Organisation is the Backbone of NFPs

Whether it is the start of a new year or the middle of the financial year, being organised in all aspects of your NFP is important. There is no denying that running an NFP is not as easy as it looks, so it is integral that all the I’s are dotted, and the T’s are crossed. This is vital for any corporation but particularly for non-profits when your donors and beneficiaries are high on the priority list as is the overall reputation of your company.

Have a Variety of Team Members and Spread out Responsibilities

Whether you are blogging or fundraising, it is important that you make the time to adopt systems and procedures so the team and their responsibilities are laid out explicitly. No one wants to feel that they are pulling more than their fair share of weight - volunteer or otherwise – and everyone needs to feel rewarded at all times.

Accounts also need to be reconciled to eliminate errors. Regularly reconciling your accounts ensures that everyone who handles the accounts is only using the charity's funds to pay for authorised transactions. It also helps you to quickly catch any errors made by your group's bank or other financial institution.

Make sure your team is Qualified

It is imperative that you have a qualified team in place to ensure that errors are not made, particularly ones which lead to being a security risk in the long term. This means having electronic copies of everything and double checking all figures with your financial provider. For everyone's benefit, ensure all the financial matters of your NFP are overseen by more than one person. Let at least two people bear witness to the records and account activities, so there is never any shadow of suspicion, or outright loss of money within your organisation.

Security is Number One

When you cut corners, your security systems are wide open for error and corrupt practices. The most basic form of security is the password, and that’s where many NFP personnel go wrong. If you haven’t changed your password in a while, then it is paramount that it takes priority - today. Don’t wait until the last minute to get things done.

Avoid Delays At All Costs

There are many duties that must be fulfilled to get your NFP's finances completed in a timely manner. Delays can occur often in the process, and can result in the loss of time and funds for your NFP. They can also lead to late filings at the end of the financial year, which can result in fees and other penalties for your NFP. It is these delays that can upset the entire process as well as the fine balance between donors and the running of the operations.

When bookkeeping procedures are followed routinely, and the NFP’s systems and procedures are organised, with appropriate technologies and safeguards in place, mistakes become minimal and even often non-existent. In these cases, a volunteer treasurer's role becomes simpler and much more enjoyable for everyone involved with the charity. The longer you spend working for an NFP, the more you will release that high levels of quality are essential to meet all the business objectives.

Celebrating Your Volunteers In Your Blog

As every manager of a NFP organisation knows only too well, the burning out of volunteers is one of the main problems in the sector. It is important to know that along with the other reasons why volunteers cease to be interested in volunteering, a strong factor is the lack of attention to their efforts. If you want to keep your volunteers happy and motivated, you will have to make them feel special and what better way to do so than acknowledging the difference they make. In this sense, using your blog to celebrate the volunteers at your NFP is a great idea with a lot of potential.

Devoting a section in your blog to your volunteers is a solution that can help in more than one way. To start with, your volunteers will be pleased to know that you are interested in what they have to say and will be happy to share their opinion, views, feedback or memories. Bearing in mind that most of them may be too shy or modest to share that they volunteer, celebrating them in your blog will do that on their behalf and may turn very useful if a prospective employer makes the effort to google them for more information. And finally, you will have fresh and unique content for your blog, which will contribute to your search engine optimisation and will have a positive effect on the online image of your NFP.

As to what volunteer-related content you can publish in your blog, that’s the easiest part of the process. Your volunteers have special events in their lives, some of them related to the organisation. If an elderly volunteer celebrates an important anniversary (like a 70^th birthday or 10 years at the organisation), you can celebrate them in a blog post – a short interview and a nice photo will do. Otherwise, you can start a rubric of the ‘Ask a volunteer’ and ‘Our volunteers’ feedback’; every week a different person can share their organisation-related thoughts. Or you can ask around the company for interesting or funny stories from the volunteers’ experience and share them with your blog readers.

An example of an organisation that makes the effort to celebrate their volunteers in their blog is Oxfam Australia. Navigating in their website, you can easily reach the section of the blog devoted to the volunteers and there you can see posts similar to the proposed above: Volunteer Spotlight which focusses on a person and their story; a message from one volunteer to another; commemorating the retirement of a long-term volunteer, etc. As already mentioned, this can only bring benefits to your organisation and your blog, and it will be a precious little act of attention for your volunteers.

Having said all this, if you think it is high time you did something special for your volunteers, try celebrating them in your blog post. Making them feel special is sure to invigorate them and make them even more passionate for your NFP’s activities. And besides this, your prospective volunteers will read positive stories of current people working with you, which is a great plus for your recruitment strategy. All in all, blogging about your volunteers is a win-win, so make sure you try it soon!

How Your Blog Can Support Your Fundraising Efforts

Board meetings can be long and dull, particularly if you are focussing on some of the tough financial issues every not for profit organisation has to deal with.  The problem is that these kinds of tasks suck your energy and stifle your creativity.

It’s difficult to find a way to inspire people to support your charity when all you can think of are numbers.

That’s where your blog can be very useful.  The organisation’s blog is the perfect vehicle for spreading the message about what you do and why you do it.  As volunteer treasurer you should be involved in creating posts which show what happens to the money that people donate.

Take a look at the Starlight Foundation blog as an example.

What’s good about it?

·         It’s filled with photos which tell a story about the people they are helping.

·         It takes readers right into the lives of the children who need the help.

·         It shows their corporate successes and acknowledges their big benefactors.

·         It shows the volunteers actively helping people.

·         It introduces members of the team.

·         It is filled with personality and touches of humour.

Can you imagine how influential that blog could be for someone looking for a charity to support?  It touches every emotion you can think of plus it builds faith in the commitment of its workers.

As a volunteer treasurer you know where the money is being spent and why.  You know when your not for profit is going to need extra funding and you will know when to celebrate success and share it with your followers.  This can be used to help you plan the kind of posts you need to share and their timing.

The volunteer treasurer role isn’t just about counting and managing the money that comes in; it also involves inspiring people to donate.

If you don’t have a blog which tells the story of the work your not for profit organisation does, why not suggest starting one?