what a financial audit might uncover is in propriety. But it sounds like that’s, not the case. More likely, it’s going to it’s, not the financial audit per se, but the form nine. Ninety that you filed with the irs. Which asks you now to tell us who does the board looking financials. Um, how does is the board of informed? Has the board seen an audit? Uh, did they review it and approve it? It’s really? You know, there there’s sort of two sets of questions, the very pragmatic did did you get an audit? Did you review? What did you look at it? And then the the more important question in my mind, which i think is the question we’re trying to answer with the whole book, which is, does the board really understand what all these numbers are telling them? And ideally with with a financial audit and accountant has come in and spoken directly with the board of directors and walked through each and every page of it and talk about why the financials are the way they are and what they mean? Um, and i think both andy and i have seen, you know, numbers of organizations where there’s a lot of people sitting around the table on dh, they leave it to the banker or the investment professionals, too. You know, they well, they know about numbers, and they handle it and it’s really something that everybody needs to know how to do if only to make sure that the mission of the organization is fully addressed by by the board and the organization. This also relates, teo, the conversation about diversifying income and hear this woman, i believe she’s a fundraiser there, a volunteer fundraiser on dh trying to diversify income source, getting a grant but fearful that the grantmaker not be renewed because there isn’t the transparency and accountability that thie the the grant source will probably be. Yeah, and this is another point that was raised. He sort of came out sideways is this question about separation of duties, which is, you know, in a healthy organization, people break up that work, one person opens the envelope, somebody else writes the checks, and somebody else approves them and somebody else, uh, get the, uh, bank statement and balances the checkbook, and the idea here is that you’re trying to avoid mischief, yeah, and fraud. And if somebody says, oh, i’ll take care of all of these things, you know, maybe they have good intentions and they’re going to be perfectly honest about it, but you really need to break that into separate pieces so people can have oversight over each other, let’s, segway into conflict of interest, andy define for us what conflict of interest is we hear it so often. Yeah, well, my sense of it, at least in terms of the context we’re having here, is that if you serve on a non-profit board, your job is to put the needs of the organization above your own personal needs. And where this plays out sometimes is people who try and receive a benefit from serving on the board at the personal benefit it has nothing to do with advancing the mission of the organization where they get tricky is that in a lot of voluntary organisations, there are inherent conflicts of interest. If you goes to a private school and you’re on the board, your job is to advocate for policies that are going to benefit the children in the school, and in some case, that means they’re going to benefit your kid individually and sort of sorting those things out can be challenging, but the bottom line is the decisions you make have to put the needs of the organization in front of your own personal needs. Nancy, how can we try to avoid conflicts of interest? One of the best ways is tohave ah, a written conflict of interest policy, where you’ve already addressed some of the situations that are likely to happen before they happened, where you sit there and say, you know, no defined what it is that is seen as either a riel conflict of interests or a perceived conflict of interest. Um, which might be a case where somebody was, for example, um, can somebody bid someone who serves on the board of directors bid on a project while they’re still on the board of directors or not? Or do they have toe resigned before they even submit a bid? Or do they only resign if they’re awarded the bid? Or do they have to resign? Or can they simply step out of the room for the discussion? Those are the kinds of questions that got kind of can get kind of challenging um, particularly when any member of the board stands to benefit financially from any decision of the board that’s an outright in my mind it outright conflict of interest and, uh, in most boards, you want to make sure that person doesn’t participate. And it’s it’s always easier to have that discussion when there isn’t ah, hot potato sitting in the room, that’s somebody’s thinking that they have every right to be part of the discussion on do you have to therefore bring up both the fact that somebody in the room is feeling uncomfortable that this person is present and it gets a little bit more tense in those sorts of situations prevention, having a written policy that folks have already talked through and everybody feels responsible for making sure it’s so prevention ahead of time, much better than dealing with it when it’s a crisis or potential crisis and, you know, it also is the transparency issue. You want to make sure that your presentation to the community at large is bonem it is as unaccountable organizations that that gives everybody equal opportunity to benefit from three organizations purchases. Is this the kind of policy a boardmember should sign and review every year or something like that? It’s not a bad idea, you know, it depends on the nature of the organization. I you know, i worked with a community loan fund and that’s absolutely required that you disclose your conflicts of interest each and every year and that you review the conflict of interest policy every year bonem the other thing that you know, incredibly important, disclosed, disclosed disclosed way have just a minute before a break, andy, anything you want to add to conflict of interest discussion. I think the main thing is that if you see it, you have to name it after. If you’re boardmember and you smell something like this, you have to have the courage to bring it up and nancy said, it’s much easier to do this if there’s an existing policy in place first, if somebody sees something like this andy again just a few seconds before break, who should they bring it up to your i’ma boardmember who do i talk to? Well, i would probably go to the chair first and say, i think there’s something fishy here, let’s, talk about it and i would start there, and then presumably, the board, the chair will bring it to the full board. Andy robinson and nancy washington are my guests. We’re going to take a break. When we return, we’ll dive into some financial statements to wrap up, stay with us, talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Hi, i’m carol ward from the body mind wellness program. Listen to my show for ideas and information to help you live a healthier life in body, mind and spirit. You hear from terrific guests who are experts in the areas of health, wellness and creativity. So join me every thursday at eleven a, m eastern standard time on talking alternative dot com professionals serving community. This is tony martignetti aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio friday’s one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcast are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication, and the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office needs better leadership? Customer service sales or maybe better writing are speaking skills. Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes or get your human resource is in touch with us. The website is improving communications, dot com that’s improving communications, dot com improve your professional environment. Be more effective, be happier. And make more money. Improving communications. That’s. The answer. Talking. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on tony martignetti non-profit radio. Nancy let’s. Talk a little about financial statements. What? What? Uh, what are the basics? First what’s the overview. There’s. Really? Two major statements that everybody has to deliver once the balance sheet, which is a snapshot on any given day, typically the end of the month or the end of the quarter. The end of the year. Um, which outlines what the organization owns and what they owe and what they’re worth, which is the difference between everything they own. Less everything they owe as faras it’s paper value is what they would be worth on that day. Uh, the other major statement is the statement of activities also called the profit loss or a p n l which is? Where do you get all your money? Your income your revenues from and then what does it goto pay for all your expenses and the bottom line? There is your net income at the end of end of a certain time period. The statement of activities is more like a movie. It covers a period of time. Uh, typically, uh, the beginning. Of the year to the end of the most previous sorry, the most recent months. So if we were on a board today, we probably wouldn’t see the thie statement of activities through the end of february because somebody would have had to have it all cleaned up as of yesterday. But we could expect to see something through the end of january and depending on what your fiscal year, wass would determine the begin of the beginning period. We talked earlier about full disclosure, so i’m going to make a disclosure the on ly accounting course that i’ve ever taken i dropped out of because i was i was i was going to fail, so so i’m like perfect for this book, this it’s very informative, and it is an easy read, and it is helpful guide um, nancy helped me understand i this was always seem like magic to me on a balance sheet. How is it that the assets equal the liabilities? How does that always come out so equal? I mean, its intended that way. Obviously. How does that possible? Seems like magic. Now you’re asking somebody who was not trained as a classically trained accountant. You can’t pull back now. Your name is on the book, you’re name is there. I’m looking right at it, says nancy wasserman’s. But it’s, um, it’s based on double entry bookkeeping, which was developed by the chinese and it’s follows up from the abacus. And i was sort of, uh, uh, amplified by the italians in the renaissance. Essentially, when you put an entry and double entry bookkeeping, everything that goes up, something has to go down and it all balances out in the end, in the cash comes out. And if your balance sheet that’s like number one is the balance sheet, if the total assets does not equal the total liabilities and equity, it is an incorrectly prepared balance sheet. There’s a reason they call it a balance right about yes, exactly. I love that my italian forebears had something to do with confusing me. Now in the current day. Um okay. What? How can we help? Boardmember is nancy who whose eyes kind of glaze over when they get to the balance sheet. Aside from looking to see whether the two the assets and liabilities equal which they always do right step number one is a balance number to do your total current assets. In other words, what? What? Khun b cash within a year’s time exceed your current liabilities. The things you have to pay off with cash in a year’s time. And so are you liquid or not? Do you have? Do you have cash available to do things? This’s? The place where you’re looking for those payroll liabilities or payroll tax liabilities? If there’s a number there that’s frighteningly large, you’ve got a big problem. And if its payroll tax liabilities, he was a boardmember maybe personally liable. Um, what are your long term liabilities look like? Is that that’s your debt? Basically. And, you know, does it make tense to you? Is that number reflects the debt? You know, the organization has your net net assets now, you know, the language of accounting is kind of like greek. And i sometimes think they made up all these names to make it even more confusing. It would be so much easier if it was it was italian. It could be it would be. And where there’s a lot of cognitive is and it’s a romance language. I think it would be oh, i’m sorry, no problem, but that total net assets number, which simply means, you know what? What’s this organization more if it if it had two legged liquidate today and if that’s a negative number, you should be concerned. And certainly many of organizations where that is the case. So those are the big things on the balance sheet, you know, does it? Does it short of make sense to you to the fixed assets and their value? Um, feel like what you have if he suddenly see something that shows that you have a fixed asset of, you know, equipment worth one hundred thousand dollars, you’re scratching your head because you have no idea what you have for equipment something’s wrong with and you should and should ask that question. Absolutely. You mentioned earlier frighteningly large numbers mean is part of what we should be doing is looking for anomalies. That’s really what you’re looking, you’re looking for things that you know that don’t make sense or don’t feel right or that you can’t if you can’t, if it doesn’t feel right and you can’t really explain it, you want to ask questions from and the numbers you know, the thing about numbers, they’re pretty, they’re very ghetto. They’re either on or off and, um it’s harder to lie with numbers. So you’re going to know right away that you could have frighteningly large numbers with the complex organization, and that would be fine from if if they’re bad hosed out. If there’s cash in the bank, if it feels like there’s equity, this is ah critical subject. Another question that i asked on the on the pre show survey is for those charities that do have a board committee devoted to financial issues. Are you confident that each committee member is fluent in your numbers and understand your financial position? Only twenty five percent said yes, the remaining seventy five percent were either no or not sure on dno was pretty large about sixty percent way have to stop there. Andy robinson and nancy wasserman are co authors of the board members easier than you think. Guide to non-profit finances published by emerson and church andy. Nancy, thank you very much for being guests. Thank you. It’s. Been a real pleasure. And also thanks to your publisher, kathleen brennan at emerson and church for her promotion assistance for the show next week you know his company and you may be wearing his name on your hoody market go ceo of the very consistent brand echo enterprises has ideas on branding and other business lessons applicable to charities, and craig newmark, the founder of craigslist and craigconnects, shares his thoughts on simple communications. Thes were both pre recorded at last year’s nextgencharity conference keep up with what’s coming up! Sign up for our insider email lorts on the facebook page like that page the pages, the timeline check it out! We got a new banner banner photograph, which will be rotating on dh the whole new timeline format like like it look at it and like it khun, listen, live our archive if you haven’t didn’t catch us live archives from itunes, you’ll find our itunes paige at non-profit radio dot net subscribe listen, any time on the device of your choice on twitter, you can follow me or you can follow the show’s hashtag non-profit radio my thanks again to mazarene treyz for for live tweeting today’s show the show is sponsored by g grace and company if you’re worried about the rising cost of rent for your organization. Or, if you need a plan for real estate that you’re non-profit owns, grayson company will give you a thorough and complete board analysis so that your real estate decisions are made transparently and thoroughly. George grace has been advising non-profits on their real estate decisions for over twenty five years. Gee, grace, dot com or eight, eight, eight, seven four, seven two, two, three, seven. Our creative producer was claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the owner of talking alternative broadcasting. Janice taylor is our line producer. The show’s social media is by regina walton of organic social media and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. I hope you’ll be with me next friday, one to two p, m eastern here at talking alternative dot com. Dahna i didn’t think that shooting. Good ending. You’re listening to the talking alternate network, get him. Dahna cubine looking to meet mr and mrs wright, but still haven’t found the one. Want to make your current relationship as filling as possible, then tuning on thursdays at one pm for love in the afternoon with morning alison as a professional matchmaker, i’ve seen it all with distinguished authors. Industry grew ours, and experts on everything from wine to fashion join us as we discuss dating, relationships and more on talking alternative dot com. Hi, i’m julie, hi, i’m julia, what are you wearing? Welcome to j and j’s. Secrets of style and beauty. We know there’s, beauty and style, and all you do, whether it’s a job interview, first date or wedding, we also know that not everyone understands what works best for him or her. We’re here to help. Think of us as your personal beauty style and grooming guru’s, as industry experts will give you the best information for men and women on howto look phenomenal tuning tuesdays at eight pm tto. Learn how to look your best. Are you fed up with talking points, rhetoric everywhere you turn left or right? Spin ideology no reality. In fact, its ideology over in tow. No more it’s. Time for action. Join me, larry. Shock a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for the ivory tower radio in the ivory tower will discuss what’s important to you society, politics, business and family. It’s provocative talk for the realist and the skeptic who want to know what’s. Really going on? What does it mean? What can be done about it? So gain special access to the ivory tower. Listen to me. Very sharp. Your neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven new york time go to ivory tower radio dot com for details. That’s, ivory tower radio, dot com for every time i was a great poster. Every tower radio dot com e every time i was a great bust. Every tower, radio dot com every time i was a great bust. Every tower radio dot com the average guy was a great pushed avery tower radio dot com e every time i was a great place to visit for both entertainment and education listening. Tuesday nights nine to eleven it will make you smarter. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Talking all calm.

Ventureneer: Your Slides Are Here

Thank you Geri Stengel for hosting me for “Planned Giving In Small- and Mid-size Shops“!

“Thank you crowd” for spending time with me. I hope it was helpful to each of you.

Your slides are below.

Nonprofit Radio, February 10, 2012: Readings, Possible Futures, Past Lives & Board Oversight Basics II

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

Sponsored by GE Grace corporate real estate services.

Listen live or archive:

My Guests:

Betsy Cohen
Betsy Cohen: Readings, Possible Futures, Past Lives

Psychic medium Betsy Cohen, one of the “Top 10 Psychics in New York,” will take your calls and tweets to read your nonprofit’s energy and help you see a wider perspective, reveal what’s hidden and understand possible futures from different alternatives related to donors, staffing, budget, programs or whatever challenges you’re facing. She will also do readings about career issues.

 

Gene Takagi & Emily Chan
Gene Takagi & Emily Chan: Board Oversight Basics II

Our regular legal contributors, Gene Takagi and Emily Chan of the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations Law Group, will unlock the vagueness around “board oversight.” This is part two of the discussion we started on January 20th. There’s a lot to say, and it’s important.

 


Top Trends. Sound Advice. Lively Conversation.

You’re on the air and on target as I delve into the big issues facing your nonprofit—and your career.

If you have big dreams but a small budget, tune in to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.

I interview the best in the business on every topic from board relations, fundraising, social media and compliance, to technology, accounting, volunteer management, finance, marketing and beyond. Always with you in mind.

Sign-up for show alerts!

“Like” the show’s Facebook page.

Make sure to tune in at 1pm ET on Friday and participate in the live tweet by following the #NonprofitRadio hashtag on Twitter. We’ll have a guest live tweeter this week: Mazarine Treyz, consultant and author of “The Wild Woman’s Guide to Fundraising.” You can find Mazarine on Twitter here and her website here.

Here is a link to the podcast: 078: Readings, Possible Futures, Past Lives & Board Oversight Basics II

Sponsored by:
View Full Transcript

Transcript for 078_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_02102012.mp3

Processed on: 2018-11-11T22:47:56.227Z
S3 bucket containing transcription results: transcript.results
Link to bucket: s3.console.aws.amazon.com/s3/buckets/transcript.results
Path to JSON: 2012…02…078_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_02102012.mp3.428360663.json
Path to text: transcripts/2012/02/078_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_02102012.txt

No. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on your aptly named host. I hope you’re with me last week because if you were and what a shame if you weren’t, but if you were those who were with me heard entrepreneurs on board, entrepreneurs are under utilized on boards, and jerry stengel, founder of venture near, helped you to make the fix. Who are these people? How do you find them? And how do you approach them to get their special talents on your board? Also, we had starting the plant e-giving conversation with laurie greiff, president of breakthrough philanthropy. She encouraged you to start the plan giving conversation with your committed prospects and donors. Well, if you weren’t with me last week, you are now much more important this week readings, possible futures and past lives psychic medium betsy cohen will take your calls and tweets my bryce just cracked tweets to read your non-profits energy and help you see a wider perspective, reveal what’s hidden and understand possible futures from different alternatives related to donors, staffing, budget programs or whatever challenges you’re facing. She’ll also do readings about career issues. In the second half of the show board oversight basics to our regular legal contributors, jean takagi and emily chan from the non-profit and exempt organizations law group in san francisco unlock the vagueness around board oversight this’s part two of the discussion we started on january twentieth there’s a lot to say and it’s important board oversight between the segments on tony’s take two in praise of naps that’s my blogger this week in praise of naps i’ll talk about why i praise them, so we’re live tweeting as we do every week hashtag non-profit radio use it recklessly, but especially this week we have a guest live tweeter mazarene treyz from austin, texas she’s been a guest on this show she’s been a guest on my podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy that i do monthly. You can follow her on twitter at wild woman fund mazarene treyz welcome to the show on twitter. Right now, we take a break when we return it’s readings, possible futures and past lives with psychic medium betsy cohen, so stay with me. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help you. We take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police call a set to one, two, nine six four three five zero two for a free consultation. That’s lawrence h bloom two, one two, nine, six, four, three five zero two. We make people happy. Durney hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent and your aptly named host. Right now, i’m joined by betsy cohen. Betsy is a psychic medium. She has a background also in social work and psychology, and worked for a nonprofit for over ten years. So you see the important overlap she’s, a reverend in the spiritualist church of new york city, and is one of the top ten psychics in new york, and we’re going to have some fun, and i’m really very pleased to welcome that seat to the show. Welcome. Thanks for having me, it’s. A real pleasure. Yes, i want to tell people first that we are taking calls about your non-profit or about your career at eight. Seven seven for a tow for one two oh, for psychic medium, betsy cohen. And of course, you can also tweet using hashtag non-profit radio and we’re monitoring that hashtag here in the studio. Betty um psychic medium let’s. Try to break it down a little bit. What is a psychic? A psychic is somebody who gains information that they would have no other way of knowing through the collective unconscious or someone’s aura all right? And that could include a non-profit good to be with someone it could about the past president future and you can really tap into any kind of issue you want, even if it’s beyond your own personal self so you can find out information about other people. You can find out information about an agency. And as i was preparing for the show, i was thinking about you prepare for the show like the guest does more preparation in the host, okay, i was thinking about that law about corporations being individuals, and although most people don’t agree with that and it’s kind of wonky it’s, sort of that same idea, you know, each each agency, each corporation has its own sort of set of ideals and morals and things like that and operates as a unit. And so you can read that energy of the unit. And just as i would for individuals, talk about possible futures for an individual, we can also do business called consultations with the same sort of concept. Okay, so the person doesn’t have to be affiliated with the non-profit for youto read the energy of the non-profit they’re asking about or there does have to be some relationship. Well, that’s, sort of. Ah, moral question. I can get information on anything at any point. But if you don’t directly have to do with it, i prefer not to go there so similar as if business. Exactly. I have no relationship let’s say to thee, pick a huge charity to the american cancer society. Right? So it’s, none of my damn business. But through me, you could. But you could read about the american cancer society totally irrelevant. Just that i’m merely the one who brought it up. Yes, i could. Okay, but i choose not to understand. Okay? And then what about the medium part of psychic medium? What’s? A medium mediums are people who speak to people on the other side that the dead. Okay. And how do you? Ah, you know these these air unusual things to most people. Not everyone but but the most people. How does one establish credentials for talking to people on the other side? I mean, how do we know that that’s? A bona fide. How do you know that? It’s quantified. Well. And i am a reverend in the spiritualist church and the spiritualist. Church believes in a higher power the golden rule, things like that, but their primary function is to prove life after death, and so the way they do that is through mediumship. So if i don’t know you, you come in off the street and i make a connection with your deceased grandmother, and i tell you five shared memories that you had or something that she liked or did that really you could identify her from? That would be a way to sort of say, oh, my gosh, she’s onto something here, okay, okay, so they’re so being a reverend in that in the spiritualist church of new york city is a credential. It is just not something honorary. No, you have to be actually a certified psychic medium, which you conduced through schooling. And then on top of that, you know, it wasn’t something i just got online. I went to seminary school for about two years and got ordained, and i conduct church services there, and in fact, i’ll be in austin, texas, texas on the eighteenth, and i hope to co conduct the church service there and do some guest speaking and guess mediumship there, too. Okay, so mazarene treyz you’re in austin, texas, that’s. Ah, reverend betsy cohen will be there on february eighteenth at the first spiritualist church of austin, texas. Okay, a reminder that we’re taking calls eight, seven, seven, four, eight o for one two oh, if you have questions about the non-profit that you’re affiliated with that you work with or that maybe you’re a volunteer for ah challenges about budget or staffing or programming anything that’s ah that’s a concern in that non-profit you can also hit us on twitter using the hashtag non-profit radio. So you mentioned schooling, but i would have thought, and maybe i’m wrong that being a psychic or medium is something that you’re born with. I believe that actually everyone khun do what ideo but some people are more inclined and so it’s, just like, if you wind up growing up and you’re good at math, then you may study math further and you may become an accountant or something like that. So it really is through a lot of practice that you get to be a point where i’m at interest in helping others and things like that so it’s sort of like just getting a roadmap for where you’re going, other people have paved the way before, and they let you know what you can expect pretty much and in just a minute or so that we have left before the break is so this is greater than just someone’s intuition, obviously, but we all have intuition, a gut feeling about a person, a feeling that i left something in my apartment as i’m walking out the door, we all have that level, but this is much greater. I wouldn’t say necessarily greater, but more specialized and more in depth. So, you know, like i said, if if you’re not good at taxes, you might get, like turbotax online or something versus being an accountant and being someone who does taxes for a living. So it’s really just that concentration and practice really practice makes perfect, so it is also a lifestyle, so i don’t use any cards or any instruments or anything like that. It’s just my body. So i have to make sure that i keep really good care of my body. So there’s a lot that goes into it. Okay before the show, you said you have very good immune. System is bragging because i have. I have bronchitis right now, which, measuring treyz you don’t need to tweet that part, but betsy claims more sophisticated immune system than me. We’re going to take a break, and when we return, more readings, possible futures and past lives with psychic medium. Betsy cohen. Stay with us, the defendant think dick tooting, getting thinking thing. You’re listening to the talking, alternate network, itching to get anything. Nothing. You could are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall. This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Oppcoll hi, this is psychic medium. Betsy cohen, host of the show. The power of intuition. Join me at talking alternative dot com mondays at eleven a. M call in for a free second reading. Learn how to tune into your intuition to feel better and to create your optimum life. I’m here to guide you and to assist you in creating life that you deserve. Listen every monday at eleven a, m on talking alternative dot com. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics, politically expressed, i and montgomery taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. I’m christine cronin, president of n y charities. Dahna you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Welcome back to the show we’re talking about reading is possible futures in past lives. Becky, what is the advantage for non-profits what could what could a charity expect from a reading? Well, i know that especially in these quote unquote hard economic times, let’s, just call it a recession. We’re in a recession from metoo call it was called, we’re in a recession, eso in the recession dance and the recession non-profits tend to have it harder with funding being pulled left and right, and it really does trickle down from the top to the employees, and it could really affect morale and decision making and there’s a lot of the decisions that have to be made nowadays that didn’t necessarily have to be made five, ten years ago. And so when ever people come to a reading, whether it be a business consultation or individual, they’ve got issues that they don’t know the future of, they don’t know what direction to take, and if you have possible options, i’m trained to look into possible futures. So even hypothetical, yes, absolutely, because we do have free will, and so i don’t personally believe that, you know, as faras the american dream is concerned. We have ah, plethora of options to us all the time. But there are crossroads that come up. And so when you’re at a cross road that’s a time when you can say okay, well, should we should we go with this funder, or should we put our money in this area? And so i can say, okay, well, if you went with this funder, this is what would happen if you put your money elsewhere. This is what would happen as well. So you can really take a good look at the possible scopes of things. It really helps with decision making. On top of that, you know, there are a lot of things that, as you mentioned in the beginning of the segment, that it’s there’s hidden, hidden agendas and i do provide a wider perspective. So when especially people on the top of the letter don’t necessarily have the best connection with the people who are running the agency day today and interacting with the clients and things like that. And so with my my work and social work, i’ve seen sort of all stratos fears and and helped with that sort of communication so that so that the employees who were really running the business feel appreciated and the people on tap can make the best decisions for the whole agency, that kind of thing. Um, and as far as the problem solving goes, what i also say is, you know, you ask one question, but there’s a whole bunch of hidden questions in that as well. And so my job is to ask, ask, ask i am somewhat like a telephone, so if you’re getting a business consultation and i’m speaking with, you know, the collective, if i don’t ask the collective of it, i don’t ask divine source, it doesn’t get answered, so i ask all the whos that what’s the wise and the wares in the ones behind your question to really get a complete answer. Okay, now on the show, we have jargon jail, and you’ve just committed to offenses, but but they’re not as technical as we usually get a lot of times lawyers will find himself in jail, but the collective and divine source. Okay, so what are what are these? Okay, well, they in these terms, they’re sort of they’re sort of the same thing. There’s there’s an energy that connects us all and actually science modern science is actually leading us to to these conclusions as well. Some of it is not so easily access, but you can find it. And so is that that a lot of people believe in the soul, right? So there’s a part of us that’s, energetic that’s bigger than our body, and it’s connected to everyone so that’s sort of the collective unconscious that’s how we tune in we’re all plugged into this one energy and divine consciousness is that that in that intelligence source that is there only to support our highest good, and just always supports us, so they’re very similar, but slightly different. Sometimes i feel the divine energy is electrocuting me way have a question that came by email, i think, betsy, so go ahead. What is that? Yeah, anna in brooklyn says if i feel stuck and not being fulfilled at work, she works for a nonprofit, but afraid to change jobs. What can i do to find a passion? And so for for and i do feel like this happens to a lot of people when you’re in a non-profit for a while you sort of especially if you’re young, although even if you’re just new to the agency ah lot of times you’re really gung ho about it, and you’re gung ho because you go in with your your heart, you go in with the passion nobody is in non-profit to get rich, we know that right it’s a life of service, and so when you go in, you have on the forefront of your brain and your thinking low, i’m going to go in to help people. I’m going in to help people, and you go in with that passion, and then you go in and you read, you hear all the bureaucracy and the old staff member start to complain, and you start to see the different side of all the administrative stuff, and maybe you don’t feel appreciated, and then your passion starts to diminish and you start to lose track of what brought you there in the first place. What brought you that fulfillment and that joy? And so when you’re looking for a new job, what is always recommended is it sounds a little bit backwards and we’re not really taught this, but i know firsthand. That it works, especially when i worked in non-profit i was able to switch jobs by doing this is you need to create that passion from within again in your current job. What is it that brings you there that will connect you to your heart center, and that will let you sort of really tune into what it is that you’re there for in the first place, and then you can start to tune and say, okay, well, this aspect of the job i liked, but this aspect of the job i don’t like, and you can start to search with what it is that you do like, and you can start your job, search that way and then another quick thing is that when you, when you start to do that, when you start to appreciate where you are, your energy changes and the energy of those around you changes think of when you having a good day and everyone around you is smiling because you’re smiling versus getting up on the wrong side of the bed. So then there’s a thing when you have a job and you switch your attitude around and you go searching for a job. The people that you interview with want you because you’re bringing in a different energy of someone who’s unemployed and who needs that job? I just needed to pay the bills. That’s, not your best energy. And when you go in, you could be bruce. Exactly. And so you and you’re not being desperate because you hate your job already as well. So you say they say, why are you here? And they say, well, you say i want a new skill set i want to bring my passion to your agency and they’re speaking from the heart versus sort of masking your dissatisfaction at your old job now and so that’s. All very good. I think job search and job change advice. But are you able to read anything about anna’s situation just just from an e mail? Is that is that possible? Yes, absolutely. That was that was for and i don’t even know her last name. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, that that really applied that would really apply. Generally, it would because it’s it’s something that we all go through. But for her specifically it well, it works as well. She has a follow up. Question should i read that? Yeah, okay, she says at non-profits even if i do believe in the work i dio, how can i find more comforting asking for a financial support from the community, especially after bad press? So she’s talking about fund-raising so that’s a that’s a big thing as well, especially with the press, trying to find all of these things, you know, just a good story. So i would say, and one of the things that you do want to do is you do want to find those passionate people. The people who are there are ready with their heart, and if you can, if you can get the people who are actually receiving the services to somehow be represented, not necessarily that you want them to do the fund-raising themselves sometimes videos can really help. So the people who receive the services they have, you know, heartfelt message is if it weren’t for this agency, i would not be ableto walk today. I would not be going to college today. Videos really work sometimes, um, sometimes just stories that you can have a sort of, not a postcard. So you want to have that that poster child who was really affected those things, and if you have enthusiastic clients who want to be out in the public and say, can you help us out along with the staff members, that can be really helpful? That could be very compelling, absolutely than alive story to a board or ah, or an event that you’re hosting absolutely gala and those those are the things because you you always and this is a general thing, but it’s specifically for this question as well, you always want to focus on what you want versus what you don’t want. And so if you have that client and that staff member who are very passionate and very affected, the people, the audience, the people who you want to donate money are going to see that, and they’re not going to be concentrating on the story that they read last week about the agency other value that that non-profits could see in the reading focus on this little bit more the hypothetical that we mentioned earlier, so it doesn’t have to be it’s, not it’s, not limited to existing circumstances, but even just ah, question about different alternatives absolutely that’s what? You mean by possible futures? Yeah. Um, when i was in social work, i primarily not all the time, but i primarily worked with people with developmentally to say do weird about developmentally disabled. And they were pretty high functioning. My job was to educate them on the consequences of their actions and then let them make their own decisions. Unless it was a health and safety risk. Right? This is what i bring into my readings. And so when people come to me with a business consultation or personal constitutent consultation they say yes, but what should i d’oh? I say, well, that would be putting my own judgment in. And i take myself out. I will tell you, if you do this, this will happen. And if you do this other path, this other thing will happen. So you get to choose on dh with what degree of certainty can you say that? On your saying this so that this will happen with this other thing will happen? Not may happen. Might happen, you know, you know, it really depends on the feedback that i get from readings. So far, the feedback has been eighty to one hundred percent. Accurate how people come up with those numbers, i think is just sort of ah, feeling i do tape every reading and send it to people so it’s possible that they’re sort of rating on a checklist, but i wouldn’t. I wouldn’t necessarily go that far with it, and i don’t know of anyone personally who’s done that it’s just really a track record of of the past readings and how much they’ve come true and also, you know, i always look for the for the best possible future for somebody, so there isn’t necessarily doom and gloom, although someone did ask me if i get something negative, will i relay it on what i say is that whatever i get, i give, so if i get something negative, i’ll deliver it to you, but we’ll also ask, though, who’s the what’s, the wise, the wares in the ones to either avoid that or make the best of that psychic medium. Betsy cohen is a za reverend in the spiritualist church of new york city, and we’re talking about readings possible futures in past lives. You can reach us on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio or call eight seven seven. For eight xero for one to zero what is spirit and and is it related to the organizational type readings that we’re talking about? Absolutely spirit is is the energy that i believe exists in everything around us. I believe what’s an intelligent force and i believe it’s what keeps things together, and i also believe that we can sort of harness spirit to create things there was this the collective energy that i said electrocute feel like it’s electrocuting me? Yes, it’s the same thing. Yes. Okay, go ahead. Yeah. And and what was the other part of the questions that were that doesn’t relate to organization it’s readings as well as individual meeting? Absolutely. Absolutely. The thing is, is that everything that’s been created and will be created first started in someone’s mind’s eye and so it’s really bringing that fourth and so that’s. What non-profits will do in a reading is they’ll wonder what they should manifest next to watch the next step should be. And so when you talk about that it’s like, well, what is the best step for you and talking about that? So here and in terms of, um, your work connecting with the dead being a medium. So first, let me say all psychics or not mediums, right? That’s, right? All right. Okay. Yeah. With that at all, be related to organizational readings like someone who’s who’s used to work for the organisation is now deceased possible. Yes, it is. I mean, it’s getting a little far out for your show, but absolutely well, just it’s a consulting a dead person for a non-profit i mean it’s definitely possible and probable, especially if that person was really good at bringing the organization to a good place leading the organization whenever they were the founder. Exactly that’s possible or or or an influential ceos ceo for decades or something. And they have a lot to say about the current course of the of the organization. No, absolute, yes, absolutely. You can also call on other famous people who were good at what you’re looking for. You can also ask them for consultations as well from that. And, you know, it’s it’s really good. Because i always say when we’re contacting the dead, it comes through their filter so you wouldn’t want to contact the ceo who led the organization into the red about money, you know, you might want teo about, you know about anything else, but you probably wouldn’t want to talk to them finances, but that’s it’s a really good point and i have have now. Now you say it’s a really good point, but two minutes ago it was it was too far afield for the show that man complete one eighty you doing for embarrass me and you say, it’s your show so i shouldn’t have made that judgment people embarrass me also, i embarrass myself. It doesn’t matter if you don’t, i will. So you may as well make your point, though that was the point is that that is that is a really good point. And and if you did want to contact someone on the other side, i do have really high standards from my mediumship. So if i’m giving a reading for anyone i really want to come up with identify irs, and i’ll explain what that is so that you know, that they’re here so things that i would have no way of knowing the way they died, what they liked with some of the personalities may be a shared memory that you had with them something like that, so that, you know, if i gave you five, identify ours, and you’re like, whoa, that’s. Definitely, you know, the last ceo, he definitely made that joke to me that something that was convincing to me in the beginning was it was conveying the personality of a deceased loved one. And then, you know, the very first reading that i had it was she was using the exact words i used the day before. And, you know, how would that person know that? We pretty much are out of time. I wantto i want to let people know that he has a show here on talking alternative, which is the power of intuition and that’s on mondays at eleven a, m here at talking alternative dot com, she has a background in social work and psychology, and has worked for a nonprofit for over ten years. Courses, i said, reverend in the spiritualist church of new york city and that’s, a corner one, thank you very much for being on the show, things going to give out my web site, new york psychic no, go ahead, new york city psychic that comets all spelled out in new york city. Psychic dot com. Thanks for coming into the studio on a friday. Thanks for having me, he’s. Been a pleasure. We’ll take a break, and when we returned, tony’s take two about naps and then board oversight basics. Stay with me. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics politically expressed. I am montgomery taylor, and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Dahna hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com durney welcome back to tony martignetti non-profit radio it’s, time for tony’s, take two at roughly thirty two minutes after the hour in praise of naps. That’s, my block this week. Um, i just i love naps. You know, if naps ran for president, i would vote for them, you know, because it’s, time to rest the body and rest the mind, and i’m sure that betsy cohen would say, rest his soul or something similar. It’s, just it’s rest, you know, and midday. I know a lot of people can only do them on a weekend, but i am fortunate to have the luxury of working at home. So sometimes on a weekday, i can indulge in an app and that’s. What my block is about. Ah, little about some peoples, different idiosyncrasies around. Ah, the proper venue for your nap, you know, bed versus sofa. Or maybe a comfy chair. Cover. I make a point that having the cover that’s just the right weight is important. I have my favorite blanket when it’s folded in half. It’s the perfect it’s a hideous color but it’s a great it’s a perfect weight when it’s folded in half. Um, something else that was nufer me ah, friend mentioned sound level. I mean, i was take my naps in silence, but she likes a tv low in the background, so sound level is something i hadn’t thought off. Anyway, you have your own idiosyncrasies. I hope you get the opportunity to indulge in naps and that’s what my post is about you’ll find my blogged at attorney martignetti dot com and note that that is a different girl than previous tony martignetti dot com that’s tony’s take two for friday, february tenth the sixth show of two thousand twelve excuse me, i’m very pleased now to welcome back jean takagi and emily chan gina’s principle of neo the non-profit and exempt organizations law group in san francisco he edits the popular blogged at non-profit law blogged dot com. You’ll find him on twitter at g tak g t k emily chan is an attorney at neo-sage contributor to the non-profit law blogged and she’s on twitter at emily chan, gene and emily welcome back, durney durney pleasure to have you. We’re continuing our conversation that jean and i started last week. Sorry last month about board oversight and gene, we had we had just we’re just the point where we’re getting some lessons from the penn state and second mile scandal crisis. What, you just remind listeners what that situation was about before we get some more lessons from it? Sure, honey, i think there’s been a lot of news, and jerry sandusky, who was an assistant football coach at penn state university, was founder of a children’s charity called the second mile. Uh, has, which is a charity that served more than one hundred thousand children annually. Mr sandusky was indicted in november following that three year investigation into reported sexual assaults of young boys by sandusky, including taking a shower with a boy at the penn state’s facilities and he’s actually at a pretrial hearing today. Oh, and uh, so he continues to be in the news the second mile, the big organization against serving more than a hundred thousand kids. Annually is now really hurting very badly in and maybe looking at closing in trying to transfer its program so huge impact of this child sex abuse scandal where sandusky was was indicted again for sexual assaults over a period of about fifteen years. And and sadly, since our last conversation about this, joe paterno died, i was dragged into the into the scandal under criticism that he hadn’t done enough to to report what he had learned on he died just a couple of days after after you and i talked. Gene um, so what? We were at the point where we’re talking about just getting help for your for your charity, what kind of help might a charity need from the from the outside? Why? I think they’re different things, and emily may want to chime in on this, too, but i think the first thing is to respond to those allegations of the charity when you’re your responsibility is taking care of those children. And you got a count of somebody who’s responsible party that interacts with these kids, taking a shower with children or engaging in other inappropriate behavior on there’s a grand jury actually looking into it, you’ve got to conduct your own internal investigations, and if you don’t have that expertise in house, you’ve got to get outside help to help you and obviously having an independent invest investigation and be very, very important as, uh, sandusky was the founder and might have been seen to have had undue influence over the leadership inside the second mile charity. Having an independent investigator take a look at it on if they need it outside, help to create more policies to protect the kids. Those are all things that were paramount for that board for that leadership act on right away. Yeah, emily besides the independent investigation, are there other investigation you know of ah serious allegation like this? Are there other functions that are important for charity’s? Tto go in seek of outside help with absolutely so amazing to think that we’ve been using in the sector. Assad organizations, they’re not doing a good job with implementing an emergency plan or even having a number to see plan to begin with. And so that’s something you can certainly see pr for talking to other organizations that have had similar troubles, especially with something like the second miles, you know, we’ve seen, for example, boy scouts of america go through a long history of legal cases related to sexual abuse, maybe reaching out to those organizations or seeing what they have done can help inform what might be effective when you’re dealing with a bad situation as well and it’s not only in cases of crisis, right, emily, that board should be looking for outside help. That is such a good plane. I really think the starting point for months over and organizations related to governance begins before and even bad actually happened, and it really should be from the inside out. So at a basic level, looking at things like policies, looking at the way that you described your information to the public, all of that should be an ongoing thing that’s being monitored before anything bad even happens. And so that sounds like an audit function. Is that what you’re describing in a way? You know, i don’t want to pretend that good governance is easy, it’s, certainly something you have to work hard at, but there’s steps out leaders can take to lessen the risk of bad governance, and so then when bad things happened that they don’t become exacerbated or get out of control. So looking at policies, this has really been something that’s come up with the for my ninety, and i think many organizations have the misconception of looking at it in the frame of how do we avoid an irs audit? And they think the right way to look at it is to think about policies as faras their utility on, and it does serve an audit function, but it also just helps an organization run it better, and it helps some underst and the role better to and a lot of the policies are things that jean and i talked about, the last conversation we had on this topic, which was on the january twentieth show. All right, so now i think a very good point that it it’s you don’t wait for a crisis, right? Emily toe tio, have your have things in order, correct? And i think also to build on the conversation that you and she had last time, you know, the ninety references policies that are very common, but i think an organization also needs to look at their specific situation to determine what. Policies are useful, so for example, here with the second mile, where they’re working with children. You know, the nine, ninety doesn’t save you have policies related tio sexual abuse prevention, but for an organization that has a mission and know that this risk in this context, that maybe something that their donors and their thunders and the public want to see, even though the nine ninety doesn’t specifically asked for it on dh, that would be the role of the board teo, to recognize the need for policies that are specific to the organizations work. It absolutely should be a discussion that’s happening on the board level, jean, those nine nineties that emily is referring to those things that signed under penalty of perjury, right? Absolutely. Tony so, you know boardmember sze should be, in my opinion, although there’s some controversy about this, i think all board members should be taking a look at the form nine ninety before it gets submitted to the irs to make sure that it is representative of what the organization is doing and the organization’s values. Because it really is, in my opinion, again part of the board members fiduciary duties i know. Some people feel like, well, if the board members have to read the nine, ninety that they can increase their personal exposure to liability, if there’s something you know really wrong that’s reflected in the nine, ninety, and they didn’t act on it, and i think that’s a board members job anyway, so rather than just sort of e-giving this defensive legal counsel about, you know, making sure you’re not getting into any trouble wait really want to be proactive about it and say, you know, we’ve got to tell directors what their jobs are so that they can really manage or govern and provide proper oversight to make their organizations do their best work. You mentioned that there’s controversy around whether boardmember should review the nine, ninety is that right? Yeah. There’s a little bit, tony. So i’m what’s up. Some people say that maybe a few board members, a committee perhaps be charged with taking a look at the nine ninety on and they take on the responsibility of doing it because if you are going to be assigned that role and that is part of your responsibility, then you, you know, add to the exposure that you have if you blow it, so if for example, the nine nineties showing that you’re going insolvent, oh, and that you’ve got no policies in place to prevent things like whistleblowers, retaliation, then that may be something that a director that’s been assigned to look at the nine, ninety is going to be held accountable for and so that there may be some fear in terms of protecting individual directors from saying, well, if you’re not going to read this closely and carefully, then you shouldn’t be a find. This is a task that you must do so that’s a little bit of the controversy, i still think the whole board should read it from ah ah, liability perspective this is this is interesting is, is somebody better off not reading it? And then claiming that it wasn’t my job to see it or they better off seeing it and then having done a bad job and ignored things that were that were clearly on there? Good question, i love it when you see a good question, because i really don’t know what i’m talking about. So it’s really it’s it’s very uplifting. Thank you, it’s. Very good. Always want to give you that pat on the back undeserved, but i think you really have to take it into context of what is going on and what type of troubles have, you know, weren’t seen and weren’t acted upon before you can really make that decision of which is worse, but again, sort of being proactive, i really think boardmember should know what the nine ninety is saying because the nine ninety is the public document that everybody can see and maybe forming their opinions on and in the second mile case and in, in fact, and in the recent susan g komen case nine nineties, or what people will look like, including the media whenever the organization is sort of experiencing this, uh, media convergence on their practices and whether they’re doing good things or not. And if you’re nine nineties are not really helping reflector organizational values, and i think you have some issues and the board, the board oversight, which is what we’re talking about. I think part of that is making sure that you know what you’re saying to the public and the nine nineties there a good place to start and in mentioning common, you’re referring to what’s. Been in the news just the past week, with the controversy between the susan g komen for the cure and planned parenthood, whether coleman would fund or not planned parenthood’s activities. And they have decided not to as as a board, ah, board decision, and then and then reverse that decision just to let people know where we stand. Cause a lot of people listen to us. A podcast. A couple of months after the show, we’re going to take a break right now and when we return. More board oversight basics. Part two with jean takagi and emily chan. So stay with us. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Hi, i’m carol ward from the body mind wellness program. Listen to my show for ideas and information to help you live a healthier life in body, mind and spirit, you’ll hear from terrific guests who are experts in the areas of health, wellness and creativity. So join me every thursday at eleven a, m eastern standard time on talking alternative dot com professionals serving community dahna. This is tony martignetti aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio fridays one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication. And the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office need better leadership? Customer service sales or maybe better writing are speaking skills? Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stopped by one of our public classes or get your human resource is in touch with us. The website is improving communications, dot com that’s improving communications, dot com improve your professional environment. Be more effective, be happier. And make more money. Improving communications. That’s. The answer. Talking. If you have big ideas and an average budget tune. Tony martin. Any non-profit radio we dio i’m jonah helper, nari team in co founders of next-gen charity welcome back. We’re talking about board oversight basics with jean takagi and emily chan. Emily, you refer to something earlier. We’ll go a little more detail on policies that are specific to your organization because i think a lot of people just sort of copy things that they find on the web. Yes, they dio i would strongly advise and suggests that organizations put more thought into the policies that they’re going to adopt at their organization, then to just take something wholesale or not really put much thought into it in order to check yes on their nine, ninety on these policies really have a lot of utility. I think that for one, they said consistent standards on dh. They also deal with what you know for any person can be an awkward situation dealing with executive compensation, conflicts of interest. And so you really have to think about these policies in terms of how it’s going to be implemented at your organization and to your point earlier, not only how it’s going to implement it, but what around your work requires specifics? Absolutely. And again, going back to the conversation about the public information that’s out there today. You simply can’t unring a bell when it comes to the internet, and so every baby, they’re putting out there to the world, you have to understand that there’s, a variety of audiences, that r rating on our way to screw anything. Yeah, emily, i’m going to switch over to jean because your connection is getting very weird. It’s just. It just sounds kind of pulse e and echoey, very echoey. So, jean, i’m going to switch over to you and ask you, just what? What other types of charities i need to be sensitive about. They’re the way their work relates to the policies that they need besides working with children. I think it it’s reflected every charity, tony, for example, if you’ve got an environmental organization, you may want to decide what your investment policy is going to about excellent investment in everything and what happens when when others get ahold of what you’re investing in. So investing for social responsibility to be a very important thing. Teo, all charity. If you’re an arts organizations, for example, um, you may want to have some, you know, particular gift acceptance policies in terms of accepting different types of artwork does it really further the mission that you have your particular mission? And what about the carrying costs of having that art? And do you have to live up to donors restrictions? How do you deal with that all sorts of particular issues that an arts organization might have that a social services organization wouldn’t have with respect to a gift acceptance policy again, just taking things off off the web or just borrowing and other organizations policy and copping it, you lose all the benefit of really putting in your own particular circumstances in there and part of what’s really great about developing your own policies is the conversation around it? Because you’re going to be bringing up other issues that may not be reflected in your policy, but maybe reflected in your actual practices and how you do things, and all of those things can come up or emerged from discussions. You discussing different policy? And this is all very healthy for a board and it’s senior staff to be talking about, right? Yeah, exactly and isn’t really that what we want isn’t that type of activity we really expect from boards rather than to, you know, just sort of listen to report on dh, you know, just sort of possibly going through the motions. We really want them to be active about planning for the organizations in the future of providing proper oversight to make sure that things are in compliance right now. Ah, and protecting the charitable assets on behalf of all of our community. So too close, then this this two part topic and again listeners, uh, just to remind you that the first show was january twentieth. We’re talking about the subject. Just remind listener jean what’s, the what’s, the purpose of the board. I mean, what? What? What’s there roll around. Not their purpose, but what’s their role specifically around oversight. What do they need to be having front of mind? But, you know, general corporate law, if i can avoid jargon. All right, weren’t you a little cool? Watching there’s only two minutes left noted notice how he treads on drug in jail with only two men stuff, but i’ll still get you in there. I’ll get you in with thirty seconds, so don’t you’re not you’re not free the you know, the general corporate law provides that all corporate powers are to be exercised, buy or under the authority of the board in all activities of the organization are to be managed under the direction of the board. So really, the buck stops with the board everywhere and that’s why boards need tohave systems to provide appropriate oversight over their organization, and that goes everywhere. So not just responding to a scandal like the second mile, but just doing their missions effectively and efficiently. So that’s, really what board oversight is about, emily once said, you know, directors aren’t just simply warm bodies or in a boardroom or prestigious titles on a roster. Um, they really have to accept and live up to. The responsibilities that go with being a director and that’s the duty of karen duty of loyalty for the lawyers out there. Maybe that gets me into stargate jail, but they’ve got to think about how many boardmember said the organization often we have how often should they meet? What are their expectations? What consequences are they don’t meet their expectations. How did they review both financial and programmatic activities? And we touched on that before on the last show as well. On dh how did they review legal compliance and risk management structures? How did the assess the external environment for opportunities and threats? That’s all part of board over. Jean takagi is principal. And emily chan is an attorney at neo-sage non-profit exempt organizations law group in san francisco. You can find both of them on the blogged non-profit law. Blawg dot com emily gene, thank you very much for being on again. Thanks for having it. It’s. Always a pleasure. Thank you. Both. Next week we’re gonna look at consulting relationships from both sides with penelope cagney on her book non-profit consulting essentials. What non-profits and consultants need to know keep up with what’s coming up sign. Up for our insider email alerts, you could do it on the facebook page. You know where to find facebook and then it’s just the name of the show, please like us if you like the show listen, live our archive you’ve accomplished alive, but if you weren’t with us, right, this minute archive were on itunes. You find our itunes paige at non-profit radio dot net subscribed there. Listen, any time on the device of your choice on twitter, you can follow me the show’s hashtag is non-profit radio used that hashtag recklessly measuring treyz was our guest tweet guest live twitter this week, but something came up for her so i suspect we’re goingto have her back. Ah, in the not too distant future mazarene thankyou for live tweeting today we’ll get you back. I mean, we’ll get you back on the show, not get back at you that’s not what i meant show is sponsored by g grace and company. Really? I mean, if you have concerns about real estate, whether you are in a lease or you own real estate, you don’t know what to do with it. G grace and company corporate real estate services can help you was george grace has been advising non-profits on their real estate matters. Lease or own for over twenty five years, you really should be in touch with them. If you have questions about real estate, you’ll find the maggie grace dot com or eight eight eight seven four seven two two, three, seven. The next live show on talking alternative is betsy cohen’s. I want to thank you again for being guest today, and it reminded at her show, is power of intuition. On monday at eleven, she gets more calls than i do, which means i got screwed. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the owner of talking alternative and is our line producer for today shows social media is by regina walton of organic social media, and our remote producer is john federico of the new rules. I hope you’ll be with me next friday went to two p m eastern at talking alternative broadcasting, which you always find at talking alternative dot com. I don’t think that’s a good ending. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Get in. Nothing. Cubine looking to meet mr or mrs right, but still haven’t found the one. I want to make your current relationship as filling as possible, then tuning on thursdays at one pm for love in the afternoon with morning alison as a professional matchmaker, i’ve seen it all with distinguished authors. Industry grew ours, and experts on everything from wine to fashion join us as we discuss dating, relationships and more on talking alternative dot com. Hi, i’m julie, hi, i’m julia, what are you wearing? Welcome to j and j’s. Secrets of style and beauty. We know there’s, beauty and style, and all you do, whether it’s a job interview, first date or wedding, we also know that not everyone understands what works best for him or her. We’re here to help. Think of us as your personal beauty style and grooming guru’s, as industry experts will give you the best information for men and women on howto look phenomenal. Tune in tuesdays at eight pm tto. Learn how to look your best. Are you fed up with talking points, rhetoric everywhere you turn left or right? Spin ideology, no reality, in fact, its ideology over intellect, no more it’s time for action. Join me, larry shot a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for the ivory tower radio in the ivory tower will discuss what’s important to you society, politics, business and family. It’s, provocative talk for the realist and the skeptic who want to know what’s, really going on. What does it mean? What can be done about it? So gain special access to the ivory tower. Listen to me very sharp, your neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven new york time go to ivory tower radio dot com for details. That’s, ivory tower radio dot com everytime was a great place to visit for both entertainment and education. Listening. Tuesday nights nine to eleven. It will make you smarter. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you, too? He’ll call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight, three that’s to one to seven to one eight, one eight, three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Talking.

My NextGen:Charity 2011 Interviews, Part IV

I’ve got my last three HD video interviews from the NextGen:Charity conference last November. Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio was a media sponsor, so I got excellent, insightful commentary from the 12 inspiring speakers I interviewed.

Here are the previous posts:

Part I with the founder of Craigslist and CraigConnects, Mr. Newmark, urging simple, consistent messages to donors; Peter Thum, founder of Ethos water, on radical ideas and perseverance; and DoSomething.org‘s Aria Finger with ways to draw teens to your cause.

Part II with Wali Collins encouraging a regretless life; positive communications with Sharyn Abbott; and Charles Best on connecting donors to their causes. He’s the CEO of DonorsChoose.org.

Part III with Rachael Chong from Catchafire.org on meaningful volunteering; Marc Ecko, the clothing magnate, on branding; and Neil Strauss with fundraising tips generated from the art of seduction.

Here’s what’s new this week:

  1. Innovation in social change, and the leadership to envision it and drive it forward. She’s the founder and CEO of Global Citizen Year. She urges you to, “Continue dreaming.” My interview with Abby Falik.
  2. His site is his credo: Live In Wonder. He wants you to pursue your hero’s journey. His journey took him across the country, meeting about 200 of the world’s most influential and powerful people over a cup of coffee, and learning amazing lessons. The Journey is his Disney documentary that tells the story. My interview with Eric Saperston.
  3. Lessons on motivation and innovation from this director of the X Prize Foundation. Be audacious! Make space to dream! My interview with Jaykumar Menon.

Click here to get to the NextGen:Charity interviews from 2010.