A nonprofit is everything Americans believe it is and so much more. So, let us start with what Americans believe a non-profit is, they generally believe that it is an organization that helps to do good for a certain community without a concern for money for themselves (the workers). What is often overlooked is a nonprofit can be a billion dollar organization. For example, a hospital or a YMCA. One thing that unites all nonprofits is that they live to follow their mission plans and values. Without these, the nonprofit would not stand.
Four Characteristics:
- To be a nonprofit, the organization must have a mission statement of what they stand for. This helps when it comes to support for the organization and to build moral. The mission statement also helps for the organization to create maintainable/reachable goals
- When you walk into a nonprofit, one can almost tell that there is never someone who is power hungry to answer questions. There is usually volunteers, and staffed leaders there to welcome guest to the nonprofit. Most staff organization is going to be the same on every level. Weather you go to a YMCA or a small affordable housing association, the staff organization will be the same.
- When entering a nonprofit, style tends to be different and there is never the same layout. This is due to independence provided. For example, The government may state we need a boy and girls club and a YMCA but these two organizations look completely different although they are both nonprofits and both serve youth.
- How are all these things above decided? Someone can not enforce goals of a mission statement on their own? How does a nonprofit know these are being reached. A nonprofit usually has a board of directors that meets and discusses the organization and how things are running smoothly. Boards can be made up of a few people or many people, it depends on the organization, oftentimes members are allowed to sit in on board meetings.
One question I have: I know the line between nonprofit and for-profit is getting smaller but how does one explain this to someone who will not have their nonprofit certificate. For example, the YMCA, there are so many branches and so many directors with different mission statements, how is this a nonprofit? Does it work because of the different branches? Although, I am not sure if non employees realize there are branches??
Hey Hayley, I think this post looks amazing and has lot of good information. We talked a lot about mission and vision statements in our last non-profit course. and also the importance of having a board of directors. They are the ones who make the big and important decisions! In my last position, I was able to develop a important relationship with the grant writer of the organization and was able to learn a lot about the way a non-profit functions.
ReplyDeleteAs for your question, I think the way you explain a non-profit can be shared with your experience and background knowledge. You know that a non-profit get finding from many different sources and supports the community by providing multiple services to all ages.
**Haley
DeleteHaley, Thanks for your post! You give a great overview of some characteristics of nonprofits. One question I had was about the term "staff organization." What does that phrase mean to you? I tend to think of staff structure, like the different roles and responsibilities that people take up within a NPO. And because the work/ scale/ size of nonprofits varies so much, these too can vary.
ReplyDeleteThis gets a bit at your question about orgs like the YMCA. I think it would be great to explore the different kinds of nonprofits/ size and scale as we go forward.
Best
Victoria
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ReplyDeleteI love how organized and straight forward your posts are. I appreciate your structure of this post and the highlighting of certain words.