Category: personnel

The Nonprofiteer Tips Her Hat To Nonprofits With Balls

The Nonprofiteer Tips Her Hat To Nonprofits With Balls
The Nonprofiteer aspires to be as witty as her colleague at Nonprofits With Balls, but til then she shares his most recent post.
By Nonprofiteer,
August 16, 2015 at 10:06 pm
• Leave a comment

Overtime Regulations: Nonprofits Object. Don't.

Overtime Regulations: Nonprofits Object. Don't.
The Nonprofiteer is irate (so new?) about the response of some nonprofits to the Department of Labor’s proposal to adjust overtime regulations, so workers are entitled to overtime if they make $50K a year or less. (The current ceiling is less than $24K, below the Federal poverty level.) As reported by our indispensable colleague Rick... Read more »
By Nonprofiteer,
July 29, 2015 at 1:38 pm
• Leave a comment

Too many volunteers, not enough positions

The nonprofit community rarely has too much of anything.  We live in an economy of scarcity, where you buy a roll of toilet paper instead of a carton because you don’t have carton-sized cash on hand; where requests for raises are met with an incredulous “You didn’t go into the nonprofit world to get rich;”... Read more »
By Nonprofiteer,
February 24, 2015 at 7:31 am
• Leave a comment
Advertisement:

Surprise, surprise, surprise: For profit social services reduce costs by reducing quality

Surprise, surprise, surprise: For profit social services reduce costs by reducing quality
Now here’s a shocker: for profit social services reduce costs by reducing quality. The Nonprofiteer can’t imagine that the profit motive has anything to do with a business’s decision that labor is a cost center instead of the very thing we’re selling.  After all, every penny paid a worker is a penny out of shareholders’... Read more »
By Nonprofiteer,
August 5, 2014 at 11:30 am
• Leave a comment

A nonprofit living wage: because nonprofits should serve poor people, not create them

A nonprofit living wage: because nonprofits should serve poor people, not create them
A nonprofit living wage: because nonprofits should serve poor people, not create them. So thanks to the Independent Sector for endorsing a nonprofit living wage. About f***ing time. Independent Sector Board of Governors Calls on Nonprofit and Philanthropic Organizations to Pledge to Pay Living Wage to All Workers (WASHINGTON, April 29, 2014) – Independent Sector’s... Read more »
By Nonprofiteer,
April 30, 2014 at 10:40 am
• Leave a comment

If fewer people volunteer, does it really matter?

If fewer people volunteer, does it really matter? Volunteering has hit its lowest rate in more than ten years, according to the Labor Department. So why does the Nonprofiteer keep getting announcements of great waves of volunteering? When LinkedIn launched its Volunteer Marketplace in January, it reported that 81% of its members are interesting in... Read more »
By Nonprofiteer,
March 6, 2014 at 9:00 am
• Leave a comment
Advertisement:

Workers with disabilities earn 22 cents an hour at Goodwill

Workers with disabilities earn 22 cents an hour at Goodwill
Thanks to In These Times, we now know that workers with disabilities earn 22 cents an hour at Goodwill. We also know that they have no legislative protection because of a provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act. No wonder the Goodwill logo looks so much like that of Walmart. The Nonprofiteer is a big... Read more »
By Nonprofiteer,
November 24, 2013 at 6:29 pm
• Leave a comment

Dear Nonprofiteer, Is "nonprofit ethics" an oxymoron? How to handle a conflict of interest?

Dear Nonprofiteer, Is "nonprofit ethics" an oxymoron? How to handle a conflict of interest?
Dear Nonprofiteer, I am contacting you because I have become embroiled in an nonprofit ethics situation and I found you on the internet during one of my insomnia-fueled web searches. I recently got fired from my volunteer position on the Finance Committee of a San Diego nonprofit by its board president. (I am not on... Read more »
By Nonprofiteer,
October 23, 2013 at 9:31 pm
• Leave a comment

Volunteers With Special Skills, Round 2: How to Use Them

Usually when people around nonprofits talk about how important it is to recognize contributions of time, the Nonprofiteer smells a rat. “But I give my time!” is often the excuse made by nonprofit Board members for their failure to give or raise money, to which her response is, “You can’t pay the light bill with... Read more »
By Nonprofiteer,
July 24, 2013 at 9:01 pm
• Leave a comment
Advertisement:

Volunteers With Special Skills: How Not To Waste Them

This reminds us that high-skills volunteering is the great untapped resource of the nonprofit community. While business schools and corporations are making a big fuss about their commitment to the greater society, and placing obligations on their students/employees to offer volunteer services to nonprofits, many agencies can’t imagine how they would use volunteers if they... Read more »
By Nonprofiteer,
July 15, 2013 at 12:09 pm
• Leave a comment
  • Advertisement:
  • Advertisement:
  • ChicagoNow is full of win

    Welcome to ChicagoNow.

    Meet our bloggers,
    post comments, or
    pitch your blog idea.

    Sign in Pitch your idea Play games

  • Meet The Blogger

    Nonprofiteer

    The Nonprofiteer is Kelly Kleiman, principal of NFP Consulting, which provides Board development, strategic planning and fund-raising services to charities and philanthropies. Through her consulting practice and in her guise as The Nonprofiteer, Kelly has spent the past 25-plus years helping small and mid-sized nonprofits organize themselves better and raise more money. These days she focuses especially on helping them use high-skill volunteers. Kelly is also a lawyer and freelance journalist whose reportage and essays have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor and other dailies; in magazines including In These Times and Chicago Philanthropy; in the alternative press; on websites including the Huffington Post; and on the radio, including the BBC and WBEZ Chicago Public Radio. She and her fellow "Dueling Critic" Jonathan Abarbanel present a weekly podcast of their reviews of Chicago theater at DuelingCritics.net. Earlier in her career she was dean of admissions of IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law and Executive Director of the Chicago Children’s Choir, and practiced real estate and zoning law with the firm of Rudnick & Wolfe. Kelly holds undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Chicago. She was a founding Board member of the Association of Consultants to Nonprofits and also served for 5 years on the Board of the Association for Women Journalists–Chicago. She can be reached ("Dear Nonprofiteer . . .") at KellyNFP@yahoo.com.

  • Tags

  • Recent posts

  • Recent Comments

    • Nonprofiteer

      February 6, 2020 at 12:00 am

      In reply to Leubna Asad:
      No, they cannot make mandatory any requirement to pay or participate: it's a public school, so children can't be excluded…
      Read the story | Reply to this comment
    • fb_avatar

      Leubna Asad

      February 5, 2020 at 12:00 am

      so, let me understand ... my child’s booster club at a public school for a sports team has issued a…
      Read the story | Reply to this comment

    • Nonprofiteer

      November 14, 2019 at 12:00 am

      In reply to Ton gen:
      I don't have enough facts to answer. It's certainly legal for a booster club to solicit contributions from parents, and…
      Read the story | Reply to this comment
    • fb_avatar

      Ton gen

      November 13, 2019 at 12:00 am

      So, if a booster club is asked by staff to collect student fees for art supplies, then turns the fees…
      Read the story | Reply to this comment

    • KennethFredrick

      December 11, 2017 at 12:00 am

      Volunteering is the better work opportunity to help the communities. Becoming a volunteer always makes you feel better. There are…
      Read the story | Reply to this comment
  • Facebook

  • Latest on ChicagoNow

  • Advertisement: