Executive Issues

When fundraising isn’t going well, the budget is in jeopardy and a nonprofit needs a miracle, the conversations seem to start the same way. “Our organization needs to raise a lot of money, more than we’ve ever raised before, and as soon as possible. Can you help?” Over the years I’ve received far too many…

Sue Desmond-Hellmann has worn many hats over the course of her career. She's the rare executive who's spent time in private practice, worked for two major U.S. pharmaceutical corporations, served as chancellor of a top university and now, helmed the world's largest private foundation. As CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation since last…

Is your social venture losing its homegrown talent—often to other social ventures? In the past two years, only 30 percent of open C-suite positions in the nonprofit sector were filled by an internal candidate (the rate at for-profits is 60 percent of positions). And almost half of their replacements came from other nonprofits. This comes at…

Until early last year, the website of a Brooklyn, New York-based charity called the National Children’s Leukemia Foundation boasted that the organization had its own “biomedical cancer research center,” where “leading scientists” were working on cancer treatments. A PowerPoint slide that the group’s founder, Zvi Shor, used in a presentation showed an office building where…

When Gail McGovern was picked to head the American Red Cross in 2008, the organization was reeling. Her predecessor had been fired after impregnating a subordinate. The charity was running an annual deficit of hundreds of millions of dollars. A former AT&T executive who had taught marketing at Harvard Business School, McGovern pledged to make…

In the past three years, America’s Charities has been releasing the country’s most incisive and comprehensive series of reports on trends in employee volunteering and giving. This year’s much-anticipated report was just released, and it’s packed with encouraging–even inspiring–data for anyone who cares about employee-centered corporate philanthropy. As a federation that connects public and private…

In late September, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) proposed a new substantiation rule that would allow charities to self-report donations of more than $250. Under current rules, donors wishing to claim a charitable income tax deduction are required to obtain and submit a contemporaneous written acknowledgement (CWA) from the nonprofit receiving the donation. The new proposal would require the reporting charity to collect donors' names, addresses and Social Security numbers. That last item has U.S. nonprofits worried...

I was in a meeting recently with some managers when overhead came up. You would think we had just moved into the ring of a major boxing match. Goodness. Some managers were defensive. Others quietly retreated into their spreadsheets. Still, others moved into some language about “we’re doing the best we can to keep costs down.” So, I stepped into this swamp with the following question: “What do you think donors think about overhead?”...

Zachary DuBow was used to seeing MetroCards strewn all over the city’s subway stations—discarded by tourists or neglected by everyday commuters. He began to wonder how many of the cards contained little bits of leftover money. Probably not enough for a full fare, he thought, but what if he combined the value of all the…

Yesterday, Forbes released the 2015 edition of its annual "Largest U.S. Charities" report, which features the top 50 nonprofits by 2014 private donations (rather than government funding and other revenue sources) The full list is worth a look, but if you don't have time to poke around, don't worry. We did it for you! Here's a deeper look at the stats, trends and interesting tidbits on today's biggest charities...