The Foraker Group

Thanksgiving often brings us an opportunity to share our time in our own or a friend’s home. Home can conjure up both good thoughts and also remind us of life’s challenges. I am thankful for many definitions of home. One of those definitions is the nonprofit sector itself. This home has a strong foundation that we build upon every day. Our sector is built on community. We are on the ground working with our neighbors and working to improve the places we live. We are woven together by our diverse people, neighborhoods, and country, and we are stronger as a result. Our sector is built on partnerships. We are relationship-based and we know that each connection with other organizations, businesses, and government strengthens our work and creates more lasting success…. Read more »

December 1, 2016 has been marked on the calendar of many nonprofit executives, human resources professionals, and payroll departments as the date that changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) were slated to go into effect. Those changes doubled the federal, annual minimum threshold for exempt positions to $47,476 ($913 per week) with automatic updates every three years. The rule was announced by the U.S. Labor Department in May. Today, however, a federal judge hit the pause button on the new changes. The judge agreed with arguments made in an emergency motion for a preliminary injunction filed by several states. The motion maintained that the Department of Labor overstepped its bounds with the significant increase made to the minimum threshold for exempt employees and the automatic updates. So, now… Read more »

Foraker CEO Laurie Wolf has joined the steering committee for Welcoming Anchorage, which is a special project of Anchorage’s First Lady Mara Kimmel and part of a national movement. Ms. Kimmel released the following statement yesterday and as we continue to be anchored to our core values, we fully support these important hallmarks of a healthy community. We welcome the opportunity to stand beside many other nonprofits and efforts across our state that share our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion for all Alaskans. You can find more information here about Welcoming Anchorage. Dear Welcoming Anchorage friend, Home is a place that we should all feel safe and secure.  Anchorage is our home.  Whether we are from a village upstream from where our city now sits, or a war torn community half-way around… Read more »

“The best laid plans.” We generally say this when things go astray from our original intention. We say this with the assertion that we had a plan in the first place. We have all sorts of plans in our nonprofit world. We have big picture definitions of success like strategic plans and theory of change, and annual plans that address budgets and operational priorities. And we have plans that are both strategic and tactical like fund development or communication plans. Planning can get a bad reputation in our sector both from our own team and from those outside our organization with whom we partner. The root of those concerns generally falls into four categories: What exactly is a plan? What difference will the plan make? Who is responsible for creating… Read more »

This election has been difficult for our country. We wake up this morning more aware than ever of deep divisions among us. For many, emotions are raw and the future uncertain. Personally, I am recommitting – to our work as a sector and to our mission at Foraker. And I invite you to join me because what we do is important. Volunteer. Donate. Use your voice. Focus on your mission, your community, and the people you serve. Gather together to work together.  We are capable of doing the difficult work, with compassion. That’s what we’re about as nonprofits. Let’s find our path to move forward together. Laurie Wolf President/CEO… Read more »

We are pleased to let you know that we have restructured the Alaska Funding Guide, which lists funders who support Alaska nonprofits and projects. It also includes a few helpful grant writing tips. The guide is a great complement to our grant writing book and the classes we offer at Foraker. Most important, you can continue to search for funders by areas of sector and project interests. You also still have the ability to save and print your searches for your own planning. In the past we included a large amount of information in the guide that is duplicated on the websites for funders. That research took a lot of staff time and we had to charge a subscription fee to cover our expenses. That’s changed. We have reduced the… Read more »

There are days when I am confronted with a blizzard of data. It can leave me feeling either disorganized or stuck. And I sometimes see others caught in this storm – some contending with heady emails or a commissioned report, or others with a friendly offering from a mission partner or a trusted source. I see it in boardrooms in piles of spreadsheets or board packets the size of days-gone-by phone books. The intentions are good. More data means more information, right? But if we are in the blizzard and don’t know what to do with this data, is it helping us? Have you been caught in this storm? Do you find yourself knowing that you are supposed to do something with it, but what? There is also another kind… Read more »

As part of its 2016 Salary & Benefits Survey, Foraker gathered data on pay equity in Alaska’s nonprofit sector, This is the first time such data has been compiled for our state. The report highlights the results for the top-level employees in the nonprofit workplace. We understand that this issue is much deeper and wider than simply the pay of those employees. To that end, we encourage everyone reading and using this report to consider the best and emerging practices we offer in the closing section and apply them to every job classification in your workplace. Our goal is to find pay equity across all job classifications throughout the sector. Fair and equitable pay is the law in our country, and yet we have more work to do, both in and out of the nonprofit sector, to achieve pay equity. Alaska is no different…. Read more »

Alaska Nonprofits Count!  And Alaska nonprofit votes count!  When Alaska nonprofits use our voting power we advance our missions by making our voices heard.  When we vote we make change for the better – for our organizations, our communities, our state and the world. On November 8th Alaskans will join millions of Americans who will be voting for their state legislatures, the U.S. Congress and the President and Vice President of the United States. It has never been more important to make sure that nonprofits board members, staff, volunteers and constituents register to vote and get to the polls on Election Day. HERE ARE THREE THINGS TO DO NOW TO MAKE OUR VOICES HEARD THIS NOVEMBER: 1) Register to Vote 2) Spread the Word and 3) Inform Yourself 1) REGISTER… Read more »

One of the more fun and rewarding parts of our work is watching the sheer joy of nonprofit board and staff members when things “click” for them. Literally we see light in their faces and relief in their smile. More and more we have been experiencing this around the sometimes dreaded, sometimes feared, responsibility of fundraising. I have focused for a long time on taking the fear and mystery out of this work and doing all that we can to make it fun and accessible, while still incorporating the science of the profession. Yes, fundraising is an art and a science. The art is our organizational culture and core values and the way we talk and think about the work. The science is rooted in a growing field of evidence-based… Read more »