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. Policy vs. Paper Clips shows how to transform your organization by optimizing: Strategic Planning Focus on organization strategic issues over operational minutiae - Encourage directors to bring their own special expertise and cultural values to board decisions Board Structure Develop or enhance a mission focused board structure for growth - Use task forces more efficiently to obtain time results - Designate the senior operational manager as the President/CEO to give the position the prestige that it deserves - Establish a framework for separating policy/strategy development from operational activities - Make effective use of an executive committee - Make wise use of volunteers' time to make board recruitment easier - Reduce or increase board size - Operate effectively with only three standing board committees - Make major board structural changes with minimum disruption - Develop effective audit committee procedures - Keep board involvement high when developing policies & strategies Board-Staff Relations Create a partnership between board and staff built on trust - Pinpoint management's responsibility and clarify its accountability - Allow more management flexibility to develop a more entrepreneurial culture - Increase focus on productivity at the expense of bureaucratic processes - Develop a more professional and self-managing staff - Build a working relationship between the volunteer board chair and the CEO - Evaluate the senior manager fairly, despite only having some imperfect metrics for qualitative outcomes - Improve the CEO's fund raising capacity to drive development productivity Operations & Compliance Sharpen the organization's client focus to improve mission impact - Obtain greater efficiencies through lower costs - Establish a system of organizational checks and balances - Use the board to provide responsibility for -- and oversight over -- fraud prevention - Understand the implications of compliance requirements such as IRS Form 990, the Sarbanes- Oxley Act and the Intermediate Sanctions Act - Understand the need for -- and implement -- rigorous assessment of operational outcome 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 univer