Each year, nonprofit organisations dedicate extensive time and energy to producing their annual reports. The Annual Report is the perfect medium to showcase your strategy and operations, and also to signpost your future direction.
Below is an exploration of its core utilities and how organisations can unlock their full potential.
Thank you to Sheena Horgan from 2into3 for her contribution.
On the 27th of February 2024, Carmichael hosted a webinar on how nonprofits can improve their annual reports and financial statements.
The panel consisted of:
- Nina Arwitz: CEO of Volunteer Ireland
- Aedín Morkan: Audit Partner at Mazars Ireland
- Senan Turnbull: Consultant and trainer specialising in nonprofit annual reports
The panel was chaired by Róisín McGuigan: Services Manager at Carmichael and Coordinator of the Good Governance Awards.
The three panellists shared some of their pointers for improvement and the session finished with a Q&A.
This resource is taken from the session.
Board packs are one of the key gateways for board members into the organisation they govern. The clarity and accessibility of board packs is vital to ensuring an effective board and well-governed organisation.
Follow the four stage plan to achieve this.
Governance Officer Roisin McGuigan shares a number of steps that a nonprofit can take to safeguard itself against mission drift. Nonprofits can be in danger of mission drift, where the organisation loses sight of its core purpose, as they struggle to balance other goals such as securing funding, raising their profile or recruiting new volunteers and staff.
Cutting Edge Board Meetings
Carmichael and The Wheel held a joint event during Charity Trustees Week 2022 on the topic of Cutting Edge Board meetings and have now produced a resource Cutting Edge Boards based on the panel discussion. The conversation ranged widely among the expert panellists and much discussion centred on the fundamentals of an effective board meeting.
Read it here Cutting Edge Boards.
Click here to book one of Carmichael’s meeting rooms for an in-person or hybrid Board meeting.
Whether you’re taking on volunteers, staff members or Board members, it is inevitable that at some point, you will need to hold interviews in your nonprofit. With so many other priorities, it can be easy to let things slip through the cracks and lose great candidates due to an inefficient recruitment process. In this resource we give some examples of how you might conduct interviews in your nonprofit.
Fortunately, most boards and CEOs in the charity sector have positive working relationships. However, when things go wrong, they can go badly wrong. During the Covid pandemic, with all its stresses and strains, some relationships were tested. This was a timely reminder that good working relationships should not be taken for granted. This resource document was drawn up in response to two events organised by Carmichael and the Wheel: an online webinar in November 2021 and a facilitated panel discussion at the Wheel Summit in June 2022. Attendees at both events had many questions and observations; and expressed a need for more support and resources on this important topic.
The Commentary on Charities Amendment Bill 2022, prepared for Carmichael by Professor Oonagh Breen of UCD and Philip Smith of Arthur Cox Solicitors
Carmichael’s CEO, Diarmaid Ó Corrbuí was a guest on the Diligent – BoardEffect Board Governance webinar series speaking to host Mark Wilson, Governance Advisor with BoardEffect on the topic of “Managing boards in a hybrid environment”. Below you can download an edited transcript of the discussion.
This article explains how to agree operational policies for any nonprofit and the steps involved in putting policies in place, in accordance to the Charities Governance Code core standards (3.4).