Administration
Frequently Asked Questions about Administration
A strategy is a set of actions that enables an organization to function in an efficient manner in order to carry out its purpose. Strategic planning is a systematic approach to determining what actions will be included in the set. In Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations, John M. Bryson defines the phrase as “a disciplined effort to produce fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organization is, what it does, and why it does it.” Strategies can be divided into three categories: organizational, programmatic, and functional. Organizational strategies detail actions that promote organizational growth (community development plans, partnerships with for-profits, board recruitment, etc.). Programmatic strategies focus on actions that that will enhance and manage the organization’s programs and services (developing a program evaluation process, initiating new services, informing the public about offered services, etc.). Functional strategies outline actions geared towards managing and supporting the organizations (e.g., obtaining appropriate technology to keep financial records, developing employee evaluation processes, facility management, etc.). A complete strategic plan includes all three categories.
The Minnesota Council of Nonprofits stresses the importance of using an objective method to select which employees or positions will be eliminated. It recommends basing retention on seniority and positions that have been deemed essential as determined by a needs assessment, a lottery, or employee evaluations. It is also important for an organization to establish an oversight committee in charge of objectively establishing the process of implementing the reductions.
The board of directors of your organization can decide what outcomes to create. To do this, they must first identify the intended beneficiaries of your organization's programs and what services your programs can provide to them. The members of the board should ask themselves, "what do we want to be true of our program's participants during and after the program?” The answers to this question will be the outcomes that you want. It is helpful to put the answers into written statements with your program's participants as the subjects of the statements. An example of an outcome statement would be, "adults completing [our] literacy program are able to read at the sixth-grade level."
Learn more: United Way Outcome Measurement Resource Network
Minutes are more than just a convenient record of what was discussed at the last meeting—they are legal documents. Courts will hold directors to certain standards of reasonableness, so it is important that enough information is provided in the minutes to indicate that the board came to its decisions reasonably. The secretary of the board is usually responsible for taking minutes during meetings. Minutes from the previous meeting should be approved at the next meeting, and copies should be filed and kept with the governing documents.
If not diligently kept on track, board meetings may be boring and even worse, ineffective. Some common reasons for ineffective meetings are: 1) board members did not have sufficient time to review materials before the meeting; 2) poor participation at the meetings; 3) time is not properly managed at the meeting. A well-written agenda that is distributed to members two to three weeks before the meeting can go a long way to remedy these problems. Rather than simply listing committee reports on the agenda, the reports should be incorporated into the context of the main discussion. The agenda should be organized by topic or project with supporting reports included at the appropriate time. This format is sometimes referred to as a strategic agenda. It is important to stay on time. If it appears that a discussion will exceed the allotted meeting time, then fifteen or twenty minutes before the scheduled end of the meeting the chair should have the group decide if it wants to stay later. If staying later is not an option, then the current discussion should be ended in favor of any issues that must be resolved in that particular meeting.
Learn more: The Free Management Library: Sample Board of Directors Meeting Agenda
It is important to compile all employee policies and procedures into a handbook. The handbook should be explained to the employees as part of employee orientation, and employees should sign a form indicating that they have read and understood the handbook. To avoid some potentially sticky contract issues, the handbook should include a disclaimer indicating that nothing in the handbook is to be construed as a guarantee of continued employment and that employment is on an at-will basis.