Tennessee Foreign Language Institute is collaborating with the Nashville Mayor’s Office and the Metro Office of Emergency Management to assist with language services for preparedness, mitigation and response during emergency situations.
Nonprofits are encouraged to provide input and participate in a brief Language Capacity and Needs Assessment that can be accessed here.
The survey will remain open until Friday, Feb. 15.
Some of the fondest memories of my childhood were sitting on my father’s knee, reading the Sunday “funny papers.” Little did I know at the time that my father was making up quite a bit of the story as he read along. Imagine my disappointment when I learned to read and discovered that the “funny papers” weren’t nearly as funny without Dad.
We all have them; graphs and charts that provide measures of performance associated with key performance indicators we are directly or indirectly responsible for achieving. Many of those graphs have projections that almost always seem to track in a steady northeasterly direction. Graphs and charts always tell a story. What story are you communicating with yours? Take a few minutes with me and tell me that story. Now, ask yourself this question. “What process improvements or changes are being deployed that ensure this level of performance?” Is the story nearly as entertaining?
There is another story that nonprofits often fail to tell. Who is competing with you for resources from volunteers to dollars? Even nonprofits have competition. Now, let’s ask ourselves one more question: “What is my competition doing and how will that impact their and our performance over the same period?” Seemingly insignificant factors, which when unplanned for, can create barriers to success and require a steady eye on key areas of organizational performance. Performance improvement takes continuous effort; and it goes beyond an annual exercise.
Effective planning is fluid and has opportunities for improvement built into every cycle. And even those cycles need to be agile enough to identify change and drive action plans to address those changes outside of the normal planning cycle. I am reminded of this quote from Michael Hugos: “Agility means that you are faster than your competition. Agile time frames are measured in weeks and months, not years. “
There are an unlimited number of milestones along the journey to continuous improvement, but you don’t have to go it alone. The secret for success when building anything lies within the foundation. The Baldrige Criteria provides a framework for success, and the Tennessee Center for Performance Excellence has the resources available to get you started on that journey.
Now, take a look at those graphs again and envision your organization’s future. Tell me the story of how you overcame adversity and conquered the evils that beset your organization. Don’t leave out a single detail for that is the stuff that success is built upon.
Sam Turner is a Quality Consultant with Baldrige Success Strategies, LLC. Sam serves as a Senior Examiner for MBNQA, the Alliance for Performance Excellence (2011) and the Tennessee Center for Performance Excellence as well as the Panel of Judges for the TNCPE.
For more information: www.tncpe.org and www.baldrigesuccessstrategies.com
Hot Kickin’ Nashville is Community Resource Center’s (CRC’s) Inaugural Kickball Tournament on Saturday, June 23 at Ted Rhodes Park, 720 Mainstream Drive.
CRC provides basic necessities, furniture, and appliances to over 80 middle Tennessee nonprofits.
This is your chance to support 80+ charities by being a kid again!
$20 per entry – 10 person minimum per team = $200 team
For more information and how to register, click here.
Contact Betsy@crcnashville.org for details on corporate teams and sponsorship opportunities.
The 2013-2014 March of Dimes Community Grants process is now underway!
For more information about funding priorities, grant timeline, and letter of intent submission, click here.
Grant priorities have been condensed as they were last year and there is a mandatory grant training workshop that will be held via conference call on Thursday, June 7. Workshop details will be shared upon registration for the call.
Online letters of intent submission will be available for workshop participants after the call.
If you have any questions, please contact Tamara Currin at tcurrin@marchofdimes.com or at 877-399-DIME.
CompassPoint and the Evelyn & Walter Haas Jr. Fund are conducting a national research project exploring the role of development director in nonprofit organizations. Our hope is that the research findings will contribute to the advancement of the sector’s thinking about what successful development leadership looks like and how executive directors and organizations can better identify and support the talent they need in this essential role.
• Email to your contacts
• Post to Facebook
• Tweet the link
• Include on your next blog
• Include in your next newsletter
• Post to your website
If you’re interested in hearing more about the research please contact Marla Cornelius at CompassPoint marlac@compasspoint.org 415.541.9000.
Many thanks for your support and contribution to this important study.
Consider this: the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations discovered 4,000 victims of human trafficking in Tennessee the past 24 months. Learn more about this issue at the Trafficking in America Conference May 24-26 at the Holiday Inn, 2200 Elm Hill Pike, Nashville.
The conference will feature keynote speaker Nora Ramos, director of Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW).
Topics include: For women only; for men only; for pastors only; law enforcement panel; creating a safe house; rescuing children; pornography; and pimp culture.
Breakout forums will feature survivors sharing their testimonies and networking opportunities for participants. Vendor booths and an awards banquet: TIATF Pioneer Awards will also be featured.
Registration cost is $99 before May 14 and there is a 10% discount for students.
The Community Foundation announced that two years after the flood in May 2010, all of the $15.04 million donated for flood relief have been distributed or allocated to organizations addressing flood recovery in Tennessee.
Through the work of The Foundation’s nonprofit flood grantees, progress toward recovery
to-date includes:
Read the full report about the flood recovery here.
Health Assist Tennessee is downsizing and looking to give away several five and six-foot desks, some with file drawers and other tables and cabinets. Also available are wooden desks, various sizes of file cabinets and rolling desk chairs.
Staplers, tape dispensers, paper clips and other office supplies are also part of the giveaway along with lamps, clocks, pictures, holiday decorations and other household items!
The clock is ticking: all items must be picked up by Thursday, April 12 at their office in the former Fountain Square area of MetroCenter. If you’re interested, contact Dranda Whaley at dranda@healthassittn.org.
By Attorneys Allen Woods and Larry Woods
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is the federal law mandating minimum wage and overtime payments by employers to employees. Its impact can be unusual in that the federal Department of Labor defines employment as any work that the employer permits to occur. In other words, that could include unpaid interns and other persons assisting your organization that you do not consider to be employees and who are not on your payroll.
RECOMMENDED STANDARDS FOR UNPAID INTERNSHIPS & FLSA
Recent U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) guidelines have prompted questions about whether federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) principles regarding minimum wage and overtime requirements are different for unpaid internships at non-profit organizations or for those sponsored by educational institutions for which the intern receives academic credit.
The answer is: No, they are not. The U.S.Department of Labor has recently issued a Fact Sheet stating that for profit companies may have financial compensation liability for unpaid internship students under the federal wage and hour standards.
In a footnote, DOL states that unpaid internships are “generally permissible” for a non-profit charitable organization under the correct circumstances. The DOL publication implies that the relationship is more likely not to be viewed as FLSA employment (creating minimum wage and overtime liability) if it is “structured around a classroom or academic experience . . . ,” such as “where a college or university exercises oversight over the internship program and provides educational credit ….”
Interns who are “engaged in the operations of the employer or . . . performing productive work” activities are generally viewed by DOL as FLSA employment where a “business” is concerned. Non-profit organizations permitting internships, and entities considering participating in student internships, should not simply assume clear-sailing where the risk of FLSA claims is concerned.
Whether an unpaid internship occurs under the auspices of an educational institution or in a non-profit organization, in the initial analysis, the FLSA issue is whether the totality of the circumstances show that the relationship is for the purpose of generalized learning, education, and training that imparts to the intern significant knowledge of a broadly-applicable kind, or is the internship an opportunity to have the person perform work for the organization? In other words, if the purpose is “We could sure use help from an intern this summer,” that is a danger sign – whether the setting is not-for-profit, school-related, or otherwise.
RECOMMENDED POLICIES FOR UNPAID INTERNSHIPS
Our recommendations for unpaid internship programs are as follows:
1. Your organization should adopt and follow a stated, written policy with respect to soliciting/advertising, interviewing and helping any interns.
2. Your internship program and policy should focus on school or university students where the student receives academic credit for the internship. Several schools and colleges in the Nashville area have such programs.
3. The language in your policy and all letters, memoranda, emails, tweets, Facebook and other references to your internship program should focus on and emphasize the goals and standards deemed acceptable for non-FLSA treatment by the Department of Labor.
4. You should designate a specific administrator to monitor compliance with your internship policies and goals and you should maintain careful records of the intern and how the intern learns and benefits from your program.
5. Any and all inquiries from the Department of Labor should be addressed and handled, or at a minimum be approved, by the President/CEO of your organization.
6. In the event of a DOL inquiry, audit or investigation, contact your legal counsel immediately. As with so many areas of the law today, your good common sense will not suffice in this area of the law.
The 24 hour Design-a-thon left Safe Haven Family Shelter with a fulfilled marketing wishlist
Design-a-thon: 30 Volunteers. 24 Hours. 1 Mission.
A Story of Crowdsourcing, Creativity and Innovation
Safe Haven Family Shelter
A new website. Two brochures. Marketing strategy. Two videos. Three display ads. This is a wish list that many nonprofits create but do not have the resources or time to make happen—especially not all at once. Safe Haven Family Shelter checked off this list in only 24 hours! Yes, really, 24 hours.
Safe Haven Family Shelter became the recipient of the Second Annual Design-a-thon sponsored by Geek for Good and Civic Actions led by Ian Rhett, Bruce Stanley and Jessica Murray.
What’s a design-a-thon? Great question! It’s a crowdsourcing model that brought 30 volunteers together for 24 hours to create a website and marketing materials for our organization. Does the sound of it make you nervous? Us too! But when 30 extremely talented professionals came together with our own staff and board for 24 hours, we worked together collaboratively to make quick decisions and accept new ideas. It was an incredible experience and had created amazing results. It wasn’t all smooth: we hit a few bumps in the road (like a creative direction change at 1 a.m.!) but the journey was worth it.
In this session, we will share our design-a-thon experience, reveal the materials that resulted from this crowdsourcing experience and explore how your nonprofit can use the crowdsource model (on a smaller scale) as an innovative way to complete a pressing marketing or creative project. Nonprofits often get caught in the cycle of planning to plan to plan their new marketing materials. And then they have to tackle the question of time and money to achieve these goals.
Join us for a panel discussion about the innovative concept of design-a-thon and crowdsourcing as a means to gain new materials with a quick turnaround and small monetary investment.
For a glimpse into our 24 hour Design-a-thon, take a look at the live posts/blogs/pics from that night at here.
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