Guidelines and Principles

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What is the Guidelines & Principles Assessment?

The Guidelines & Principles assessment is designed to help you identify organizational strengths and challenges to effectively action plan for the future. This assessment is regularly updated to reflect legal requirements and current best practices across the sector, including practices that are required to receive external funding and critical to demonstrate professional accountability to the public, your stakeholders, and prospective donors. We hope these results help support you and your organization to become stronger and more efficient.

How are assessment results used?

We encourage you to be completely honest with your responses; these results belong to you and your organization. NAM will never share your results with other organizations or funders. Any reporting on Guidelines & Principles compliance will only be in aggregate, will not identify you or your organization, and will only be used to understand the nonprofit sector and improve NAM’s offerings. Finally, this assessment has been made available for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended to provide legal, financial, accounting, or tax advice and should not be relied upon in that manner. Additionally, this tool does not include an exhaustive list of all applicable laws for your organization; further, federal, state, and local laws continually change.

What does the assessment measure?

The assessment is structured around twelve guiding principles for nonprofits. Each of the twelve sections lists legal, essential, and recommended practices, followed by an overview of best practices. We recommend answering each of the twelve sections to the best of your knowledge now, knowing that you can always update your results later. At the end of each section, an overview of best practices provides additional details, guidelines, and considerations for each of the twelve areas. Our [Wiki] contains detailed information to help guide you through the language in each section.

Legal Considerations

All nonprofit organizations operating in the states of Nebraska and Iowa should be aware of and in compliance with all legal requirements pertaining to nonprofit management, reporting, and governance.

Visit the following websites for a summary of applicable laws, links to helpful resources, and downloadable forms:

Disclaimer

Guidelines & Principles for Nonprofit Excellence in Nebraska & Iowa provided by the Nonprofit Association of the Midlands (NAM) has been made available for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended to provide legal, financial, accounting, or tax advice and should not be relied upon in that manner. We suggest hiring an attorney, accountant, and/or financial advisor to answer any financial or legal questions. NAM is not responsible for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential or any other damages arising out of or in connection with the use of this document or in reliance on the information available through it. This includes any personal injury, business interruption, loss of use, lost data, lost profits or any other pecuniary loss, whether in an action of contract, negligence or other tortuous action, even if NAM has been informed of the possibility.

Acknowledgments

©2024 Nonprofit Association of the Midlands. This work is adapted with permission from Principles and Practices for Nonprofit Excellence © 2010 Minnesota Council of Nonprofits and also adapted with permission of the Michigan Nonprofit Association ©2008. All rights reserved by their respective copyright holders.

Guidelines & Principles for Nonprofit Excellence in Nebraska & Iowa has been generously supported by the Fund for Omaha through the Omaha Community Foundation. The Nonprofit Association of the Midlands extends its deep gratitude to Colorado Nonprofit Association, Michigan Nonprofit Association, Minnesota Council of Nonprofits, and Montana Nonprofit Association for their input and generosity in the constant evolution and enhancement of this resource.