POLICY vs. PAPER CLIPS - THIRD EDITION: How Using the Corporate Model Makes a Nonprofit Board More Efficient & Effective

POLICY vs. PAPER CLIPS is an unusual how-to book. It is a serious subject – improving nonprofit board governance while enhancing a management focus – but it is written in a highly user friendly way. Two old friends with ties to vastly different nonprofit organizations discuss via email what it takes to adopt the Corporate Model, an approach that can position your nonprofit to meet the demanding realities of the 21st century world. Given today’s difficult times for nonprofits, hardly any can continue to operate as they have in the past. For most, it is no longer possible for a volunteer group of directors to be involved in day-to-day operations of the organization. The Corporate Model establishes a framework for separating policy development from operational activities. When customized appropriately to your own nonprofit, the Model promotes growth. This book shows you how to tap the creative energies of the board of directors to address critical issues about vision, direction, assessment of outcomes; how to adapt to new challenges and how to capture emerging opportunities – while turning over day-to-day operational matters to management. The Corporate Model works best for nonprofits that have an annual budget of about $1 million or more and staffs of about 15 or more. However, anyone associated with a nonprofit group can benefit from reading this book. It provides an essential self-examination that can serve as a catalyst for becoming a more dynamic organization.

Eugene H. Fram, Ed.D, professor emeritus, E. Philip Saunders College of Business, at Rochester Institute of Technology, is an authority on the Corporate Model. His experience with nonprofit organizations-as consultant, author, volunteer, board director, and board chair-dates back more than thirty years. In addition, he has extensive experience working with business boards of directors. He pioneered the development of the Corporate Model for nonprofit organizations. A frequent lecturer on the Model, Dr. Fram continues to publish articles related to both nonprofit and for-profit governance in professional journals such as MIT's Sloan Management Review, The Wall Street Journal, Corporate Governance, Leader to Leader, and Nonprofit World. Dr. Fram formerly served as J. Warren McClure research professor of marketing at Rochester Institute of Technology and is the author or co-author of more than 125 published articles and six books. Vicki Brown is associate director of the Center for Governmental Research (CGR), a nonprofit and nonpartisan consulting organization based in New York, where her work encompasses research, analysis, and writing for both nonprofit and government clients. Prior to joining CGR, she owned a consulting firm for twenty-eight years, and directed research, writing, and editing projects for consulting groups, medical centers, major universities, governmental organizations, and businesses ranging in size from one-person firms to Fortune 500 companies. Previously she was a newspaper reporter in Rochester, New York, and a university writer/editor in Atlanta, Georgia. 3740517814569ISBN 978-1456374051