Fundraising Q&A-PANO Resources

Over the summer Liz and I presented the popular PANO session-Fundraising Practices: Track It Right! Book it Right! Report it Right!  at the beautiful historic site Pennsbury Manor, right on the Delaware River.   The audience was very engaging and had a number of great real life stories of transparency in fundraising.    Some good questions came out of the session and I’ll share them in the next few posts.   

The great part about teaching the session is that we talk to the group about best practices in fundraising and PANO has a treasure trove of resources to help nonprofits follow these best practices.   These resources are available free to members or for a small fee ($10 to $15) for nonmemebers  at the PANO website.   There are sample policies, guidelines, and procedures that will save you time and frustration.    You can order the materials here.   Select Educational Resource Packets.

PA Decennial Filing for Nonprofits: Do You Need to File?

Decennial Filing with the PA Department of State will ensure protection of the corporate name.

The next Decennial Filing may be made any time from January 1, 2011 through December 31, 2011. A Decennial Filing is required ONLY IF the corporation has not made a new or amended filing with the Corporation Bureau of the Department of State in the 10-year time period from January 1, 2002 through December 31, 2011.

If the nonprofit corporation has filed an "Annual Statement" with the PA Department of State, within the 10-year period from January 1, 2002 through December 31, 2011, then it is not necessary for it to file a 2011 Decennial Filing. The advantage is that there is no cost to filing an Annual Statement, whereas the fee for the Decennial Report is $70. An Annual Statement is required whenever a nonprofit corporation changes Officers. This has been a long standing requirement that not many organizations have adhered to in the past.

PANO is now encouraging all nonprofit corporations to file that report the next time you change Officers of the Corporation. That way the PA Department of State has indication that the organization is active and the 2011 Decennial Filing will not be needed if an "Annual Statement" has been filed between January 1, 2002 and December 31, 2011.

Below is the information that is contained in the Standards for Excellence Legal Checklist regarding the Annual Statement filing:

Description: Form DSCB: 15-5110 Annual Statement - Nonprofit Corporation

Nonprofits must file annual reports only if there has been a change in corporate officers during preceding calendar year. (*No fee is required for this filing)

From the PA Association of Nonprofit Organizations

Ten Simple Tips for Good Governance (What I Learned from PANO)

The end of the year is quickly passing. At the end of October, Liz and I attended the PANO Standards for Excellence consultant training. The session was full of very beneficial information. Liz wrote this article summarizing some of what we learned on good governance in our firm's newsletter for nonprofits and I wanted to post it here as well.

1. If your Mission Statement is more than 1 sentence, it is probably too long.

2. Review your Mission Statement every three years. Document your review and approval of the Mission Statement by clearly noting it in the Minutes.

3. Your Minutes should include who was present--identified as Board or staff, who was absent, the type of meeting, what was done not what was said, the start and end times and should be signed by the Secretary.

4. Question to ask when reviewing financials “Are all the bills input (whether they are paid or not)?

5. Every organization should have a Reserve Policy. 3-6 month Reserve is recommended.

6. 3:1 ratio is minimum when looking at funds raised vs. expenses (some exceptions apply)

7. If you are soliciting gifts in other States, you need to be registered there. Use a service like Labyrinth, Inc. to assist in the process. http://www.labyrinthinc.com/

8. Conflict of Interest Policies are not just for the Board-but for anyone who has decision making authority for the organization including staff and volunteers.

9. If your organization is involved in Lobbying, even a little bit, consider making the federal 501(h) election. The h election is an expenditure test that answers the question of whether your organization is doing too much lobbying by examining how much you spend on lobbying (lobbying expenditures).

10. Invest in the Standards of Excellence Educational Resource Packets. They are inexpensive and chock-full of great information.

You Haven’t Lost Your Status Yet

If you are a small nonprofit under $25,000 and had not filed a 990 or the 990-N postcard with the IRS in the last three years by May 17, 2010 you were at risk for losing your status. However the IRS is willing to work with these small nonprofits, so go ahead and file, even if you did miss the deadline. Instructions to file and the IRS efforts to help the small nonprofits keep their status are on the IRS website in the charity section.


The impetus behind this provision is to clean up the IRS records. It is suspected that there are many nonprofits on the IRS listing that ceased doing business years ago. There is a good detailed article on this topic at Nonprofit Newswire (which is a great daily newswire service to subscribe to)



In the week prior to May 17 we looked up some area zip codes and contacted local nonprofits we knew, that were on the list in danger of losing their status. They were unaware of the IRS Form 990-N. The most common reason was that the Board Members had changed and it is likely that any IRS notifications went to a former Board Member. See this link to look up your area