The Foraker Group

Foraker has been publishing surveys to support human resources within Alaska nonprofits since 2002. Our 2014 survey is now open and we urge you to participate in it. The deadline for submitting your suvery is Friday, February 21. 2014 features include: Full survey components – salary and benefits – will be reported for the third consecutive survey. All benefit data entry fields have been reviewed and updated to better reflect current options and practices. Benchmark job descriptions have been edited for currency. 2012 survey respondents can review their entries from that year and bring data current reducing the time and effort required to submit a 2014 response. No data will appear only if a pull down menu of options has been changed to better reflect benefit trends. New questions have… Read more »

Unrestricted funds are interesting because they actually come from the most sustainable revenue streams. That critical support includes committed individual donors and mission-related income. An individual charitable giving strategy succeeds when a donor both perceives that an organization delivers on its mission and feels nurtured in his or her relationship with the organization. Earned revenue succeeds when an organization provides a quality product or service that is valued either by individuals or by institutions. While both require specific infrastructure to implement, these are the strategies for securing sustainable income. Eventually these strategies, when paired with disciplined budgeting, will result in reserves of unrestricted funds. The transition from grant-dependent income to revenue based on sustained charitable giving or earned income is much easier than you might believe. The skills needed to… Read more »

The lack of flexibility from not having sufficient unrestricted funds can lead to loss of focus and often disrupts the board/staff balance. Nonprofits that lose government funding often turn to institutional funders like corporations and foundations. While these sources can be useful for specific projects and capital expenses, they are the least likely to provide ongoing, unrestricted operating revenue. As a result, too often organizations try to re-invent themselves and their programs every few years to appear new to these funders. Increasingly, foundations are re-assessing the need to provide operational support, sometimes unrestricted, to help build the core capacity of nonprofits. This is a great trend. In the past, the rare situations in which such unrestricted funding was provided allowed some nonprofits to view grants as sustainable income. For example,… Read more »

Each year the Nonprofit Finance Fund conducts a survey that provides a view of the sector from a variety of angles. We encourage you to participate, as does the National Council of Nonprofits. Once the survey is compiled, the information can be used in many ways — as support for advocacy programs, to inform the public through the media, and to demonstrate the significant value of the sector to the vitality of communities. Results can be filtered by states, so the information from this survey is an excellent supplement to other research Foraker conducts, such as the ISER study on the impact of the sector on Alaska’s economy. You can view the results for Alaska from the 2013 survey by clicking here. Click here to get started. It will take… Read more »

Many people, even those with a financial background, have difficulty with the nonprofit sector’s accrual accounting standards. Most of us think in terms of cash accounting: Do I have enough money in the bank or do I need to charge it? With accrual accounting, it can be easy to believe your organization has enough cash, only to discover that what seemed to be a healthy bottom line was masked by restricted funding. Nonprofit organizations cannot be sustained without a financial reserve. A quick way to gauge this important part of sustainability is to look at the unrestricted income and reserves. Are they clearly presented in your organization’s financials? Are they adequate? Determining the appropriate amount of unrestricted funds for an organization depends on several factors, including the goals outlined in… Read more »

Nonprofit Quarterly is a publication we depend on here at Foraker for news and analysis on issues affecting the sector. That’s why we were pleased last week to receive the NPQ Cohen Report in which author Rick Cohen listed what he believes are the top stories from 2013 with implications for the nonprofit sector. Click here to review Rick’s list. Let us know if you would add any stories…. Read more »

As we close out 2013 and look forward to 2014, we’re especially grateful for the response we have received to our book Focus on Sustainability: A Nonprofit’s Journey, which was released during the Leadership Summit in April. Through the generosity of the Rasmuson Foundation we were able to provide everyone who attended the summit with a copy of the book. We hope by now you’ve all had a chance to read it and perhaps put some of the suggestions about sustainability into effect in your organization. We appreciate the many positive comments we’ve received about Focus on Sustainability. We are currently selling it on Amazon and have been getting orders from all over the country. People who have read the book are encouraging us to keep spreading the word that… Read more »

Here are the critical tools to determine whether or not you can successfully build and enhance key partnerships. A strategic plan – Outline where partnerships can strengthen mission. An operating plan – Outline where partnerships can strengthen annual goals and priorities. A business plan – Outline where partnerships can strengthen mission, complement human capacity, and allow the organization to increase and/or conserve funds. A fund development plan – Focus on partnerships that emphasize donor relationships as a core fundraising philosophy. A marketing and communications plan – Focus on the impact of the organization through stories, and outline tactics to engage stakeholders in telling their mission-connected stories. Current letters of agreement – Outline letters of agreement or memorandums that ensure an understanding with mission-connected stakeholders. What key steps can your board… Read more »

It’s January, and at this very moment thousands of Alaskans are online filing for their next Permanent Fund Dividend check. In last month’s newsletter, Dennis provided a quick reminder for Pick.Click.Give., which included several steps to increase participation. In this article, he suggests a few more simple tactics to raise more money and increase donations to all participating nonprofits. Click here for more…. Read more »

Foraker has been conducting surveys to support human resources management since 2002. It’s a service our Partners depend upon to make decisions about salaries and benefit programs. The next survey will launch soon. It is now conducted online, making it much easier to complete and tabulate. You will receive a notice when the survey is ready. We look forward to having as many organizations participate as possible…. Read more »