The organization I chose is Law Watch. Law Watch is based out of Bangladesh, their main focus is on human rights in Bangladesh and South Asia. They were started by a group of students who witnessed the human rights abuses in the South Asia. So their goal is to promote awareness through media, research, and promotion. I think this group is very interesting, especially since I have zero knowledge about Bangladesh.

I think I was kind of surprised with the results of the reasons why people wouldn’t want to pursue the executive director position. In first place you had Not wanting the fundraising responsibility with 41%, then worklife balance-40%, not the ideal way to impact the community-27%,  family life- 26% and, skills/interests better suited elsewhere. I would think work and life balance and family life would have been the top two reasons why they wouldn’t want to especially since they seem to go hand in hand. But I can understand why someone wouldn’t want to have the stress of the whole organization’s financial situation in their hands.

With my organization, I feel that they are focused on too many issues. I guess that is what makes them them. But the Institute for Policy Studies focuses on the environment, peace, and justice. How broad is that? Under these categories they have various projects that I feel are being over shadowed due to the overwhelming amount of projects in each category. It makes you wonder the ending result. On their website they list what the government is doing wrong and how things need to be changed. I do agree with this up to a certain point but the government cannot be blamed for everything, the citizens of this country have some blame with things going wrong in our country. You cannot have a nation with just government alone.

So overall, I think IPS needs to limit some of their projects in order to focus fully on that certain issue on hand. And also they need to stop placing so much blame on the government and admit that there are other factors that come into play concerning these issues.

I read the article The New Face of Giving I thought this article was interesting. Basically, it talked about how the younger generation seems to be increasingly giving more to charity and linking it to the newer methods of donating money. These methods included: the internet, text messages, concerts, etc. I think these methods are great especially with the micro-donation that is being allowed. Because I know that a lot of times people will give what they can and even if it is five dollars they can still contribute without being hit with the minimum donation amount which will most likely stop them from donating.

One thing I did not care for was the comments on the bottom of the article. I am not a big fan of politics though I follow it periodically but not closely. People were focusing on politics, making remarks about Biden, McCain, and Obama. I just thought it was unneccessary especially because the article was focused on increased involvement in charities by youths and people were calling people out calling them “socialists” and such, I just thought it was negative and kind of inappropriate.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/charity/2008-10-07-newface-giving_N.htm

I decided to talk with my mother about my non-profit I was focusing on and nonprofits in general because I respect what she has to say and she works at a nonprofit downtown.

So basically I start off explaining IPS and that it is a think tank and some of their their projects they are currently doing. So this is the response I recieved from my mother:

A non-profit is basically a tax category that you are not like a corporation in the way that your main goal is to go after money to make a profit. A nonprofit is an organization that recieves funding through the government by the way of grants, fundraising, donations, etc. One thing about a non-profit is that it all about the community, they have an issue in which connects the individuals in that organization to that particular topic establishing a community no matter the location.

With a think tank they are trying to further their position on certain issues and make the public aware of the issues and what they are trying to change. With IPS it about organizing, they are trying to understand the issues they are focused and how they came to be inorder to try to further thier goals in ending it.

I found my mother’s insight to be very interesting. She seemed to have a good grasp on nonprofits which is probably due to her working in different organizations and growing up in DC. And also she knew what a think tank was. She also gave me a better view on community because a lot of times I think community is solely about location when it could be a linked topic, issue, or awareness.

So I found this talk to be very hard to follow. I found it very long and boring kind of like the IRS forms he was speaking about.

The topic I picked was inurement. What I got from what Kroll was talking about was that the Board members cannot be benefiting from the charity instead of the true reason behind the charity. And also the issue of paying the Executive Director an excessive salary. It has to be within reason depending on the average salary, his duties, the income of the organization, and the area. If the Director is being paid too much than the excessive amount must be taxed and paid back to the organization. I just thought this was interesting because I remember this being brought up in class.

The organizations I chose were American Cancer Society, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and Break the Cycle. These organizations don’t really have anything in common except in trying to prevent death, promote awareness, and create some type of relief. The two larger organizations(ACS & AFSP) passes all of the Standards for Charity Accountability but the smaller organization does not  meet all the standards. BTC meets 17 of the Standards for Charity Accountability but not standard 1 and 6.

Standard 1: The board of directors does not review the performance of the CEO once every two years.

Standard 6: There is no effectiveness assessment policy that specifies this assessment will take place once every two years.

Below I listed general information about the organizations:

American Cancer Society:

Board Size: 45

Expenses: $308,030,000

Programs: 75% Fund Raising: 11% Administrative: 14% Other Expenses: Less than 1%

Income: $431,400,000

John R. Seffrin, CEO makes $1,101,119

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention:

Board Size: 29

Expenses: $5,257,972

Income: $5,526,371

Programs: 81% Fund Raising: 12% Administrative: 7%

Break the Cycle:

Board size: 6

Expenses:$1,265,785

Income:$2,267,202

Programs: 71% Fund Raising: 20% Administrative: 9%

So I did some research on the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. This group was started in Baltimore, MD in 1819. The article mentions this group being one of the organizations that was affected by the 1874 Mass. Tax Exemption Act. The Odd Fellows is a nationally recognized organization  whose purpose is to “give aid to those in need” and they also sometimes have opened their houses to their senior members and orphans. The Odd Fellows were the first fraternity to become coed after adopting the Rebekah Degree, which is based off of the Bible’s teachings. From what I gathered the Fellows are the guys and the Rebekah’s are the women, but I am not totally positive.