Progressive Life Center (PLC) has been awarded the grant to serve as the Administrative Partner for the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS) 2020 Community Programming Initiative (CPI) Service Coalition. The Center is partnering with PLC to deliver training and capacity building support to the selected coalition of providers.

This program serves as a bridge between youth, families and the community through outreach, engagement and other supportive services. Learn more about its positive impact and the Center’s new role in this collaborative effort.

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It’s time to get serious about keeping top performers on your team. That is the takeaway message from a new report from Nonprofit HR, a Washington-DC based research and consulting organization.

The 2019 Talent Retention Practices Survey chronicles staff retention strategies and practices in over 350 nonprofit organizations from across the US (and some from Canada). Respondents were evenly distributed across the spectrum from small employers (fewer than 10) to large (more than 500 employees), and across budget sizes, from less than $1 million to more than $40 million. The report is one of the first (if not the first) to identify and quantify the challenges around employee retention in nonprofits.

The Center recently published an article in its 2019 Nonprofit Agenda about the cost and downside of employee turnover. As a supplement to that article, here are some steps that key leaders in your organization can take to keep your top performers from leaving. 

What CEOs need to know and do

Know where your organization stands when it comes to retention: What’s your turnover rate, particularly among your high performers and first-year employees? Where are your turnover hot spots? What’s driving those hot spots? And more important, what can you do about them?

  • Recognize that whether you’re aware of it or not, your nonprofit has a reputation as an employer. If you don’t have a listing on Glass Door or one of the other employee rating sites, that won’t last long. Word on the street is rapidly being replaced by word on the web. And it’s not just prospective employees who are checking out those sites—it’s prospective donors as well.
  • Recognize that the three main drivers of employee retention—culture, leadership and career quality—are things under your direct control. What changes do you need to make to your leadership style or organizational culture to improve employee retention? How can you enhance your employees’ career quality?
  • Consider implementing “skip level” conversations. These are periodic conversations with front-line employees about how you can make your nonprofit a great place to work and what staff need specifically to stay with your organization.
  • Use programs like TINYpulse to gather direct, unfiltered information about how your employees are feeling about your organization and their jobs, and what’s enhancing or hindering their performance.
What nonprofit boards need to know and do

While your chief executive is your board’s only employee, the board is responsible for the stewardship of the entire organization. That means making sure that your organization’s culture and practices foster the development of the organization’s human and reputational assets. Implementing that is the executive’s responsibility, but holding the CEO accountable is the board’s job. Ensuring your nonprofit is a stellar place to work starts with your board members.

What HR managers need to know and do

An organization’s HR professionals should be keenly aware of turnover rates and what’s influencing employee retention. CEOs are responsible for a multitude of things, and employee retention, while terribly important, is just one of those things. Here’s what HR staff can do to elevate the importance of employee retention and get the resources and leadership attention needed to do something about it:

  • Gather good data about the factors that are influencing your organization’s retention rates. Continue using the retention strategies outlined in the article, including exit interviews, but consider incorporating retention or “stay” interviews if you’re not doing that already.
  • Make a compelling case to your CEO to help address the areas for improvement. Is it culture? Leadership practices? Or career quality? Help your CEO understand the ROI and the fact that strategies for improving employee retention are usually free or cheap. And those that cost have a big payoff.
  • Help the CEO understand that creating a great place to work can be one of his/her enduring leadership legacies.

It doesn’t matter if your nonprofit’s mission is to inspire, support, educate or transform, it’s your people who are the power behind that mission. Are you doing all you can do to prove to them that they have invested their career and their life energies in the right organization, the right mission, and the right leader?

Contributing author: Don Tebbe, Leadership Succession Consultant, Author and National Speaker, Center Faculty

To learn more, see “It’s time to get serious about employee retention” in the 2019 Nonprofit Agenda.

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After an extensive evaluation process, the EXCEL Award selection committee completed the difficult task of narrowing the field to five finalists. They visited each of these organizations and then made their final selections.
Congratulations to our three winners and two honorable mentions!

We invite you to read their thoughts on leadership and what it means to be recognized with this award.

2019 EXCEL Award Winners

 

Steve Glaude
CNHED (Coalition for Nonprofit Housing and Economic Development)

 

 

 

Hugo Mogollon
Community Foodworks

 

 

 

Bridgette Stumpf
NVRDC (Network for Victim Recovery of DC)

 

 

2019 EXCEL Award Honorable Mentions

 

Harold Pettigrew
WACIF (Washington Area Community Investment Fund)

 

 

 

Clark Seipt
CCH (Community Coalition for Haiti)

 

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The Center is proud to be partnering with Pepco in their 2020 Call for Exhibits at the Pepco Edison Place Gallery in Washington, DC.

Deadline is 4:00pm on Friday, November 8

Through a transparent and competitive process, a minimum of twelve nonprofit organizations across the Pepco service territory will be selected to participate in a two- to four-week residency that involves an in-kind donation of gallery space at the Pepco Edison Place Gallery. Our intent is to exhibit work that is uplifting, provides a positive representation of the Greater DC community and heightens the visitor experience in Chinatown. Sales are encouraged throughout the duration of the exhibit, and nonprofits are also encouraged to schedule “exhibit opening” events to raise awareness and promote attendance.

The goal of this call for submissions:

  • Provide support, exposure, and professional benefit for visual artists and organizations
  • Increase the exposure of local nonprofit arts organizations and the artists they represent
  • Support and increase the diversity of artists
  • Provide capacity building resources through the Center for Nonprofit Advancement

Curated use of the gallery space includes but is not limited to:

  • Paintings
  • Drawings
  • Photographs
  • Fabric arts
  • Ceramics
  • Sculptures
  • Mixed media works
  • Prints

Applicant Eligibility

The application is open to any 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization—regardless of budget size or scope of programming—that is based in Washington, DC, Prince George’s and Montgomery counties in Maryland. Other criteria includes:

  • Organization must meet all grant guidelines for eligibility
  • Organization must be a 501(c)(3) non-profit with a board of directors
  • Exhibit range is two to four weeks
  • Grants will be considered for new and existing programs that fall within the funding categories, as well as requests for funding that clearly demonstrate a connection to key business objectives
  • One exhibit per year per organization will be granted at a time
  • Organization must be located geographically within the Pepco service territory

Exhibit Categories

For the 2020 calendar year, we are specifically seeking work reflective of the following:

  • Celebrates the 100th Anniversary of Women’s Right to Vote
  • Promotes and encourages participation in Census 2020
  • Promotes and encourages “Get Out the Vote” for Election 2020
  • Celebrates racial/ethnic heritage months (ex. African American History month, Hispanic Heritage Month, etc.)
  • Celebrates Pepco employee resource groups and the communities they represent (ex. PRIDE community, veterans, etc.)
  • Recognizes and promotes innovation in STEM education and energy
  • Recognizes and promotes environment stewardship focusing on the impact of climate change, clean energy, etc.

Learn more in the Application Packet.

For questions, contact Goldie Patrick.

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The Center is pleased to announce we have a new space to hold classes in Prince George’s County, making training more accessible to those in suburban Maryland.

We also plan to have designated office hours there a few times a month, so members can more easily meet with staff if desired. Once these hours have been confirmed, we will post them on our website.

Upcoming classes at 9701 Apollo Drive, Upper Marlboro, MD, include:

Performance Measurement 101: Developing Your Logical Outcome Model
September 17 @ 1:30 pm – 3:30 pm

Grant-Writing for Greater Impact
October 16 @ 1:30 pm – 3:30 pm

Volunteer-Staff Relationships: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
November 14 @ 1:30 pm – 3:30 pm

How to Present with Confidence, Command, and Charisma
December 3 @ 1:30 pm – 3:30 pm

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Adventure Theatre MTC is the preeminent Theater Academy for youth in the DC region with an integrated and nationally renowned high quality professional theater for family audiences. Adventure Theatre educates and inspires new generations of theater artists and audiences with exceptional theatrical experiences. The ATMTC Academy offerings complement the National & State Fine Arts Standards of Learning, providing a challenging outlet for students to develop the skills necessary to be successful performers – including self-discipline, teamwork, problem solving, and self-confidence. ATMTC Academy Alumni have numerous Broadway, national tour, TV and film credits.

What does being a finalist for this award mean for you and your organization?

Since the merger between Adventure Theatre and Musical Theater Center in 2012, ATMTC has been reimagining and restructuring its board. The board has made hard choices, taken strategic risks, and embraced a dynamic and compelling vision for the organization. Becoming a finalist for this award creates credibility for the progress to date. While the ATMTC board and its work is always continuing to grow, being a finalist is a wonderful acknowledgment of how far the board has come.

What have you learned through the application process for the Board Leadership Award?

Among the many things ATMTC has learned through this process, two stand out. First, although ATMTC takes pride in its onboarding process and ongoing training of board members, only through this process has ATMTC seen how much its board members have internalized and how they have become such talented ambassadors for the organization.

Second, this application process reminds ATMTC that its board’s work is never done. The board is always adapting to changes, new trends, and unexpected opportunities and challenges. The ATMTC board’s ability to be flexible and dynamic as changes arise has permitted it to respond with clarity in identifying issues, creativity in devising solutions, and bravery in implementing the selected course of action.

What advice would you offer for other organizations/board members striving for excellence in board leadership?

ATMTC offers three pieces of advice for organizations/board members striving for excellence in board leadership.

First, if you want a truly diverse board, you must first diversify the organization. An organization must do the work toward diversity before trying to bring new members to the board who will, in turn, move the needle on board diversity. Only when the organization has internalized the goals of social justice can it attract board members who will help continue the progress.

Second, you need to acknowledge the limits of board members’ time. Board members are willing to work, but organizations need to provide the tools to make it easy to do the work it needs them to do. Examples of these tools include providing meeting agendas and materials at least a week in advance of meetings; providing meaningful orientation to new board members; and asking concise questions or specific opportunities to help.

Finally, boards should be courageous in their convictions. When a board adopts a well-informed course of action based on appropriate strategic risk, the board and the organization benefit and grow by seeing the decision through and actively participating in the work.

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For nearly 40 years, Martha’s Table has worked to support strong children, strong families and strong communities by increasing access to quality education programs, healthy food and family supports. They believe that every child deserves the opportunity for their brightest future and a deeply engaged family and community committed to their success.

What does being a finalist for this award mean for you and your organization?

This recognition is quite gratifying for the Martha’s Table board, especially given the major milestones we’ve hit in the past year. It feels like we’ve run several marathons consecutively, with everything that went into our new headquarters and satellite location, selection of our new CEO and transition to a new board chair. That we’ve emerged from each of these challenges a stronger Martha’s Table is a testament to the steady hand and tireless work ethic of our board.

At the same time, there’s still so much to be done at Martha’s Table, and our place-based work in our new neighborhood in Southeast D.C. is just beginning. As we noted in our award application, Martha’s Table’s board holds itself to high standards and does not seek the limelight. Being a finalist for the Board Leadership Award is a reminder that someone is watching us at work, and a nice validation for our board that we should keep doing what we’re doing.

What have you learned through the application process for the Board Leadership Award?

Through the application process, we appreciated the opportunity to pause and reflect. Perhaps most significantly, it was helpful to take stock in Martha’s Table’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, as the application forced us to delve into this area. As far as we’ve come in diversifying our board membership and staff, in adopting asset-based language and amplifying the voices of our community members, we still have much remaining to do on this front.

We are proud of what we’ve accomplished in championing greater equity within Martha’s Table and within the District of Columbia. But we can’t rest on our laurels while so many members of our community are denied a real opportunity to be successful in life. We’re glad the Board Leadership Award emphasized equity, diversity and inclusion in the application, which reinforces the critical role our board must play in realizing system-level change.

What advice would you offer for other organizations/board members striving for excellence in board leadership?

At Martha’s Table, our board members and senior staff are true partners in our work to support strong children, strong families and strong communities. To be effective, both our executives and directors consistently push and challenge each other—respectfully, of course—in service of our mission. Our board is effective because they “get it” when it comes to Martha’s Table’s mission.

We often compare board member recruitment to casting a play, each role having specific characteristics and expertise. We’ve built out our board roster very strategically, with a purposeful mix of business leaders, academics, food experts and longtime Washingtonians, all of whom give generously of their time and resources. We hope other organizations can learn and benefit from how we’ve filled our board with great people and allowed them to do what they do best.

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The Primary Care Coalition of Montgomery County (PCC) is deeply committed to providing a continuum of care for low-income, uninsured and underinsured, ethnically diverse residents of Montgomery County. They work with clinics, hospitals, health care providers and other community partners to coordinate health care services for our most vulnerable neighbors. Their vision is a community in which all residents have the opportunity to live healthy lives.

What does being a finalist for this award mean for you or your organization?

PCC is a backbone organization in our community. Collaboration is our mechanism for achieving our mission. We bring together funding from our local government, hospitals, and foundation partners and, through partnerships with other nonprofits in our community, ensure vulnerable community residents have access to health services. We serve as a data hub; our direct service partners entrust us with the analytics and aggregation of protected health information. Our community looks to us, with our process improvement and facilitation expertise, to serve as a convener across the healthcare and social service sectors to achieve systems level change.

We work in partnership with so many different entities, and it is important they are confident in our internal governance and can look to us to model and share best practices. For PCC as an organization, the credibility of this prestigious award would further affirm to external stakeholders that PCC’s leadership governs the organization well, is committed to continuous learning and sharing what it learns with our partner nonprofits.

For the PCC Board, being a finalist for the Board Leadership Award from the Center from Nonprofit Advancement validates the Board’s introspection for and time dedicated to enhancing Board culture, composition, structure and stakeholder engagement.   Being a finalist also reinforces that Board improvement work is valuable and should be continuous, in parallel and in support of our work on setting and driving organizational strategy in a changing healthcare environment.

What have you learned through the application process for the Board Leadership Award?

This is PCC’s second year applying for this award. We have found tremendous value in the feedback received through the application process. Having an external entity examine our Board practices causes us to see them with a different lens as well. In doing so, we can see areas to change and innovate.

Using the feedback from the previous year’s interview we recognized there are community and population perspectives missing from our Board. In response, we developed Board composition guiding principles and a Board structure and recruitment pipeline strategy to asses and address gaps. In addition to recruiting new Board members with different perspectives, we also created Committee Charters, updated our bylaws to allow non-Board members on most committees as voting members, and clarified the role of Board members affiliated with PCC partners.

This latter work led to the chartering of a Stakeholder Engagement and Relationship Strengthening Work Group, tasked with developing relationship strengthening work plans, commensurate with the impact of the relationship, that ensure the relationship is sustainable in the event of turnover at PCC or the stakeholder organization.

Through this year’s application process, we’ve recognized the importance of explicitly building a Board culture and structure for continuous learning, improvement, and innovation in governance practices. We’ve also recognized that, as a backbone organization, we interact with Boards of many nonprofits and can lead by modelling best practices and promoting the value of external feedback and internal reflection for Boards. Partnerships and collaboration are the mechanism through which we forward our mission; the strength and excellence of our partners’ Boards is relevant to our mission.

What advice would you offer for other organizations/board members striving for excellence in board leadership?
  1. It is important that organizations/board members embrace introspection and change regarding Board culture, perspectives, relationships, and work methods. Select a Board Chair who will explicitly champion change and Board excellence; change must be welcomed and made a priority from the top.
  2. Use time-limited work groups to address issues within the domains of Board governance. Set a clear work group charter and goal, achievable within a short time frame (e.g. six meetings/six months). Ensure the Board timely considers work group recommendations and enacts reasonable changes. As a work group concludes, determine next priority for a work group.
  3. Determine what diversity means for your Board and adopt guiding principles for Board member recruitment. Consider the skills, perspectives or voices needed at the Board to ensure the organization holds to its mission and understands the need it exists to serve. Build an ongoing recruitment network and pipeline that can deliver the voices and skills when identified, rather than seek members only when there is a vacancy or to ‘check a box’. If the Board and its related committees and work group are not sufficiently diverse, focus on building a more extensive recruitment network. Where appropriate, include non-board members as voting members of standing committees and work groups as a means to develop those unfamiliar with or uncertain about Board service.

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… and reduce the negative impact of the new tax law.

With the increase in the standard deduction and the new limitation on state and local tax deductions, fewer people itemized on their 2018 returns, thus decreasing the tax incentive to make charitable gifts. In addition, the estate and gift tax exclusions were also doubled, which may lessen the incentive to make bequests to charities. According to the Tax Policy Center, these changes led to an estimated 12 to 20 billion dollar decline in overall charitable giving, or roughly a 5% decline in contributions.

So, what should your nonprofit do?

Focus on developing high net worth donors now and educating individuals on maximizing their way of giving, recommends Javier Goldin, managing partner of Goldin Group CPAs. Further he offers four suggestions to give potential donors.

1. Group gifts

One way to join the 1 in 10 tax filers expected to itemize this year is to do something called bunching. With this strategy, as many deductible expenses as possible (for example, medical expenses) are shifted into one year, so that itemizing becomes advantageous. Then the standard deduction is taken the next year or two.

In the case of charitable gifts, that would mean donating two or three years’ worth of gifts in one year. This may be tough for those who may not have extra cash accessible, but there’s a solution to that issue. By making a substantial gift—typically a minimum of $5,000—to a donor-advised fund, the donor can deduct the full gift now and then direct the money to charity over time. Fidelity, Schwab and Vanguard are among the financial firms offering these planned giving accounts.

2. Use IRA distributions

People who are 70½ or older and are taking required minimum distributions from an individual retirement account can funnel those withdrawals directly to charity (up to a max of $100,000 a year). With what’s called a qualified charitable distribution (QCD), donors can’t write off the gift, but they won’t owe income taxes on the withdrawal. So in the 22 percent federal tax bracket, a $10,000 QCD saves $2,200 in taxes. (A QCD is not an option with 401(k) savings plans or, in virtually all cases, from Roth IRAs.)

3. Donate stock winners

Another way to come up with a big gift is to tap into investment portfolios. More than nine years into this bull market, donors may be sitting on highly appreciated stocks or mutual funds. By donating that stock instead of selling it, donors may be able to deduct the full market value. They also avoid the big tax bill they would face if they cashed out and kept the profits.

Another option is to keep the stocks or funds in their portfolio and donate the shares. Then using the cash that they would have donated to your nonprofit, they can buy more shares in the same investments.

4. Save more in high-tax states

Charitable giving can be particularly beneficial for those who live in states with high income taxes. If the limits on state and local tax deductions push their overall tax rate higher, the value of their donations is higher too. That’s because every dollar donated (assuming itemizing is worthwhile) saves a higher amount in taxes. Capital gains also fall into the new federal law limiting state tax deductions to $10,000. For donors who live in states with capital gains taxes, their effective tax rate on those gains has gone “way up,” making it even more advantageous to donate winning stocks to your nonprofit before December 31.

Finally, it’s essential to make your nonprofit stand out to donors by providing accurate and complete information. Dazzle them with your infrastructure and financial efficiencies. These items will go a long way in persuading your donors that their dollars go further with you.

Article contributed by Javier Goldin, the Center’s CPA Partner. Javier is also a Founding and Managing Partner with Goldin Group CPAs in Bethesda, MD, chosen nationally as an Innovator Firm for the profession.

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