The Center's resource library has over 800 items covering the breadth of topics in nonprofit management. Find answers to your questions plus articles, sample policies, checklists, and more.
For narrow results, be specific with the keywords and topics. For more general results, select a topic or publication type. For Spanish language resources, search keyword espanol.
Didn't find an answer? Contact Member Assistance, (919) 790-1555 x220.
Sample Fraud Policy
An organizational fraud policy facilitates the development of controls to help detect and prevent fraud against your organization.
Volunteer Background Checks: Giving Back Without Giving Up on Privacy
This guide explores the expanding world of volunteer screening, identifies relevant laws as well as fundamental privacy protections, and offers suggestions for organizations and volunteers.
Reserve Funds Create Financial Nest Egg
Like families, organizations need financial nest eggs for different purposes. One of the main purposes is an operating reserve — sometimes called an operating contingency fund. They are a first line of defense against financial uncertainties ranging from uneven cash flow to cutbacks from major funders.
Coping Advice in Hard Times
Advice based on dozens of interviews with leaders who've gone through hard times and on related texts and articles to encourage leaders to share the burden of managing financial difficulties.
An Executive Director’s Guide to Financial Leadership
From the Nonprofit Quarterly, this guide is a summary of the eight key business principles that should guide financial leadership practice.
A Board Member's Guide to Nonprofit Overhead
As board members, we have twin responsibilities: to ensure that our organization is making efficient, appropriate use of funds and to ensure that we are reporting our overhead correctly. This article provides eight key ideas to know about overhead.
#OwnYourOwnCosts
Understanding a nonprofit’s costs is necessary in order for charitable nonprofits to be financially sustainable. Rather than reporting artificially low costs, or ignoring what it really costs to deliver programs and services, the National Council of Nonprofits is encouraging all nonprofits and board members to model transparency of full costs.
How To Develop Your Nonprofit Operating Reserve
Examine common factors that organizations should take into account when considering how much to set aside for their operating reserve.
Layoffs: Negotiating the Rough Surf in Your Nonprofit
Layoffs that are motivated by economic or administrative reasons -- such as loss of funding or staff reorganization -- are common in the nonprofit sector. Here are answers to your common questions about layoffs.
Loans From Nonprofit Board Members
In many nonprofits, a time comes when the question arises: should the organization accept personal loans from board members? Although this article does not try to answer that question, it does outline some of the choices in how such loans can be made and can be used as a starting point for discussion with your board or personal financial advisor.
Managing in Hard Times
Get best practices and tools for managers of environmental and conservation nonprofits in challenging economic times. Learn how to track your finances, recognize danger signs, assess your options, and make tough decisions fairly with the best interests of the organization in mind.
Maximizing Nonprofit Internal Controls: An Essential Guide for Even the Most Pure
Whether your nonprofit is more like an intimate family or an enormous well-oiled machine, fraud can occur, and when it happens, it can damage your reputation, relationships with funders, and staff morale. In other words, you can't afford it.
New Year’s Resolution for Nonprofit Fundraising 101
With any luck, the dust is beginning to settle after a flurry of development activity during the calendar year end. Now is the time to inventory your organization’s fundraising practices and procedures to ensure that they are not only compelling but also legally compliant.
Nonprofit Fraud: It’s a People Problem, So Combat It with Governance
How can nonprofits' leaders and boards better mitigate their fraud risks? First and foremost, they should focus on governance.
Sample Reserve Fund Policy
A sample reserve fund policy you can adapt for your organization.