application verification

Software That Helps Nonprofits Screen Volunteers

Here is a must-read article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about new software built just for nonprofit organizations. Application Verification, a 6-year-old East Pittsburgh technology business, has built employee screening systems for 300 organizations ranging from Westinghouse Electric to oil and gas firms that hired thousands of workers during the shale drilling boom. So it didn’t surprise David Reed, chief operating officer, when a group of local nonprofits in 2014 sought its help in developing an efficient — and affordable — way to handle background checks for the crowds of people who volunteer to help out … Read more

Treating Volunteers Like Donors

Like many people in arts organizations, I get to wear many hats in my job.  One of my favorites is that of volunteer coordinator.  Each season, we rely on over 100 volunteers to help our small staff do big work. As I was gearing up for volunteer sign-ups and making some changes to the program, Vu Le’s July, 2015 blog post “Volunteers and the Bahn Mi of Social Justice” came through my inbox. In his post, Vu talks about how nonprofits, many of whom couldn’t do their work without volunteers, are often … Read more

You Probably Need To Be Spending More On Overhead

For decades now there has been a belief that the lower the ratio of non-profit’s overhead expenses to program expense, the better run the non-profit is.  As a result, a low overhead ratio has been viewed as something of a virtue and non-profit organizations have used all sorts of accounting tricks and parsed terminology in an effort to  redefine what constitutes an overhead expense. Likewise, funders have rewarded non-profits who can exhibit low overhead expense ratios or they disallow the use of funding for overhead altogether. This has created what many have … Read more