Too many people like to say that nonprofits should run like businesses.  All the above stores were businesses.  Bernie Madoff’s firm was a business too!  I would hope that no nonprofit runs like any of them.  What we should be striving for is for businesses to run like really great businesses and for nonprofits to run like really great nonprofits.  What does it mean to run like a really great nonprofit?  First, a nonprofit’s bottom line is different than a business.  A business wants to make money for its owners or shareholders while a nonprofit wants to accomplish its mission.  Some examples of other qualities in a really good nonprofit include: good governance, fiscal responsibility,  measurement of outcomes and empowering staff while holding them accountable (all of these are similar to a for profit business). 

Our Federation strives to be a great nonprofit.   Our Finance, Audit and Investment Committees all look at how we run our operations.  We are developing, with our agencies, a “Community Scorecard” to make sure we are having the impact we all want on the issues which matter most to us.  Annual goals are set for the organization and for each of our staff members.  Notice that I stated that our Federation “strives” to be a great nonprofit.  That is because constant improvement is  a process which is never complete.

We’ve been around now for 100 years.  I know that unlike Lechmere where I used to go with my friend Mark to play Atari games and buy cassettes, our Federation will be here long into the future, on a constant journey to be a really great nonprofit. 

Shabbat Shalom.