Nonprofit management is fairly similar to for profit management in many important ways. The management skills that you pick up while running a profit making organization can be quite easily utilized with a nonprofit organization. What you need to understand is that instead of just working for your shareholders or being focused on the profitability of your product or service, you are now responsible for resolving and providing solutions to the public at large.
1. Focus on Your Mission
Once you understand that you are not “chained” to providing products and services to a specific audience, you’ll have a better grasp at how to manage your nonprofit organization. This means that you can now put your energies into the issues or causes that prompted you to start the organization in the first place. In some very important ways nonprofit organizations are free to pursue myriad avenues towards the resolutions and necessary improvements society needs.
2. State Your Results and Needs
Nonprofit organizations and profit making organizations are similar in that they set goals, generate revenue and provide goods and services to the community. They are dissimilar in the fact that nonprofit organizations are formed to serve the community, state and country. Nonprofit organizations also don’t receive money for their goods and services, thereby giving communities the opportunities to have their needs fulfilled through the organization. In other words the organization fulfills a need in the community by raising funds and awareness.
3. Practice Ethical Dealings with Board and Public
This is an important step in managing your nonprofit. You should ensure that there are no conflicts of interest with your board. Public perception of bad ethical practices will come back to haunt you. Transparency in all your dealings with the public is a key indicator that increases donor support for your cause.
Conflicts of interest can happen at any time and for any reason. It is a good idea to plan out typical scenarios and have a conflict of interest policy in place to handle these types of situations. SBI Association Management said, “Practicing transparency and making sure your board is on the ‘same page’ will help keep your nonprofit organization on an even keel when crisis happens.”
4. Generating Interest and Passion
A rule of thumb when managing a nonprofit organization is that you must in some way or form do something that generates interest in your cause. Fundraisers are a good venue to generate this interest. Planning a fundraiser does take a lot of time and effort, yet they are well worth it. Sometimes you do have to re-evaluate where your passion lies and plan accordingly.
The important premise with any type of fundraising activity is to get volunteers that are willing and able to help you run it. The fundraising activity should reflect the nonprofit’s mission and have a tangible goal to be reached.
5. Learn to Delegate and Share the Load
Leaders that don’t learn to share responsibilities quickly burn out. You need to learn to delegate some of the tasks to make other members feel like they are contributing to the cause. Nonprofit leaders especially can get burnt out and lose their passion if they don’t learn this sometimes hard lesson.
There are many ways to share the load. Discovering the ways that your teams can enhance your nonprofit organization will take time. You will however notice a big difference when you get to the point where you realize you just can’t do it all yourself.
6. Celebrate Successes, Acknowledge Failures
Your nonprofit organization won’t succeed if you don’t provide those “Atta boys” and “Great Job” when a milestone is achieved. Any organization that basically has no goals or milestones to accomplish isn’t a very productive organization.
At the same time, you also need to acknowledge any failures. All organizations have at least one failure. It is how you manage those failures that make your organization stronger. It provides you with learning experiences that you can’t get otherwise.
Managing a nonprofit organization can be quite a challenge. You are dealing with the public in making them aware of your cause and trying to raise funds at the same time. You’ll need support from everyone to make your nonprofit successful.
