NonprofitEye

Working in the nonprofit sector it's easy to forget about the resources in the for-profit world. So today, I'm going to recommend poking our heads out into the sun once in a while. I sat down to read a copy of CFO magazine. I figured it wouldn't have a lot to relate to, but was I wrong. Keep in mind no endorsement received, I love this rag! One article in particular, Finance in History: Here's to the Bean Counters: A slur to finance folks and accountants, the term has a noble past by R.G. Voorhee s captured my imagination. I won't quote it away, but just give you the opening paragraph (emphasis mine): "Bean counting" has long been an insulting term for what finance professionals and accountants do. Often, it's been used to tar CFOs as transaction processors—a role largely relegated to the back office . What's more, people like to use the phrase to ratchet up the pedestrian aspects of finance by tagging practitioners as "mere"...

Last week, in MISSION WITHOUT I.T. IS LIKE A DAY WITHOUT SUNSHINE I set out to write  ROI, but before I'd finished my first paragraph, I had revealed my own flawed organizational paradigm. Allan Benamer contributed a critically important comment: IT is actually responsible for all the other departments you mentioned (accounting, marketing, etc.) in the best nonprofits? You really can't do accounting, marketing or fundraising without IT. ...you could try but you'd have a heck of a hard time scaling. Think of IT as an umbrella that keeps all the other departments from getting wet. In the best nonprofits, it should be integrated into every department and not be a standalone. The only way to effectively address complaints about ineffective organization? Offer a solution. How about this: replace our world of the three overlapping sets: communications/ operations/accounting--with a new world---mission/community/investment. The catches? If your giving is an investme...