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Del Camino Equestrian
Enterprises, Inc.
Mailing Address:
3822 E. Sahuaro Drive,
Phoenix,
Arizona,
85028-3442
United States of America
Tel: 480-242-9490
Fax: 602-953-9347 |
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Equine Business
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On Their Own Pages
HORSE NON-PROFIT RESOURCES - CREDENTIALS & PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS
HORSE NON-PROFIT RESOURCES - ADVERTISING & MARKETING
HORSE NON-PROFIT FUNDRAISING
HORSE NON-PROFIT VOLUNTEER MANAGEMENT
On This Page
Equine Non-Profit Agencies - Industry Overview
Getting
Started Rescue - Specific Manuals
Legal
Non-Profit Entity Filing with Your Secretary of State
Business Plan
Taxes
Liability
Insurance Director and Officer Liability Insurance
Property & Casualty Insurance Care Custody and Control Insurance
Summer Camp Insurance
Workers Compensation, Critical Illness, Disability, or Key Man Insurance and Pet Trusts
Banking, Financing
Accounting and Business Management Tools Horse Record Keeping Tools
Accounting Software for Non-Profit Organizations
Fund
Accounting Software
Service Statistics Recordkeeping and Reports State and National Statistics and Reports
Board of
Directors
Volunteers, Paid Contractors Image Safety
Volunteer
Recruiting Paid Equine Staff Job Descriptions Training Handbook Screening
Recognition
Other Employee Benefits (Health Insurance, Vacations, Career Development, Retirement) Expense Reimbursement
Scheduling Tools, Communication, and Software
Barn Management Tools Horse Record Keeping Tools Meeting Coordination Tools
Event Planning
Safety, Emergency, and Disaster Planning Security as Safety Fire Prevention
Succession Planning and Founder/Executive Director Retirement 403(b) Plans / Tax-Sheltered Accounts (TSAs)
Roth 403(b) Plans
Public Relations and Publicity Free Publicity Crisis Management
Corporate and Other Partnerships
Cost-Savings Environmental Stewardship and Community Relevance
Other Resources
NEWS FLASH-OUR 2008 Best Humane Business Innovation Award went to the National Black Farmers Association for Project Wanted Horse
The last decade
from 1998 to 2008 has witnessed a phenomenal increase in non-profit
horse-related organizations. Beginning with hippotherapy centers
and boarding and vocational schools that offered Equine Studies
programs, and culminating in the recent rise in horse rescue and
adoption facilities, trail riding clubs, and mounted law enforcement
agencies, this segment of the horse community has become a force to be
taken seriously. That is, the valuable services these groups
provide, and the large horse population of which they are a segment
(the 60% not involved in breeding, racing, showing, or farm/ranch
work) have garnered the attention of manufacturers and retailers of
equine products and services. These vendors follow closely
the economic and industry trends and best practices of other North
American businesses. Providers of everything from liability
insurance to feed supplements and farriery services and online
classified ad sites now count non-profit agencies among their
customers. This increase in equine-related non-profits fits into an overall trend of the growth of the non-profit sector of the American economy:
The number of reporting public charities grew from 187,038 in 1995 to 310,683 in 2005an
increase of 5.2 percent per year or 66 percent for the full period. Among the subsectors, two of
the smallest, environment and animal and international and foreign affairs, showed the greatest
growth, both more than doubling in size. The health subsector grew the least in terms of number, only increasing by 28 percent. Source: Nonprofit Almanac, prepared by the National Center for Charitable Statistics at the Urban Institute (Urban Institute Press, 2008)
Equine-related non-profit agencies
have yet to receive much attention from traditional non-profit horse
groups, namely breeding associations and racing, show, rodeo, and
auction services, equine industry and farm and ranch political action
groups, and their service providers, who remain focused on the horse
production industry's needs and goals. That horse industry works
within a ten-year lifespan of the horse that harks back to a
pre-internal combustion engine business model, and is unable to grasp
the reality of the modern horse's 25-35 year lifespan, the
totally transformed roles and needs of both the over age 10 horse, and the horse
owning population that maintains one or many. Consequently, the
two disparate horse communities are at loggerheads in a mutual blame
game that is unlikely to evolve into cooperation and mutual success
any time soon. The "old" horse community intractably follows
formulas that are several generations out-of-date, while the "new"
horse community, unfettered by how great-grandfather did it, embraces
modernity without understanding how to communicate effectively with
the old industry that continues to depend on a New Deal Depression Era
economic model of government subsidies and short horse life spans.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of horses have found a purpose and/or a respite with horse non-profit facilities. Here, we intend to serve those horses, donkeys, mules, and people.
Further, the horse industry and the horse owning community, are far behind other business sectors and social or sports communities in embracing environmental concerns - the other fastest growing non-profit sector and now one of the criteria many people consider when evaluating charities to give time as a volunteer or money as a donor.
Additionally, both groups, producers and owners, remain well behind their non-equine counterparts in using business tools of any kind; accounting software, marketing tools, sales and client management tools, to manage their commercial and non-profit horse businesses. This is not surprising, but it means many equine non-profits founded by non-horse
professionals lack horse expertise, and those founded by horse professionals tend to lack business expertise, even if they had a commercial equine-related business. Most would-be farmers and ranchers in other agricultural enterprises take more college business courses than do most would-be horse professionals, and the courses offered to them or required of them tend to be more
substantial than the industry "surveys" typical of the Equine Science programs. The vast majority of horse professionals have little or no formal business or technology training.
If you are not depressed or dissuaded yet, take heart! There is a great deal of help available, and many tools for non-profits. If you have solid non-profit or for-profit business management experience, as well as the specific skills for rescue or equine-assisted activities, and a driving passion for your cause, you can succeed.
Del Camino helps
non-profit horse facilities and services find timely information that
benefits their program and success. We want to see horse
sanctuaries and retirement stables grow and prosper. We would like
horse rescues to be well-operated and fully supported by their local
communities. The benefits of horseback riding to humans is a
well-established fact, and the therapeutic benefits to individuals,
and cultural benefits to the wider society, mean every effort should be
expended to develop viable humane businesses that use well-trained,
good tempered, well-seasoned horses. It can be done.
The challenges to equine non-profits
include virtually all of the concerns of commercial training and
boarding barns, and then some. After carefully considering how
to best aid the efforts of horse non-profits in our own community and
on a regional and national level, we determined that simply donating
time and money to specific agencies would spread us too thinly with
too little impact. We also discovered that, due to several
highly-charged political issues surrounding the horse industries,
obtaining truly relevant and helpful information, in print or online,
required vast time commitments that busy horsepeople simply cannot
afford. They are too busy delivering equine-assisted therapy.
fund-raising, training volunteers, mucking stalls, trying to buy hay,
or advertising an adoptable horse. Finally, we noticed that all
the publicity given to the horse slaughter issue in recent years has
prompted many people who do not have small business, horsekeeping, or
non-profit experience to start a horse rescue. Most of these
people are competent, successful individuals from other career
experiences who have enjoyed owning their own horse, and felt a call
to action. We commend them, but notice there is virtually no
professional organization or safety net to guide or support them.
Once they acquire their first rescued horse, juggling all the aspects
of a horse non-profit and daily horsekeeping can quickly spiral out of
control, leading to emotional and physical burnout, or failure.
This just should not happen in a country where 70% of a 330 million
person population has a love affair with the horse, and the brightest,
most innovative, most successful business and charitable minds on the
planet are available! We realized that providing a central
clearinghouse of helpful information could benefit all.
Our non-profit horse businesses whether they are residential ranches for at-risk youth, therapeutic riding centers, horse retirement sanctuaries, or natural disaster large animal rescuers are
competing with over 1 million other charities in the United States of America for donors, sponsors, volunteers, publicity, fundraiser buyers, grants and business-to-business discounts and co-branding opportunities. At Del Camino, we believe our equine-related non-profits need all the help they can get to succeed and thrive. In this way we hope to help thousands of horses, not
just one or two.
More than 16% of nonprofit organizations that filed IRS Form 990 during the 1997 time period failed to file in 2002. This implies that they either dropped below the $25,000 filing threshold or went out of business (National Center for Charitable Statistics, 2002). While lack of funding is the main cause of this high failure rate, it is not the sole reason, according to research.
Leadership and management failure is a pervasive cause of nonprofit failure (Norris-Tirrell, Dorothy Anne, 1992). Today, government entities depend more and more on the nonprofit sector for social service delivery and animal welfare. Our equine-related nonprofit organizations must be prepared to efficiently and effectively serve their communities. Capacity building strengthens
every facet of an organization so that it can function to the best of its ability. Del Camino strives to assist each equine-related charity that it encounters with building its capacity to achieve its mission. We are here to help you and your board with developing and sustaining your organization. We realize that your communities and horses depend on you for life-saving and
life-enhancing services. Let us help you touch lives and make a difference!
If
you think we are on the right or wrong track, please give us your
feedback.
We dedicate our work to a few of many beloved
Del Camino horses: Freckles, who left us at age 43, Miss
Cricket, who delighted children until age 38, Captain Oliver "Ollie"
who fought Cushing's until age 32, reliable confidence-building
Jordan, who lived to 28, Brandy's Prince, and Smokey, both
of whom had Cushing's which caused laminitis at age 26, and dear JJ
Kahnsquest, the little Arabian whose giant heart failed him at 24.
Thank you for having graced our lives, and
taught so many people the joy of horsemanship.
None of these listings were solicited.
This page distills information from a variety of sources, as well as
our own experience, before sending you off on your own quest.
The descriptive paragraphs at the start of a section are there because
we believe they are important.
We update this section of our website fairly often, so we recommend
you return regularly. Why not add this page to your browser's
Favorites list? Doing so does not cause us to send you junk
mail.
The focus of the site is to be rich in content, and easy to read
onscreen. A majority of small horse businesses and horse
non-profits are on slow dial-up connections (cannot afford cable or
DSL) and using older versions of operating systems and browsers on
older computer platforms (usually donated by people who upgraded to
newer technology.) Therefore, you won't see tons of frames,
flash, page transitions, and multimedia effects here. We avoid
colored text on dark backgrounds, which can be nearly impossible to
read on a monitor. We even
keep the pictures small and to a minimum to facilitate page loading.
So if the visual effects are bland, you now know why! We don't
want our visitors to give up due to long page-loads and hard to read
color combinations and time-consuming bells and whistles - they just
don't have that kind of time.
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Large sections acquire their own page, to
keep the resources easy to read. |
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As we find a broken link, we remove it if we
cannot easily repair it. Please notify the webmaster if you
find one. |
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If you are a non-profit equine organization
using a tool, resource, or website we haven't listed, we encourage
you to tell us about it (please provide URL) on our
feedback
page, so we can share it with others. Likewise, if you think a
listing is useless, let us know! |
 |
If you are a service provider or vendor with
something to offer equine non-profits, please tell us about your
product, service, or marketing opportunity so we can share it, via
our
feedback
page. |
 |
We encourage visitors to join discussions in
the
Forums to
share their knowledge or experiences. There are no reviews on
this page. |
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Nominations for Special Recognition to equine
non-profit groups or horse product or service companies are
welcomed. Any entity (individual, business, or agency) that
has done or is doing something remarkable for the benefit of the
senior horse is eligible. Presently, the method to nominate
someone for Senior Horse Special Recognition is on our
feedback
page. |
Del Camino does not endorse, approve, guarantee, warranty, or
otherwise recommend any product, service, vendor, book,
article, website, webzine, magazine linked on this page
An excellent checklist of the steps for starting a non-profit is available from the Society for Non-Profit Organizations (SNPO).
How to Start
and Run A Rescue, A Guide to Starting and Running a Successful Rescue
Organization, by Jennifer Williams, Ph.D. Dr. Williams is Founder and President of Blue Bonnet Equine Humane Society in Texas and writes from experience. A highly respected leader in the field, Dr. Williams is both inspirational and practical.
Both of these next two resources provide useful perspectives, and address important issues.
Guidelines
for Establishing a Horse Rescue Facility is a manual produced
by Days End Horse Rescue Farm of Woodbine, Maryland, and their
founder, Kathleen Schwartz-Howe. This acclaimed rescue, started
in 1989, knows how to develop a sustainable community resource. The
sale of the book is a fund-raiser, available exclusively from the
rescue website.
http://www.defhr.org/news/rescue.htm
HorseNet "Horse
Rescue Getting Started Guide" in .PDF form.
rescue_startup.pdf
You've got to "get your ducks in a row." Some people are daunted by the effort and steps needed to put their passions into action. Others seek practical step-by-step advice then "just do it." This book explains how in an organized fashion that works for virtually all types of non-profit entities. If you are serious about starting
an equine non-profit, invest in this book before you go any further.
Not ready to get started, but want to explore and become a little more informed first? Then read the available free information from these web-based legal do-it-yourself services.
FindLaw has a nice one page checklist of what is involved, regardless of state, in forming a non-profit corporation.
Non-Profit Corporation
Overview
http://www.legalzoom.com/non-profits/non-profit-corporation-overview.html
BizFilings is a direct competitor of Legal Zoom for start-up businesses and non-profits. Besides providing the forms and stepped procedures, and completing filing and posting notices, Use BizFilings Fast
Quote to get an idea of your total filing costs including state filing fees.
Internal Revenue Service, U.S. Department of
the Treasury. Information, forms, and state links for Non-Profit
organizations and charities.
What kind of non-profit will your organization be? National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) codes are used to classify non-profit organizations recognized as tax exempt under the Internal Revenue Code. The NTEE code provides a standardized classification for describing the vast range of non-profit organizations.
A list of codes is available from the National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS) or you can view or download the code list in a
PDF document here .
Idealist.org has a pithy short blog post on filing your 990's in
May with the IRS, and changes to the procedures.
Former IRS auditor Sandy Deja helps clients file their own Form 1023 Application for Recognition of Exemption Under Section 501(c)(3) via her website form1023help.com and book, Prepare Your Own 501(c)(3) Application
. Ms. Deja also offers a companion book via her website that is specifically for Animal Welfare non-profit groups. It helps you prepare the narrative and budget sections of the Form 1023 and provides relevant sample I.R.S. rulings. Supplement for
Animal Welfare Organizations by Sandy Deja, copyright 2007 ISBN 0-9724644-4-1 48 pages.
NEW! On January 3, 2010 the I.R.S. user fees to apply for tax exemption status will increase. If your organization's gross receipts average less than $10,000 per year the fee will be $400. Those with average gross receipts over that amount will pay $850 to file. If and when the I.R.S. Cyber Assistant becomes available for
electronic form completion later in 2010, the fee for that method of filing will be $200. Forms completed with the help of the Cyber Assistant must still be printed out and submitted in the usual way; but special bar-coding on the printed form will alert the IRS that the applicant is eligible for the reduced user fee. This modernization step
may eventually improve the delays in rulings due to the I.R.S. backlog.
Register your non-profit organization with the state. You need to do this after you incorporate and receive your IRS Letter of Determination that you are a non-profit. The Secretary of State then registers you to lawfully collect donations. It may also be the Secretary of State who issues your tax-exempt status or license
for purchases. Contact the Secretary of State (Corporate Division) and in most states, the Attorney General (Charities Division). You may be required to re-file annually, or at periodic intervals, such as every five years, depending on your state's law.
NOTE: Do not solicit donations until you have completed this step! You should also post your IRS Letter of Determination, and your State Non-Profit Filing on your website, and after your first IRS 990 (Non-Profit Tax Return) filing, in future years, your two (or more) most recent 990s as .PDFs (Adobe Acrobat portable
document files.)
Every business, even a non-profit, needs a business plan. No matter how small and part-time your start-up enterprise, no matter how well established, you need a plan that is refreshed every year with new information. If you look for help from a lender, a large donor, or a government body, your application begins with either the business plan or
elements from it. It helps you stay on track, and helps choose the right course when you must make adjustments.
This program can step you through the process, or you can contact us for guidelines, step-by-step mentoring, research, and brainstorming for an initial or updated plan.
If you are like most people and need help staying on target and moving from Step 1 to Step 2 until finally you have accomplished something, then the book "Getting Things Done" is for you. Forming an equine non-profit is a big task, made up of many small parts. To accomplish it, find a system for organizing those small parts and tackling them that
works for you. Then the next thing you know, you will have moved from dreaming of doing something meaningful to having done it. Wouldn't that be grand?
Also see Service Statistics Recordkeeping and Reports and State and National Statistics and Reports on this page for resources to obtain factual information you need for your Business Plan, subsequent Marketing Plan, and fundraising efforts.
One of the time-consuming hassles of any business enterprises is taxes and corporation commission reports, and this is true for an equine non-profit as well as commercial business. You will have to file federal and state income tax returns, annual corporate reports, federal and state payroll taxes, file social security annual reports and pay and report
quarterly and annual unemployment insurance and workers compensation insurance reports if you pay even one person (yourself, for example!) and, if you sell items to raise money, sales taxes in many states. If you do not keep good records of donations, payroll, cash disbursements, and follow the Internal Revenue Service rules for the receipts you give donors, you can lose your
non-profit tax-exempt status, and be subject to fines or penalties. Welcome to the wonderful world of red tape!
The main report is your annual 990, or federal tax return, which must be open to public inspection for 3 years after the filing due date if you are a public charity. As of 2008, if your receipts are $25,000 or less per year, and your assets are $250,000 or less, you will file the EZ version online. Still, you must do it on time, and you must have good
records that could be audited to do it. You may have to file other forms as your non-profit grows. For example, as of 2008, charities with receipts less than $5,000 do not have to file form 1023, just their 990-EZ.
One of the tests of a non-profit public charity, as opposed to a private foundation, that the IRS expects you to prove you meet each year is the public support test. This means that one third of your income must come from government sources or private donations. Clearly, proper bookkeeping is necessary to show sources of revenue properly when you file
your returns.
Here's the IRS .PDF for non-profit taxpayers.
Non-Profit Business Insurance
(Top
of Page)
Incorporation helps to protect your personal assets and credit from losses incurred by your equine rescue, retirement farm or therapeutic riding program, up to a point. This protection is called the corporate "veil." However, it is possible for individuals and companies to take legal action against your non-profit to seek,
and possibly be awarded monetary damages for mistakes made or harm done to horses, property, or people. In America today, civil lawsuits are one of the major factors driving up the costs of just about everything, healthcare being one of the most publicized. If you open your doors to the public, even as a not-for-profit, you are vulnerable, and if the Executive Director or
Board of Directors can be found to have mismanaged or failed to perform their duty, the "corporate veil" can be pierced. That means they can be held personally liable sometimes. Consequently, you owe it to your horses to obtain equine liability insurance for the type of operation you have, whether boarding, rescue, or therapeutic riding lessons and hippotherapy. Being
wiped out financially by a lawsuit, no matter how frivolous, even if you finally are vindicated, can leave them stranded.
Sometimes liability insurance is available at a reduced rate if you belong to a professional association. For example, therapeutic riding centers that belong to NARHA are eligible for discounted insurance through the major equine underwriter, Markel Insurance, because they receive educational materials and standards as members that
improves the likelihood they will operate in a manner that lowers the risk to the insurance company. For some businesses, including many non-profits, the reduced premiums of general liability insurance is one of the major benefits of their annual dues.
Horsemen's United Association,
Inc. general liability insurance for non-profit horse associations that
put on horse shows, clinics, rodeos, trail rides, events, etc.
Volunteer Liability
Statutes, General Overview by nationally recognized Equine Liability
Law expert and author Julie Fertshman, Esq.
Sample Volunteer Liability Release Form
from HorseNet Horse Rescue in Maryland in .PDF format.
Include Directors' and Officers' (or D & O) insurance in your liability policy if your can afford it. D & O liability insurance is necessary to protect your board members' assets under some circumstances when the "corporate veil" of your non-profit is pierced. For an excellent explanation of the increasing need for D&O
insurance, and why a member of your board's personal umbrella liability policy and the non-profit's own liability policy can leave holes, visit the page of the Charity Lawyer blog.
If your home, car, and other valuables are insured against loss or damage, so too must be the assets of your equine non-profit operation. If you are using your personal property at home on your private farm or ranch to get started, check with your insurance agent or read your policy to see if any of the equipment or supplies of the
non-profit are covered. There's a very good chance they are not, and you will need separate insurance for the non-profit, with an appropriate deductible. While the recent Farm Bill that passed in Congress provides disaster relief grants and low-interest loans to horse breeders in addition to FEMA assistance available to homeowners and small businesses, horse non-profits do
not qualify for any of the extra special taxpayer funded help given to livestock producers and racetracks. Not only would you stand in line for emergency assistance with other homeowners and small businesses after a disaster, but none of these government disaster relief programs help in the case of a single barn fire, or tack room theft. Can you afford to be wiped out of
the equipment and feed you have stored, or pay to board elsewhere while repairs are made?
Once you have insurance in case of fire, theft, vandalism or storm (or in some areas, flood) you need to document your non-profit's property and keep these records in a secure off-site location. Don't forget to update them at least annually.
If you lease some of your donated horses at a therapeutic riding center from their owners, you may need care, custody and control insurance similar to that carried by boarding and retirement stables to protect you if something happens to the horse. Check with your equine insurance agent, if you cannot tell from reading
your general liability policy.
If you have equine facility or event insurance for therapeutic horseback riding, equine-facilitated learning, board and care at a retirement farm or sanctuary, or general liability for a horse rescue, you do not necessarily have insurance for operating a summer camp for adults or children, whether a day camp or overnight one. Check
your policy and contact your agent. Virtually every company requires you to answer a Camp Supplement Questionnaire to deal with such issues as food service, sanitation, risky side activities such as trampolines or swimming, and how you ensure children are not collected by unauthorized people at the end of the session. Based on the number of days or weeks you offer the camp,
the number of participants, the activities, the food or snacks, and the training and experience of the personnel conducting the camp, a "rider" to your regular policy can be issued for an extra premium to cover your camp operations. It is extremely helpful if the counselors and instructors who conduct the camp also work with your horses at your facility the rest of the year, as
opposed to hiring someone just for the season who must get up to speed.
When you start a business, whether profit
or non-profit, that involves horsekeeping, you absolutely must have a
funded plan for continuing daily operations for months if something
happens to the key personnel. Some of the worst horse neglect
cases we have seen in recent years involving multiple horses were the
result of a stable operator becoming sick, injured, or unable to work
due to a disaster. With no income, hay could not be purchased,
hooves could not be trimmed, necessary veterinary care could not be
given, utilities were cut off. With no money to hire a stable
hand to do chores, or a temporary trainer to work horses and give
lessons, income further plummeted, the horse trailer was repossessed,
and the mortgage was often foreclosed. The result, abandoned
horses without food and water. Ninety-six percent (96%) of
households in the U.S. would not survive 6 weeks financially if the
primary wage earner was sick and unable to work. Serious
illnesses such as heart attack, stroke, and cancer strike people as
young as 30, men and women alike. These illnesses not only
require medical bills to be paid, which most people buy health
insurance to cover, but they normally require the person to be off the
job for three to six months. In other words, even if their
medical bills are paid, their emergency fund or savings will not
support their household budget for half their minimum recovery period.
If your business does not have three to six
months worth of operating expenses available in liquid assets or a
line of credit, you need some kind of catastrophic coverage.
Workers Compensation and Disability
Insurance will cover up to 60% of the employee's after-tax earnings.
If the business operator is not paid a salary, or not paid a salary
sufficient to cover his household budget (as is often the case with
start-up small businesses) you may need Critical Illness or Key Man
Insurance. Further, Workers Compensation and Disability
Insurance do nothing to protect the necessary operational expenses for
the horses.
Investigate the costs of various types of
coverage. Budget for three to six months worth of expenses in
the event all other sources of funding dry up or a natural disaster
strikes, causing you to pay board for your horses relocated elsewhere
while you apply for assistance and rebuild. Then include the
cost of appropriate necessary coverage in your annual budget.
Obtaining coverage will also demonstrate
your prudence and good business practices and proper responsibility to
the horses entrusted to your care, for any entity considering
contracting with you for services, or providing grant monies.
Critical Illness Insurance Services articles.
Pet Trusts
Del Camino Quarterly Tip - Establishing a Pet
Trust
can ensure that if
something happens to you, the horses will be taken care of properly
until a new manager can be obtained, or, if the non-profit will be
dissolved, until they can all be placed in new homes.
Money. No matter where it comes from or goes to, running any kind of equine operation means cash flowing in and out of checking accounts, savings accounts, certificates of deposit, credit cards and lines of credit. If you do your homework, you can establish a relationship with a bank that understands your needs. That
relationship can open the doors to many financial resources and advisors if you choose the right bank.
Are you willing to produce an agricultural product part-time on your horse operation? If you have farm income of at least $500 per year or more, you are eligible for a wide range of home and farm related financing programs including loans for
farm and land, operating expenses, loans and leases for farm equipment and vehicles, livestock and farm improvements, family expenses, equity lines of credit and more. Many farm programs apply for part time farmers.
Check out Farm Credit Services of Mid-America.
Will your equine non-profit locate in a rural setting on current or former farm or ranch land? Are you purchasing land from a retiring farmer or rancher? Are you willing to produce an agricultural product on some of the land, and consider yourself a beginner farmer with ten or less years of farming or ranching experience? If so, you may benefit most from establishing your accounts with a bank that specializes in serving the agricultural community.
There are special federally supported lending programs for small farmers ($500 to $250,000 in sales), beginning farmers, and retirement transition programs to keep rural land productive as farmers retire and their heirs choose not to remain on the land.
Farm Credit System Report: Young and Beginning Farmers and Ranchers 2006.pdf
Are you setting up shop in an urban or mixed urban/rural area that is being re-developed or is targeted
for improvement? Today many community banks have business banking and loan officers who are right on top of programs for Empowerment Zones.
A bank wants to see that you have a sound business plan, a reasonable budget, adequate skilled staff to manage the business and operational components of your non-profit, and risk management plans should problems arise. It does not matter whether you just want a checking account for receiving donations and paying bills, a mortgage
for some land, or a small line of credit guaranteed by your personal assets to get started. Your management and entrepreneurial skills can impress a bank and inspire it to go out of its way to save you money and succeed, or they can write you off as well-meaning but small fry. Banks large and small invest in their communities and gain goodwill that translates into business
by doing so. Banks have relationships throughout those communities. Choose a bank that is as likely to be a good networking and educational resource as it is a place to use the ATM.
Many accounting software developers offer
accounting packages and accounting training CD's for free, or a
nominal administration and shipping fee to non-profit organizations.
This includes big name manufacturers like QuickBooks. Also,
hardware to run the software on, and many other services and supplies
are available deeply discounted or free from technology companies.
You don't have to buy at the "big box" store and use your Tax Exempt
ID to just save on the sales tax and maybe get a small discount.
Contact us for more information.
You can start with QuickBooks for NonProfits and it may be all that you need for many years, depending on how simple your payroll, fundraising, and expenses are. It has the advantage of a quick learning curve for non-profit managers with little or no accounting knowledge or experience. Many free and inexpensive tutorials are
readily available. Another advantage is the many other programs that can work with it or receive information from it, so that you do not have to re-type data. When administrative time is limited for small agencies, "one-step data capture" is extremely valuable.
Ready to step up from QuickBooks and looking for a web-based solution you and your bookkeeper can access from anywhere? Intacct offers full-featured accounting software for non-profits, and a
conversion path for current QuickBooks and Peachtree users, and full integration for Salesforce users.
Regardless of what software package you choose to keep your books, it helps to have a handle on non-profit bookkeeping in general. There are items to track not encountered in commercial businesses, and not reported the same way on commercial tax returns. In fact, even if you have commercial bookkeeping experience, it helps to
use this guide to get "up to speed" before shopping for software. It is also a good simple guide for an Executive Director who does not have to keep the books as job duty, but needs to be aware of the basics of non-profit bookkeeping and will do budgeting with the board members and get information from the bookkeeper for budgets and monthly status reports.
Speaking of budgeting, this is another exercise any manager needs to become skilled at, whether for profit or non-profit. In fact, the tighter the finances, the more important your budget is to keep expenses under control and plan activities. If an individual without a budget tends to waste at least $10 per day, imagine what
could happen to a horse non-profit with 1,000 pound animals to feed! Plus, if your non-profit will apply for grants, your grant writing process will include a budget for the project. Project budgets are a special sub-set, and most grant writers benefit from learning how to put those budgets together when the program manager or bookkeeper provide background or historical
information, and then will edit drafts given to them to review.
If your non-profit has completed setting up its legal status and basic business plan, marketing plan, job descriptions and operations manuals, you may be ready to start applying for grants. It should come as no surprise that you must have a business-like proposal as to why you need "X" dollars to do something, and the ability to account for what you do with the
money once someone "grants" it to you. This is where most non-profit organizations drop the ball. But getting set up to do it properly in the first place is not difficult, it just takes a little foresight and organization. The Grant Seeker's Budget Toolkit enables you to do that without re-inventing the wheel.
Excellent accounting for your non-profit is a necessity from the very beginning. In order to apply for many grant and loan opportunities, audited books for one or two of your most recent years of operation are often required. If you can't pass an audit that confirms your claims of donations, expenses, and community
participation, you are going to miss the boat on countless funding opportunities that require the granting company, foundation, or government agency to do "due diligence." Since you are going to keep good books from the outset, then, you should choose software that enables you to do "grant tracking" from the beginning, rather than have to change systems at a later date.
Accounting software for non-profits that
receive grants for specific projects becomes a necessity.
The donor makes a condition of the grant that you provide a final report of how it's money was spent and whether that achieved the expected outcome or not. Accountants and bookkeepers accustomed to private sector accounting
would refer to this as "job tracking", so that income and expenses can
be assigned to a particular "job" as well as rolled up into the
regular profit centers and general ledger.
Sage Software has been a leader in small to medium sized business accounting software for decades. They acquired Peachtree Accounting about five years ago. Sage's Fund Accounting software is a good choice for non-profits with several grants to administer, or that receives funding from public schools and other government
agencies. and it integrates seamlessly with their Fundraising software that tracks special events, donors, and volunteers.
Spectra Software
offers an integrated accounting package that you can use online or
purchase to use offline.
Donor Management Software
With so many donor-management software packages out there, it can
be difficult to keep track of the tools offered by each. To help you
stay organized, TechSoup has created a comparison chart, which lays
out side-by-side the key features of eleven popular donor-management
systems, including:
 |
The Raiser's Edge |
 |
Sage Software Sage Fundraising 50 Version 7.0 |
 |
DonorPerfect Visual Edition 8.0 (installed) |
 |
DonorPerfect Online (ASP) |
 |
Mission Research GiftWorks |
 |
eBase Version 2.12 |
 |
eTapestry |
 |
Salesforce.com |
 |
Telosa Exceed! Basic |
 |
Telosa Exceed! Premier |
 |
TowerCare Technologies DonorPro |
Use TechSoup's downloadable spreadsheet last updated in October of
2007 to compare the features of these and other donor-management
products you may be considering for your organization. Tech Soup added
additional columns to give you space to assess applications not
included in this comparison.
Here is the link to Tech Soup's website to
download the Excel spreadsheet comparison chart:
Matchmaker Fundraising software is not included in the list above, but is a comprehensive program to track and work with donors, sponsors, special events, volunteers.
Sage Software has been a leader in small to medium sized business accounting software for decades. They acquired Peachtree Accounting about five years ago. Sage's Fund Accounting software is a good choice for non-profits with several grants to administer, or that receives funding from public schools and other government agencies. and it integrates
seamlessly with their Fundraising software that tracks special events, donors, and volunteers.
Advertise for volunteers with a free basic listing on VolunteerMatch (see Recruiting section) then keep track of their training, availability, schedule them and track their hours for service awards.
GiftWorks Volunteer Management Software enables you to track Volunteer Rosters,
Participation, Training completed, and Assignments and match volunteer availability with job and schedule requirements. Even if your non-profit rescue, retirement, or therapeutic riding center is starting very small, with just a few horses and volunteers, the sooner you learn to take advantage of a database and scheduling package, the more time you will have to take care of other
tasks that cannot be automated.

As you apply for donations, grants, and sponsorships from foundations and corporations and government agencies, you will immediately notice that being able to show a track record of service, and a demand for more service, as well as volunteer involvement in factual, statistical, measurable form is necessary. If you are overwhelmed
with calls from people who want to take therapeutic riding lessons, but cannot give a precise count of how many you turned away, you have missed the boat. If you believe there is a huge demand for family horses to be rescued during difficult economic times and a rise in the unemployment rate, but have no call records to back that up, you are going to lose credibility as well as
have difficulty showing what the per dollar impact of a grant or donation or sponsorship might have. The person or committee that reviews grant requests needs to get "the most bang for the buck". If they give you more money to serve more riders with disabilities, or more abused horses, can you show there are more in your geographical area to be served that know about your service
and want to take advantage of it? Once the donor gives you the money, can you show you served more, as expected, and met the goal of the grant? If the program is new, can you document pent up demand? If you receive funding from them, can you demonstrate that you are nurturing and managing your other fundraising sources wisely?
Presently, this is the area where horse rescues can learn a great deal from established pet shelters, and in so doing, help move the entire horse rescue problem from manipulated estimates that fire up emotions, to facts that thoughtful people can tackle to actually help horses.
National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy This is an excellent resource for how to keep logs and statistics of calls from surrenderers, understanding how the bond is
broken, the top ten reasons people relinquish their animals, the bias that almost always enters the conversation between the volunteer who is receiving the animal and the person who is relinquishing it.
At some point your figures from call logs and volunteer hours and website visits and clients served get compared with similar charities in your state, region, or nationally. If you do not do it to show that a donation dollar given to you is well-spent by comparison, the person or committee reviewing your grant or sponsorship
request probably will.
You should make it your business to track whatever statistics are available in your field, so that you can use them in your marketing and grant writing materials. Be sure to compare apples to apples - your weekly figures do not compare to an annual report unless you add up 52 weeks! Don't leave it to your reader to do the
math. If your equine charity does not have good state or national statistics collected by a good state or national professional association or government agency, such as the livestock board, or NARHA or EAGALA, write letters to urge the right people to take action so your tax dollars or association dues are being used to produce this valuable information. Be a squeaky
wheel. If we need more livestock officers to respond to abuse complaints, there should be a matrix of statistics as to what type of abuse, which counties, during what seasons, at what kinds of properties, for what breed, age, sex, and level of training of horses, donkeys, or mules, and this information should be made public.
Neither the hysterical claims of the American Horse Council that at least 100,000 horses annually will need to be rescued, nor the claims of the Humane Society of the United States that hardly any would be, if equine slaughter were outlawed, could rely on facts concerning the actual sources of the horses so destroyed. The AHC says
they are mostly family pets that people cannot afford to keep and cannot afford to euthanize, and the HSUS claims they are mostly the discards of racetracks, rodeos, breeding programs and PMU factory farms. Since no reliable records exist, and the USDA and US Customs simply count heads of stallions, mares and geldings, the matter can be argued indefinitely. So long as it is
up for debate where the "unwanted" horses come from, it is also debatable where to focus rescue efforts, where to focus education, or change commercial practices concerning horses, or stop breeding and racing subsidies, to most effectively staunch the tide of "unwanted" horses. When the problem cannot be defined, neither can the solution be defined. Of all industries,
the horse industry seems to have the most murky and least reliable statistics, with projections made on top of faulty estimates from small samples of previous decades, then circulated as facts. The other kinds of businesses from whom you are likely to seek donations simply don't function that way, and are not comfortable with it. For them, lack of "actionable
information" can mean ruin, by overproducing a product for too small a market, or overpricing, etc. For them, sitting with excess inventory, or running out of product, or not training enough call center staff to meet demand, can cost entire departments their jobs.
The National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS) has many tools to locate charities in your field by state, financial size, and more. It can be a valuable resource to obtain more detailed information to compare
funding, clientele service, operating expenses and community partnerships. This launching point enables you to speak and write knowledgeably about your non-profit business when you write your business and marketing plans and grant/sponsorship requests.
TIP: Knowledge is power. Statistics are the method by which businesses take the temperature of the market, and measure their success. Statistics end up on profit and loss statements at the end of the cycle. To be a successful horse business today, you must figure out what statistics are
important to your operation, and then find an easy, sustainable, reliable way to collect them. Both for your own operation, and for state, regional and national averages against which to compare them, assembling and interpreting numbers is critical in a fast-changing economy.
Pet Rescue Management software that helps create these kinds of statistics for you, and generates reports, is offered by ShelterPro. As they describe their product, "Shelter Pro Software is designed for Animal
Control and Animal Shelter records management. It is used by Animal Shelters, Animal Control and Law Enforcement, Humane Societies, SPCAs, and private Kennels. Great software for a great price. Try the free demo and call with any questions. "
| Google Apps for
non-profit organizations |
Google Apps is a Suite of Web-based applications that include Gmail
(email & chat including mobile devices), Google Talk (text and
voice), Google Calendar (including meetings and shared calendars),
Google Docs (create, share, collaborate on documents real-time),
Google Sites (team sharing of internal information, employee
handbooks, volunteer procedures, or publish), Start Page to collect
all of the applications together. Registered non-profits with current
501(c)(3) status in the U.S. now qualify for Google Apps Education
Edition. To get started, just complete the
Education Edition signup form. Google will verify your 501(c)(3)
status using your 9-digit Employee ID Number, and contact you about
the status of your Edition upgrade via email. Google intends to
expand the availability of the Education Edition to international
non-profits, so please stay tuned. In the mean time, international
non-profits are welcome to signup for Google Apps Standard Edition,
currently available in many languages worldwide. If you already have
a Google Apps account and you have 501(c)(3) status, you can request an upgrade to the Education Edition. Upgrade requests
are reviewed within 1-2 weeks.
Microsoft Small Business on MSN has many
tools for small businesses for free or nearly free.
TechSoup offers qualified non-profits excellent discounts on computer hardware and software, electronics, and other items your office needs. The discounts are tied to the financial size of your organization, and documentation of your non-profit status is required. Valuable products like
Norton Internet Security may be available for as little as $8.00 per copy.
The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) has established guidelines for the selection, care, client interaction with, appropriate activities of and well-being of animals that work in animal
assisted activities and therapies.
Most of the equine record software packages or print forms on the market are designed for single horse owners, breeding farms, or show training stables. While most do a decent job of tracking vaccinations, worming, and shoeing, they usually include pedigree, breeding, showing, or billing features you don't need at a therapeutic riding center or horse
rescue. If you purchase one, you are likely to be disappointed that you cannot track information you need about a therapy horse or a rescue you are rehabilitating and intend to rehome, or need to schedule a follow-up visit for.
However, if you intend to care for even a few horses, or have several volunteers, or plan to be in business more than a year, you need records. Further, those records need to be accessible and easy to maintain. For help setting up a simple but useful system that tracks your horses,
contact us.
TIP: Keep everything organized with legible stamps and labels. Especially if you have volunteers that help for a few hours per week, make it easy for them by stamping or attaching brief labels of instructions that you frequently
repeat.
For rescues and sanctuaries the need to track horses being supported by donors, out on trial periods, and a variety of special considerations, as well as statistics means you may need to adapt to Pet Rescue Management Software, such as is offered by
Shelter Pro . Avoid buying a closing shelter's PetWhere software, as the developer has discontinued it. If you have this software and need support, try this fellow who used to work for the developer:
http://www.jassing.com/PetWhere/.
NEW! 01/09/09 The Unwanted Horse Veterinary Relief Campaign is a partnership of Intervet/Shering-Plough pharmaceuticals and the
American Association of Equine Practitioners to provide equine vaccines to 501(c)(3) Non-Profit horse rescues, retirement and rehabilitation facilities and sanctuaries for their Spring or Fall vaccinations. There is no limit to the number of horses the agency can receive vaccines for. The agency must be following the AAEP Guidelines for a rescue or sanctuary, and work with
an AAEP member veterinarian who jointly applies with the non-profit for the vaccines. Here is the FAQ Brochure .PDF:
Intervet AAEP Rescue Vaccines 2009 FAQSheet.pdf
Scheduling a meeting of a committee, a board, staff or volunteers can soak up precious time. Today, travel around town to attend a meeting is expensive. People who would like to participate and have great skills to offer may live an impractical distance away or, due to a full time job, can only meet in the evening but can't
drive to your farm at night.
Gain flexibility and participation by holding meetings online, or a combination of online and at the farm. Here are some tools to investigate, besides the traditional telephone conference call. Can you do the part of your volunteer orientation and training that does not have to be hands on as an online seminar? Can your
board meet this way some of the time? How about standing committees? Can you offer online courses to raise funds?
TIP: When training or riding or handling horses, experienced horsepeople make it easy for the horse to do the right thing, and a little bit difficult, awkward, or too much trouble, to do the wrong thing. When training, recruiting, organizing or communicating with important human
assets to your non-profit, the same principle applies: make it easy to do, and stop making it difficult, awkward, or too much trouble or too much time to do. Use that computer that is taking up space on your desk to connect you to your most valuable resources - people!
Typically, the software offers access to both PC and Mac users, enables you to share your entire desktop, and transfer control to another user, as well as record the meeting. Some offer video conferencing and/or audio conferencing, and current versions of most plans do not require downloading software to the attendees' computers.
Virtually all offer a free trial period and an unlimited number of sessions per month. Big variables among the industry leaders are:
-
the number of users per session ranging from 10 to 150,
-
the monthly fees ranging from $29 to $100,
-
whether or not they include onscreen live chat or integrated voice-over-internet (VOIP).
Here are five major vendors for you to check out.
An advantage of most web conferencing services have over in-person meetings is the ability to record entire meetings as a video or audio file. If some staff or volunteers cannot attend, or meeting attendees forget important points or need to reference presentations at a later date, they can simply view the recording rather than contact other
participants with questions. Find out how the service provider you are considering stores the recording. Some allow you to download it to your local machine, while others host the files on their own site. Some make both options available. A video or audio file can be large, so this is a point to consider if your nonprofit's computers have limited hard-drive space.
DoJiggy is easy, affordable online event and fund-raising software to help non-profits and community organizations hold auctions, silent auctions, golf tournaments, walk-a-thons, luncheons, conferences, and other fund-raising or awareness-raising events. It includes
scheduling, marketing, reservations, payment processing, reports, lists - everything you need to plan, market, manage and succeed with a first-class event.
EasyWare also includes an interface to PrintTix for integrating easy online at-home ticket purchase and print technology into your non-profit accounting software and website.
Cvent handles all aspects of a conference including: Online Registration Event Email Marketing Payment Processing
Travel, Housing & Budgeting Strategic Meetings Management. Major non-profits such as Goodwill, Salvation Army and NARHA use cvent services.
September is National
Emergency Preparedness Month each year. The prestige and credibility of
your equine non-profit can be enhanced by providing community service
as a partner with the Department of Homeland Security. Using
materials conveniently available through Ready.gov , you can distribute information and tools for large animal emergency planning, or coordinate local large stables, fairgrounds, racetracks, horse show venues, rodeo or roping arenas as temporary shelters in the event of an emergency.
SUCCESS AND CREDIBILITY TIP FOR HORSE RESCUE AND SANCTUARY NON-PROFITS: Distributing Safety, Emergency, and Disaster Planning information year-round via your website or barn office provides an opportunity for related free publicity about your agency and its core mission.
Make sure you have your press release and media kit ready to take advantage of it.
TIP: If your non-profit works with the special needs population, consider a link on your website to: Disabilities/911, the disaster preparedness website for persons with disabilities.
As you develop your equine charity's own safety, emergency, and disaster plans, don't forget maintaining good regular backups of your computer software and data, from email address books to online accounts to actual accounting data, contact databases, and horse records. The first thing you may need to access following an evacuation
may be your lists of volunteers and donors. No backups should be more than a week old, and if you need to subscribe to an automatic online service to get this peace of mind, you only need to use it once when a computer's hard disk crashes to realize it is worth every penny.
Please visit the Emergencies Page of our Senior Horse Care section for more tips and resources for emergency and disaster planning for horses and stables. For affordable assistance developing a practical Disaster Plan for your horse business, please
Contact Us.
You may become the subject of media attention in the event of an emergency or disaster. Now is a good time to review our tips for handling the media in a potentially negative situation. Visit our section in
Public Relations and Publicity called Crisis Management on the Non-Profit Advertising and Marketing resources page.
Security as Safety
(Top
of Page)
If you intend to recruit women and teenagers as volunteers around your farm, or if you intend to provide equine-assisted activities to vulnerable populations, such as children at a summer camp, persons with mental, emotional or physical conditions, you must attend to their safety and security needs. You must provide adequate
visitor identification and control, proper lighting for those walking to their cars at night, safe restrooms, and clear training and operational procedures.
TIP: Quality signage is an important statement of your professionalism, and can contribute significantly to safety. Designate parking areas and no-parking areas clearly. Specify which entrance to use if there is more than one. Post the proper Equine Warning signs for your state. If a gate must be
closed and latched, put a sign on it. If an area is off limits because of a hazard, there should be a sign. If you have rules like "Don't feed fingers to horses" put signs where fingers are tempted. Visit the Horse Non-Profit Resources - Advertising & Marketing page for tips on how to plan your overall signage needs and design.
Special Olympics offers excellent free online training on best practices for working with vulnerable populations. All equine facilities that serve women and children, whether for profit or non-profit, can learn a great deal by
taking this course. Non-profits should formally subscribe to their protective behaviors guidelines and mention it in their recruiting materials.
If you have volunteers or vulnerable clients, also consider checking your city, county, or state list of Registered Offenders periodically. Here in Phoenix, it displays a map of the locations of their residences. I was surprised how many lived in our neighborhood, within a couple of blocks of the schools. A beautiful
little horse farm that attracts kids or women is as attractive to these bad apples as a public park, carnival, gym or playground. Sorry, but that is the modern world in which we live. Just because you are on a back country road is no longer a reason to feel a false sense of security.
Budget for small security improvements like gate alarms, lighting, cameras and so on each year. Few of us have a Sugar Daddy providing the ideal secured perimeter and monitoring from day one. But you can plan to handle the most urgent needs first, and keep improving. Plus, you can get your local sheriff or police
department to pay a courtesy visit at a time convenient to them to meet you and discuss what you are doing to protect your assets, your animals, and your visitors.
Barn fires are one of a stable operator's worst nightmares. Can you believe they still happen every year? The number of occurrences country wide might surprise you. Learn how to prevent them. We all think it will never happen to us. Don't hope so, make sure. Visit our
Emergencies page for many helpful tips, tools, and links.
Laurie Loveman is an professional horsewoman, veterinary assistant, breeder, firefighter and stable owner. She is also the author of a series of novels and contributor to Appaloosa World. Laurie has a website dedicated to preventing barn fires that kill horses,
other animals, and people.
From the very beginning, collect and keep verifiable statistics on the equine community, and larger local community that you serve. As your equine non-profit grows, and you become eligible to apply for grants and participation on government and civic committees and boards that impact your mission, you need to clearly and briefly
articulate the impact of your organization on the equine, special needs, and larger community.
For example, let us say you have a therapeutic riding center that wants to assist wounded warriors who are amputees from Afghanistan and Iraq. How many are there in your geographic area? Nationally, as of mid-2007 there were 803. What if you open your vision to include Vietnam veterans? Nationally, there are
75,000 disabled Vietnam veterans. Perhaps a reasonable client base live within a half hour drive of your center, and have conditions you are well equipped to serve. This knowledge directs your grant requests toward a slightly different audience.
If you are writing a grant request for a horse rescue, and make the case that horses are at risk of abandonment, what information can you cite from state, county, and local livestock officers, or BLM or USFS range managers, or private land owners concerning horse abandonments in your area? What have been the historical experience
trends? Are there more or fewer documented cases over the last five years? Are the cases specific to a time of year, or concentrated in particular counties? What are the breeds, sexes, ages, level of training and conditions of those horses? You may find that no such statistics are available, once you make contact with and develop positive working relationships
with local agencies. Perhaps your first grant will actually be to set up a system for collecting and analyzing this data. Perhaps you simply need to make telephone calls once monthly to complete a questionnaire you design to collect the data. But make no mistake. This data is valuable.
For more information about grant writing
for start-up non-profits, visit the website of this professional
consultant
The Write Source - Grant Writing Consultancy and
Clinics
According to The Equestrian Land Conservation Resource, land is being lost to development at the astonishing rate of 250 acres per hour, so it's important to stem the tide. ELCR offers a publication,
"Horses Make Good Neighbors," that educates people who are not familiar with horses about the important ways in which horses contribute to their local communities.
Need a lead to get started? Petsmart Charities offers grants to horse rescues that promote adoption. Watch their webinar and learn.
NOTE: 76 percent of fundraised money in 2006 came from individuals, according to Giving USA.
Validation sites post your latest IRS Tax Return (Form 990) so that people and foundations can research your legitimacy before committing funds. Here are three of them to choose from. Your non-profit should be listed with at least one of them once you have filed your first return. It is also possible for individuals to donate via credit card
securely at these sites after doing their due diligence. It is a good idea to make it easy for donors to act without having to jump from site to site.
Animal Charities of America is a nonprofit organization that pre-screens high quality animal related charities and presents
them for giving consideration. Individuals can donate on the site. They are a member of Independent Charities of America (see below) and the Combined Federal Campaign (see Payroll Deduction section above.) Both ICA and CFC require your IRS
990 tax return.
Independent
Charities of America,
Charity Navigator,
GuideStar,
There are also organizations that keep track of complaints or publish standards for reputable charities. Here are two:
Better
Business Bureau. and
Standards
for Excellence Institute Certified Non-Profit
 
Is one of your board members, officers,
or volunteers a dynamic speaker with a story to tell? Has your
organization implemented a successful program? Have you overcome
adversity? Is your mission important? Perhaps you can
package that enthusiasm, knowledge and message into a half hour or
fifty minute presentation. While many opportunities to speak are
not paid, others are. It is appropriate to receive an honorarium
for speaking, in addition to travel expenses. The same
presentation that you give as a guest speaker at a corporate event for
$1,000 plus expenses might be delivered gratis to a non-profit
association. Why make the non-profit presentation? In many
cases, members in the audience are decision makers at for-profit or
government agencies that would be able to pay for the same
presentation to be given to their employees or customers.
Visit
idealist.org and search their
database of 3,668 speakers for some ideas of how presentations are
marketed to non-profits, a friendly venue in which to get your feet
wet and hone your topics that sell.
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By Discovering The Secrets The World Champions Of Public Speaking Use
Darren LaCroix shares all his Public Speaking World Champion secrets Click Here!
Having a Board of
Directors is critical to the success of an organization. For a
start-up or a busy horse rescue or adoption agency or retirement
sanctuary, it is imperative. You must differentiate yourself
from hoarders and horse brokers.
For all equine
related businesses, profit and non-profit alike, that seek grants or
loans from government agencies, or foundations, having a board
of directors speaks volumes about your ability to grow your business
and step out of the statistics of overwhelming failure of
entrepreneurial one-man-bands that have short lives and poor business
practices because one horse trainer or one horse rescuer or one equine
mental health therapists is trying to run a complex business
single-handedly.
Speaking of being a
one-man band, or mom-and-pop team, without a board of directors to
provide support and a perspective one step emotionally removed from
the day-to-day issues, sooner or later you will burn out. If you
are a riding instructor or retirement boarding stable operator who
wants to do this until the day you can comfortably retire and just
ride your own horses, or you are a horse rescuer, or run a
hippotherapy center you need a group of supporters with whom you can
share confidential business planning, issues, and choices,
including personnel management. It is a big mistake to vent to
volunteers or clients or employees. Many horse business
operators are tempted to do so because with the long hours they work
at the farm, the temptation is extreme. Unlike other industries,
there are few professional clubs with local chapters where they can
talk business without customers present. You are, however, in
contact with employees, some of your volunteers, and clients
every day, The urge to discuss farm affairs is strong, and in no
time, concerned customers or well-meaning volunteers who have
differing goals are running your operation by ad hoc committee or
developing conflicts among themselves that causes key employees,
volunteers, or customers to pack up and take their skills, passions,
or business elsewhere.
Board members not
only have experience in areas you lack, and can thus help develop
resources that would take you forever to "get up to speed on", but
board members know people in your community. Every person knows
250 people - whether it is a customer who can refer business, a
volunteer who can refer more volunteers, or a donor who knows other
people who might donate. The same is true for your board of
directors. They know other people in their field, and they know
other successful people generally, and key people, like suppliers, in
your industry. While a veterinarian on your horse lay-up and
retirement facility board should not be expected to donate unlimited
free veterinary care to rescued retirees, he is probably called upon
by manufacturers and wholesalers who have a marketing and sales
budget. The sales departments of these companies routinely give
away samples, purchases raffle tickets, buy advertising in community
events, etc. as normal ordinary sales expenses. Your veterinary
board member can funnel their largess to your outfit. It is easy
for him to ask the salesman during a regular quarterly delivery/sales
call if XYZ company would like to buy a full page ad in ABC
Sanctuary's upcoming Barn Sale promotional catalog going out to all
the local horsepeople, or a sponsorship that underwrites their full
page ad in the State Horse Monthly Magazine.
But how to recruit
a board, who to recruit for your board, and what their function should
be, is what you need to master. The two most important jobs of board members to keep in mind when recruiting and focusing this talent are:
-
Governance. Setting the mission, goals, and values of the organization and ensuring that legal, insurance, and financial housekeeping and management is in order and transparent at all times. They are the compliance watchdogs of a non-profit and can be held personally liable if the
corporate veil is pierced due to sloppy cash handling, improper use of donor contributions, or management of staff or volunteers. Though recruited by the founder or executive director, they are not there to "rubber stamp" everything you decide to do, passively accepting your decisions and explanations in exchange for something that looks good on their resumes. The board
members have real fiduciary responsibility and besides technical expertise, such as a horse training, special needs education, or veterinary background, genuine management skills. Consequently, most non-profits have on their boards corporate managers with experience hiring staff, supervising projects or product launches, marketing and purchasing goods and services, as well as an attorney and a
CPA.
It is the responsibility of your Board of Directors to ensure you have policies and procedures for employee and volunteer travel expense reimbursement, reimbursement of business expenses purchasing supplies or services for your non-profit's special events, fundraisers, or operations. Your Board writes and approves human resources
policies and procedures concerning recruiting, hiring, performance and salary reviews, disciplinary action and termination. Failure to do so can jeopardize your ability to be awarded grants or government contracts. It is also unfair to the Executive Director to have to either do all this alone, or worse, arbitrarily make decisions on the spur of the moment when presented
with the need for a management determination.
The Board, with its roles of governance and fundraising, takes the time to devise a website policy to include, for example, how links to other websites will be handled. This protects the non-profit from establishing links contrary to its mission, or that could be in violation of its non-profit status, or discriminatory and subject
to lawsuit. Even if the director chooses links wisely and consistently, it is the Board's job to back him up with a written publicly published policy.
It helps to have a Board of Directors Handbook, just as you have an Employee and Volunteer Handbook. These 33 Principles from The Non-Profit Panel make an excellent start.
Principles of Non_Profits for Boards Executive Summary.pdf
(Top
of Page)
Full Guide of 33 Principles for Non_Profits.pdf
Who you attracted to your board, and their activities tells companies, foundations, government agencies, and individual donors and volunteers a great deal about your non-profit and helps them decide whether or not to get involved. These are the people who would have to recruit and evaluate candidates, and help a new Executive
Director, should you decide to retire, or become ill and unable to continue as the primary manager of your non-profit, or merge it with another to find new homes and jobs for horses and staff. Your website, media kit,
and newsletters should make their names and brief biographies readily available.
If you look at the boards of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the last decade, both are populated with attorneys who held political appointments throughout their careers with no business management, banking, or economics experience under their belts, such as Jamie
Goerlick, Deputy Atttorney General for Bill Clinton [famous for writing the FBI-CIA "Wall of Separation" rule that contributed to the 9-11 intelligence failure], and were "paid off" with prestigious and lucrative seats on these boards by their outgoing administrations, or for political support, such as Knoxville well-meaning
Mayor Victor Ashe, appointed by President Bush. In addition to failing to respond to concerns raised by whistleblower employees, Vice Chairman Goerlick and other members of the board were paid substantial bonuses themselves under the
unacceptable accounting practices beginning in 1998. Ashe, who did not receive the bonuses since he was not appointed until 2001, described himself as qualified because he understood the need for affordable home ownership in his town. In October of 2004 stakeholders sued the entire board of
directors for malfeasance leading to Fannie Mae's first bankruptcy, and in 2006 a process began of completely replacing the board. {Compare to credentials of the current board. and their
connections.) It is the incompetent board from 1997 to 2006 who were oblivious to the multi-billion dollar scandal of cooked books by management to award themselves bonuses, and approved grotesque compensation packages for the officers such as
Franklin Raines for developing and re-selling high-risk mortgages. It is a clear example of why one of the two most important jobs of board members is governance with transparency, and how the ability to identify and oversee good management is just as critical as bringing in money - the two
roles must be kept in balance.
They are the perfect example of why a good corporate giving department or foundation that approves grants, or an experienced philanthropist, will take a careful took at the transparency and makeup of your board as part of their due diligence before writing you a check. You may never know that the composition of your board was
the reason a different non-profit won the grant you were seeking, but it is an extremely common reason. You may never know the talented volunteers and small donors who represent 70-80% of your free labor and your income who choose to place their time and money elsewhere if you do not disclose who is on your board, make them accessible, and choose them carefully for their
non-profit business acumen and management skills. High-profile bungling of such corporations as Enron, quasi-government agencies as Fannie Mae, and embezzlement at non-profit icons like the American Red Cross have made many more people aware and careful not
to be taken advantage of.
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Fundraising. People who like to raise money for non-profits and are good at it belong on your board. A person who cannot or will not help you raise money or develop new revenue sources or vendor discounts belongs on a committee of their interest, but not on your board. Money
must come in to a commercial entity through sales, a government entity through taxes, or a non-profit through donations or dues continuously. It has to come in during booms and recessions, and in enough quantity at the right time to cover the monthly "nut" - the bills you must pay just to exist and care for your horses if you don't give a single billable therapeutic
riding lesson or grief counseling session or eco-tour.
Without the peace of mind that minimal payroll is met and the mortgage is paid and the horses are fed, you as a manager are distracted from the daily operation of the mission, are in deep stress, and the horses are in actual danger. Most non-profit employees, including the Executive Directors, receive little or no compensation and are
tempted in tough times to "donate" operating expenses. If you can afford to personally fund your non-profit, fine, but a board that expects you or your core staff and volunteers to do that also does not care if everyone quits when they are tapped out and just cannot afford to live and support the non-profit simultaneously anymore. The board is responsible for making
sure that does not happen, as individuals and as a group.
When it comes to a seat on the board, caring deeply about horses, veterans, at-risk youth, adults with disabilities, or children with special needs is not qualification enough. Those are critical valid reasons to donate or volunteer at the ranch or on a marketing or special event committee, or with virtual office work such as
website maintenance, but not to serve on a board of directors.
These two crucial and fundamental roles, governance and fundraising, are why major corporate and foundation donors are entitled to, and frequently demand and get, a seat on a non-profit's board of directors.
There are over one million non-profit agencies in the U.S.A., competing for the best, brightest, most capable board members to guide and enhance their organizations. Before you begin recruiting, learn a little bit about how to identify the right people for your start-up or next-stage equine non-profit, and how best to attract them
and make the experience a win-win for both of you.
Once you are ready to recruit a board, it is possible to reach out beyond your small circle of friends, acquaintances, volunteers and business contacts to find experienced non-profit board members interested in your field. As important as it is to involve your local community influencers, it is also important to enlarge your
horizons.
SUCCESS &
CREDIBILITY TIP: You must have
a page containing information about your Board of Directors on your
website. This can be a section of your "About Us" page, or a
separate "child" page of that section. You must also include
this information in your media kit with other brief corporate facts.
Keep your board energized and effective with the quick newsletter from CompassPoint, called Board Cafe. Here's an example of one
containing a succinct discussion of how to handle contact between staff/volunteers and your board to prevent undermining you as CEO, but enable positive communication to flow for committees, programs, and, if they arise, complaints.
http://www.compasspoint.org/boardcafe/details.php?id=85
Here's another on ways to improve board meetings, with links to other sites of value to board members: http://www.compasspoint.org/boardcafe/details.php?id=16
Another excellent resource for board members is Board Source with links to information and helpful articles specifically for those with oversight and mission responsibility.
For recruiting paid officer and staff
core position employees consider idealist.org.
A job positing normally costs $60, but occasionally there are free trial promotions.
It is the responsibility of your Board of Directors to ensure you have policies and procedures for employee and volunteer travel expense reimbursement, reimbursement of business expenses purchasing supplies or services for your non-profit's special events, fundraisers, or operations. Your Board writes and approves human resources
policies and procedures concerning recruiting, hiring, performance and salary reviews, disciplinary action and termination. Failure to do so can jeopardize your ability to be awarded grants or government contracts. It is also unfair to the Executive Director to have to either do all this alone, or worse, arbitrarily make decisions on the spur of the moment when presented
with the need for a management determination.
Your Executive Director and other management staff carry out the policies and vision of the Board of Directors and run daily operations. They should have written policies to enforce fairly that comply with state and federal labor laws, certification association requirements, insurance policy requirements, and accepted accounting
practices that pass scrutiny with the I.R.S. and public auditors.
Unless you are a Medusa and able to work a 24 hour day 7 days per week, 365 days per year, you need help. If you have ever been a supervisor, manager, or small business owner, you know that staff turnover is costly in time and money and that training and supervising staff is a major part of running a successful enterprise of any kind.
From Day One you need to recruit, identify skills and interests, train, and keep energized a group of volunteers. Whether a volunteer feeds horses and mucks stalls, drives the truck and horse trailer to pick up horses, or maintains your mission critical website, he or she is a valuable asset.
For your equine non-profit and its volunteers to benefit the most from each other, volunteers should be managed as part of an overall, systematic program, somewhat similar to the systematic approach that should be used to managing employees. There are differences between how employees and volunteers are managed, but the differences are
much less than most people realize.
Whether a person is a part-time employee paid minimum wage, a manager paid a salary, or a volunteer paid nothing, some labor laws and tax laws apply. Ensure you have written policies and procedures. See the sections on Board of Directors and
Officers for more information on Employee Handbooks, Expense Reimbursements, and reasons why you cannot safely "invent it as you go."
Almost one third of the U.S. population volunteers. Approximately 28.8 percent of Americans over the age of 16 volunteered through or for an organization in 2005. [Source: National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCSS)}
One of the most important influences on the caliber of volunteer you can recruit is your non-profit's public image. No recruiting advertisements, no volunteer recognition program, no training, no job perks will do more to help you attract the best qualified and most committed volunteers than a quality well-recognized public image in the community you
serve.
If you have women, teenagers, or disabled individuals volunteering on your premises, you also need to assure the adult ladies and the families of youth and special needs workers that the environment is safe. For a very small group of volunteers, background checks may not be necessary, nor training in protective behaviors for vulnerable populations.
However, the physical safety and security of the premises, including the lighting of the parking area for folks leaving the ranch after dark, is something you have an obligation to address. Likewise, controlling visitor access in a friendly and welcoming manner is simply prudent. Also, appropriate restroom arrangements other than entering your home at any time are critical.
See also Screening below.
Volunteer Match is the largest volunteer online network where you can
post volunteer opportunities. Check it out at
4laborsoflove.org is another very large volunteer matching network.
They also help you get started with volunteer background checks.
If you can't find enough volunteers to cover your horse training, rehabilitating, adoption, foster home vetting and training, etc. needs during the hours necessary, you may want to hire a part-time professional. Besides getting the exact expertise you need, this person's job duties could include training volunteers in horse skills they lack.
Here's one equine industry employment service. 
Visit the Del Camino resources page for commercial horse businesses for more links.
For a bit of support getting started as a manager of a volunteer workforce, visit The Corporation for National and Community Service for resources, tips and tools.
Keeping track of who is trained to do what can be a job in itself. Rather than learn yet another software package, EasyWare's non-profit management software can track this for you as well as help recruit, retain, and schedule volunteers.
So can Matchmaker and many other non-profit fully-integrated management and accounting software solutions.
The Volunteer Reporter from Volunteer Software is a comprehensive volunteer management database with add-on modules like Web Assistant for recording the time of virtual (home based) volunteers, and Touch-Screen Monitor for volunteers to record their hours on site.
Features include multi-user, email, awards tracking, active and inactive groups, interest/preference codes, availability, and other well-thought out and integrated functions with a well-designed user interface. A thirty-day free trial and technical support are available.
Without our
wonderful volunteers horse non-profits simply cannot function.
Whether you operate a hippotherapy program, a rescue, a sanctuary, a
rehabilitation or retirement facility, or a charitable horse camp,
volunteers contribute a most valuable asset - skilled labor. The
most expensive cost of operating any for-profit business is labor and
benefits. This is even true for most small horse businesses,
like boarding stables and lesson stables that have horses "on the
payroll" to house, feed, shoe, etc.
Mastering the
recruitment, effective use, scheduling, and recognition of your
volunteers is imperative. Officers otherwise face the same "burn
out" problems as small business entrepreneurs of for-profit stables
and other businesses - trying to do everything from daily horse care
to website maintenance to fund-raising to fielding calls. If you
want your horse non-profit to last, providing a service to people and
job security or a secure home to the horses, you must be an organizer
and a people-person who can master the art of managing the volunteer
roster.
Whether you are in a start-up phase where the Founder and a few key volunteers are doing everything, or have been operating for a decade with a part-time bookkeeper, a part-time office administrator, and a part-time barn manager, you need a written Employee Handbook detailing your non-profit's policies and procedures.
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One topic it must cover clearly is the reimbursement of business expenses. You also owe it to yourself and the organization if you are not being compensated for your time to at least be reimbursed your expenses. If you "donate" the operating expenses without properly accounting for them, in the long run you obscure the true
cost of running the non-profit and how much money needs to be raised annually to meet those expenses. A disgruntled part-time staff member can become a problem, because under the labor laws, which apply to non-profits, even though they can deduct unreimbursed business expenses on their tax returns, they are not required to do so - on the contrary, you are required to pay them,
and can be forced to go back four years and pay them with interest. Not all part-time non-profit employees making minimum wage have independent incomes and "need the tax deduction." Do not presume that because an enthusiastic employee donated some office supplies last month, he can donate this month's feed bill or pay for Chamber of Commerce monthly luncheons or mailing the
newsletter. Expenses commonly disputed that are the responsibility of the business to pay, whether or not it is a non-profit, are:
training costs
seminar costs
telephone charges
mailing costs
postage
subscriptions
office supplies
office equipment
wages of the support staff
costs associated with transaction errors
costs to settle disputes with customers
other necessary business-related costs or expenses that result from their employment
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Screening
Volunteers who work
at your facility and could come into contact with vulnerable animals
or people, such as children, women, or special needs adults, should
pass a background check. Prudent employers in the private sector
and government sector require background checks as well. Persons
who will have access to financial, corporate, or confidential
information, especially if their role is a "virtual" one, should be
"vetted" by a background and/or credit check. Even if you know
the volunteer personally, attending to these matters can make a
difference in your insurance costs, as well as improve your
professional image as a start-up or established charity, and attract
more people of quality as volunteers, donors, and clients. Once
upon a time in small town America and tight-knit city neighborhoods,
this was unnecessary and impossible. Today, with a mobile
population of 330 million souls, it is both necessary and easily
administered. See Security as Safety above.
For more information about the importance of volunteer screening today, we found this concise post at the NonProfit Law Blog on Volunteer Management.
There must be at least 100 books available on the topic of volunteer recruitment and management. The two we recommend, as the most meaty, well-written, and up-to-date resources are shown in this section.
TIP: Become a travel destination for
vacationing singles, couples, and families. Today, many people
combine volunteering with vacationing. Two non-profit animal
sanctuaries have successfully tapped into this emerging market in Del
Camino's neighborhood. Keepers of the Wild in Valentine, AZ, and
Best Friends in Kanab, UT. Read about their creative volunteer
opportunities at the end of this article about Volunteer Vacationing
from a website and magazine that serves this "Voluntourism".
Recognition of your volunteers and donors accomplishments, service hours, or dollar contributions is an important part of retaining your best human assets. There are many creative overt and subtle ways to recognize and reward people. Often, our passion for the cause we serve leads us to think that giving our time or money and witnessing a rehabilitated horse find a new
appropriate home, or a disabled person benefit from the joys of interaction with horses is enough reward alone. For the truly committed, for the supremely passionate few, who found a horse non-profit, it is. For everyone else, whose lives are not totally wrapped up in the venture 24/7, or for whom the novelty has worn off, peer and community recognition is a real boost to
their motivation and continued support. Think of our service men and women. They represent a fraction of the patriotic citizenry - the fraction that volunteer to do tough jobs and make personal sacrifices, putting their families, their civilian careers on hold, and their very lives on the line, to serve. When they return home, shouldn't the rest of us say "thank you"
whenever, however, we can? They know they have done well, and they did not do it to get a Homecoming Parade or special favors, but isn't our "thank you for your service" the minimum we owe them? And, when we give that simple recognition of their willing sacrifice, don't they appreciate it very much? They do. It matters. Find some way to recognize everyone
who donates time or money to your equine non-profit. If you have to start with just sending thank you cards in the mail, DO IT. If you need help devising a manageable recognition program that fits your resources of time and money, please
contact us.
President's Volunteer Service Awards
Did you know that any business, either profit or non-profit, can
register to recognize employees or volunteers for their community
service hours? Did you know that the awards are very nice, and
there is a lower hours requirement per award level for children?
How about that the administration is all done by the employees or
volunteers or the automated database for you? Yes, they set up
their own accounts, so they can track their service for more than one
group, and all you do is confirm their hours when you get a message
that they have reached an award level. But it gets better.
The awards are sent to the business or charity, so you can do a
presentation. What is the catch? It costs you about $2.00
- $3.00 per award per person, or about $1.50+ per person when done in
bulk for big projects.
So what are you waiting for? It takes only minutes to sign up,
and your organization can do first class volunteer recognition, which
can only help with retention.
Best Trophies and Awards, Mesa AZ
MyFreeDegree.com helps find scholarships
and grants for free education that can be given as a recognition to
volunteers and paid employees. Did you know there are Equestrian
scholarships available?
If you are the main manager of a small non-profit that expects to continue in the event you decide to retire, your board of directors needs to manage the process to achieve three objectives:
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A retirement income for you in keeping with your years of service that were probably at low or no pay to create and run the non-profit.
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The recruitment, selection, training and support of a qualified replacement for you.
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The assurance of a home for your horses and transition assistance for your staff should the board decide to dissolve the non-profit instead of continuing without you.
This is an important governance duty for the members of the Board of Directors. According to David Hinsley, Cheng a Managing Partner of DRG, "nonprofit organizations are not planning well for succession. A national survey in 2006 asked Executive Directors in nonprofit organizations if they are planning to leave and if so, has there been a succession plan
developed. The results stated:
- 40% had a succession plan and were planning to leave within two years or less
- 60% have engaged in no communication regarding succession planning
The numbers appear to be about the same for unplanned transitions.
Here is an excellent brief outline of how to go about succession planning for non-profits:
Succession Planning Report-1.pdf
It is important for a board of directors that is not exclusively recruited by the Executive Director or Founder to address human resources, including employee benefits plans, and to look to your future retirement and that of other key staff. This helps make your non-profit attractive to future employees, all of whom are probably going to be working for
much lower wages than they would earn in the private or government sectors. This is a governance role that fulfills one of their fiduciary responsibilities to the Executive Director/Founder and employee stakeholders. You are entitled to a secure future when you are too old or infirm to continue to run your non-profit, and it is the proper place of the Board of Directors,
not yourself or your successor, to properly compensate you or provide for your retirement.
The most typical retirement plans offered by non-profits are:
403(b) Plans / Tax-Sheltered Accounts (TSAs) (Top
of Page)
If you are an employee of a school district or other non-profit organization, a Tax Sheltered Account (TSA), more commonly known as a 403(b) plan, is your primary retirement planning vehicle. A 403(b) plan allows you to save pre-tax earnings for your retirement, which
effectively lowers your income tax burden. By investing those savings on a tax-deferred basis, you effectively enhance the compounding effect to your savings over time.
Additional employer contributions are also permitted, although understandably, this tends to be much less common than 401k matching in the corporate world.
403B contributions are then invested in either annuity contracts or mutual fund investments. While no specific pension benefit is guaranteed, the tax deferred status of these investments translates to dramatically more retirement income than other forms of investing.
For the non-profit, costs are limited to the price of setting up and administering the fund. These costs can be fairly modest with a standard plan; in fact, some non-profits actually can save money after factoring in lower state or local payroll taxes. However, more complex plans can be as costly as a 401k.
Roth 403(b) Plans
Effective January 1, 2006, employees of public school districts, community colleges and other non-profit organizations have an additional way to fund their retirement: the Roth 403(b). The addition of the Roth 403(b) account option provides you with greater flexibility to save for retirement using either pre-tax
dollars, after-tax dollars or a combination of the two.
Roth 403(b)s work just like a traditional 403(b) with one important difference: Roth 403(b) contributions are made using after-tax dollars. Although Roth 403(b) contributions won't reduce your current income tax liability, they will provide a tax-free income source at retirement (monies must be withdrawn after age 59½ and the account must have been in
existence for at least five years).
You have the option of funding your retirement using either pre-tax [Traditional 403(b)] or after-tax [Roth 403(b)] contributions or a combination of the two, depending on your situation.
Total annual contribution to all 403(b) accounts (Roth and Traditional) cannot exceed the maximum annual contribution limits for the year in which they are made.
Deferred Compensation Plan
(Top
of Page)
Under the current tax codes, Section 457 allows a tax-exempt employer to establish a deferred compensation plan by which a portion of an employee's compensation can be deferred to some future date. Rules apply, so your board must work with investment and tax professionals to set up and fund a plan that will pass muster.
Split Dollar Life Insurance
The purchase of whole life insurance under a split-dollar arrangement has also become a popular method for recruiting and retaining key employees. In many cases in which a key employee wants to have the tax advantages of a deferred compensation plan but does not want to rely on the employer's unsecured promise to pay the deferred
compensation, split-dollar arrangements can be advantageous.
If you have left it too late, and have not saved for your own future, your board needs to work with financial planners and insurance companies that specialize in non-profit executive compensation, to devise an appropriate honorarium in keeping with tax laws and non-profit governance.
Employee morale and retention is important to non-profit organizations as well as other sectors dependent upon high quality human resources. Do not overlook them in managing your non-profit. Do not assume a person who chooses to work for a non-profit should forego employee benefits.
 
Visit our Senior Horse Owner Resources,
Quarterly Tips,
Forums,
Blog, or
Products for Horse Businesses for
ways to save money.
Government regulation at the city, county, state and federal level is radically changing who, what, where, when and how people may interact with the environment and animals. Spurred by urban-based special interest groups and academia, land
use, energy use, animal care, property rights, personal safety, health, personal food production and consumption all are now becoming regulated in ways that threaten man's relationship with horses, and his ability to house them, take them onto trails, or grow food for them and himself. These issues are frequently addressed in our
Blog. This means that every single farm in America, be it a family's backyard, a therapeutic riding center in the city, a wedding carriage business,
a boarding stable, or a trail ride operation into state lands must develop a plan and implement changes to showcase horses as:
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Environmentally sound - not merely non-polluting but actually beneficial and energy conservative.
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Relevant contributors to the economic and social welfare of the broader local community.
Ten ways to make your horse operation more Earth-friendly, courtesy of TheHorse.com:
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Install gutters and downspouts on all buildings to divert clean rainwater away from high-traffic areas and reduce the amount of sediment that gets into the surface water. |
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Plant trees as dust barriers and protection for the banks of streams and ponds. |
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Use organic fertilizers and natural mineral compounds, such as rock phosphate. |
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Use biodegradable and nontoxic shampoos and cleaners around the barn. Channel wash water into grassy areas so it can be absorbed into the soil. |
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Mow weeds when you're about to rest a pasture; use nontoxic weed spray or a weed eater; mowing tall weeds also keeps mosquitoes down. |
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Install bird houses for purple martins, bluebirds, barn swallows, violet-green swallows and tree swallows, which can eat several thousand soft-bodied flying insects per day. |
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Set out shed or trimmed dog and horse hair so the bug-loving birds can use it for building nests. |
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Test the well water to see what your horses are drinking; filter the city water that they drink. |
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Install automatic waterers powered by geothermic heat to keep water cool in the summer and above freezing in the winter |
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Use wood byproducts (wood pellets or straw pellets) rather than virgin wood for bedding. Always avoid black walnut shavings because of potential laminitis complications. |
Sponsorahorse.org
is a network of Equine Rescues with members only forums.
Horse rescues and
sanctuaries need to be well-managed, just like for-profit businesses
to survive and benefit the rescued animals.
The Del Camino
Horse Owner
Products and Services catalog offers some
horse products of interest to owners of senior horses, and horses
being retrained or rehabilitated.
The Del Camino Stable
Manager's Product and Services catalog offers products and
services of interest to those operating a horse facility.
Mounting ramps and blocks for persons with disabilities, waler and gait belts, breakaway stirrups, bareback pads, therapeutic riding surcingles, reinbow loops, instructional aids for therapeutic riding
programs.
The Del Camino
forums provide a place to network
with other horse non-profits, and the
blog covers related timely topics.
Charity Advantage is an online source for deeply discounted computers and software for non-profits.
Horse Welfare Statistics -
EqRescQ101: Equine Rescue Yahoo Forum and
Message Board. Network with other Horse Rescues about rescue
specific concerns.
National Equine Rescue Coalition
Equine Rescue News and Resources
Equine Rescue Webring
Save a Forgotten Equine Forum
Horse Rescue and Information Network Forum
Society of Animal Welfare Administrators
National Animal Control Association Excellent links to state, county and municipal animal control
groups and law enforcement agencies, and timely information affecting
them.
National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy
This is an excellent resource for how to keep logs and statistics of
calls from surrenderers, understanding how the bond is broken, the top
ten reasons people relinquish their animals, the bias that almost
always enters the conversation between the volunteer who is receiving
the animal and the person who is relinquishing it.
Ehorseeducation - teleseminars assisting therapeutic horseback riding and equine-assisted activities non-profit centers in management and professionalism areas.

If your company offers a discount to
equine non-profits, or offers them a service or co-marketing
opportunity, please let us know. Presently, the best way to do
that is by
e-mail with a contact name and
website address. |
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