Investing your foundation assets effectively can increase investment returns and thereby provide additional assets to help fulfill your charitable goals. Over the longer term, good investment decisions lead to the potential for more grants and greater impact. Poor investment decisions typically lead to fewer grants and lessen a foundation’s impact. In addition, state law requires... Read More
Should you choose to hire paid staff, compensation must be reasonable, and the services provided must be reasonable and necessary to carry out the private foundation’s tax-exempt purpose. Compensation even may be provided to a disqualified person (i.e., staff or board member) as long as these standards are met. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) says... Read More
Board self-assessment is a process by which you objectively gather board members’ perspectives about how your foundation operates, compile what you learn, and report your findings to the full board so it can learn from the information, leverage successes, and address any shortcomings. In our experience, boards that make time for self-assessments tend to accomplish... Read More
A board retreat can be an excellent way to spend time on an issue too significant or time intensive to be handled properly within a normal meeting agenda. Many foundations hold board retreats on occasion (ranging from every year to every few years) to ensure that the board addresses important topics, such as the foundation’s... Read More
The National Center on Family Philanthropy (NCFP) finds that most donors don’t begin to think about succession in the earliest days of the foundation. Even donors with adult children at the time of start-up tend to delay thinking about the children’s involvement until a much later time. In both cases, the delay can be a... Read More
Whether your board meets once a year or monthly, your meetings will be more effective with a good agenda. A good agenda organizes the meeting so it flows logically, keeps discussions on target, and keeps the meeting on time. A good agenda also makes it easy to create your meeting minutes. Terms to know Agenda—An... Read More