More Bad News About Nonprofit $$: More About Building Better Boards to Fix This

Alice Korngold, contributing writer for Fast Company Magazine and President and CEO of Korngold Consulting, asserts in her most recent commentary that the current economic instability isn’t only affecting communities, both urban and suburban, but now is making destitute of  Non-Profit Corporations as they scramble for needed resources to help keep the unemployed, families, and the retired afloat.

A new report by the National Council of Nonprofits provides more data about the nonprofit financial crisis, showing sharp declines from all sources, including government, corporations, foundations, and individuals, and fees for services faltering as well. Worst of all, these funding challenges occur just when communities are in greater need of nonprofit services, as people are losing jobs, homes, healthcare benefits, and credit, and various public services, including education, are being cut.Nonprofit boards have the authority, power, and legal and fiduciary responsibility to create solutions, in partnership with the nonprofit CEOs that they hire. How can nonprofit boards improve themselves to face their difficult but essential challenges of serving our communities? Of course, in order to build and achieve a successful future, a board needs to build itself with the right people–a topic I have addressed previously.

Some of the best board members I have placed or worked with have been key revenue problem-solvers. For example, the global pricing strategist for a major consulting firm pulled a nonprofit (the local chapter of a national blood services organization) out of the red by helping them revise their pricing strategy, thereby shifting the organization into financial health.

Here are additional ways that board members play vital roles….

This commentary piece was written by Alice Korngold

The 2010 Our Daily Bread Prize Calls for Submissions

With the success of previous years “Our Daily Bread” candidate proposals on how to sustain and create better processes behind Food Security, Vital Systems is looking for new team and community oriented submissions for this year’s event. I’ve taken the liberty of copying the details and instructions to their campaign and adding it below.

Past, present, and future steps to address this goal include:

The 2010 Our Daily Bread Prize Calls for Submissions for sustainable food and farming solutions written as proposed or proven case studies that overcome specific integrated social, environmental, governance/policy, and financial/business challenges. Candidate submissions must be written for a planned publication with a video component that communicates key messages to a wide, diverse audience. Interdisciplinary teams are encouraged.

2010 Our Daily Bread Prize

The $10,000 2010 Prize will be awarded as one $5,000 grand prize and two $2,500 finalist prizes. The winners will be notified during October, 2010 and will be formally announced at a venue that is yet to be finalized.

Current activities (2008-2010):

• As a project of Vital Systems, the host of the 2010 Our Daily Bread Prize, we call for papers that integrate food and farming practices presented as proposed and proven best cases of the most effective ways to secure our food sources, change our eating habits (for both personal and planetary health), halt the extinction of many of the world’s species, and grow economic justice through the visions, strategies, life goals, tools, and rewards we craft to be compatible with our new world story. Many thanks to the jurors who have stepped forward to select the best submissions from among us responding to this Call as candidates and candidate teams. We will have the honor of presenting and thanking them formally and publicly after the completion of their deliberations of candidate submissions and selection of our 2010 Our Daily Bread Prize winners.
• We also welcome you to serve as a Community Outreach Leader by sending Calls for Submissions to your communities to reach a significant number of potential candidates. In addition, if you publish a newsletteror e-newsletter, participate in working groups, consultancies, or associations, or have relationships with authors or media associates working on behalf of expanding food and farming business practices to include impacts on people and places worldwide, please forward both the Call for Submissions for the 2010 Our Daily Bread Prize and the 2010 Our Daily Bread Prize Frequently Asked Questions, or contact us! All final candidate submissions are due by August 11, 2010.
• In addressing the challenges of systemic collapse, one important path to success is to ensure that information on which we can act is clear, current, and accessible to a broad and diverse public. As our Co-evolve logo connotes, Sustainable Ventures and now Vital Systems gathers collective knowledge and then translates what we have compiled so that we each can act effectively in implementing sustainability in our own lives. Vital Systems is actively seeking collaborating organizations to create a long standing entity to sustain this function.

For more information

Visit Vital Systems online at www.VitalSystemsCA.com. Prospective Candidates and Jurors, please refer to the  Our Daily Bread Prize FAQ: http://www.vitalsystemsca.com/download/2010_ODB_Prize_FAQ.pdf