Board members play a critical role in the success of nonprofit organizations. When Kathy DeYoung, a CPA by trade, joined a small nonprofit board for the first time, she quickly realized that board members lacked training opportunities and yet were responsible for governing these organizations that are so crucial to the well-being of their communities. Inspired to help strengthen the boards of small nonprofits in rural Oregon, DeYoung founded Center for Nonprofit Stewardship to educate and empower board members in sound financial, administrative and organizational stewardship.
The Murdock Trust has partnered with CNS through two grants. The first grant helped create distance programs, which has been a vital piece of CNS’s educational tools, as the nonprofits it serves may lack access to in-person trainings due to their rural locations. The second grant for a new director of strategic initiatives expands on the first grant and has directly improved the sustainability of CNS’s operations. This director is focused on expanding the educational resources that CNS offers, both for in-person conferences and workshops, as well as for the distance education programs.
As a result of these grants, CNS now has seven self-help board workbooks for smaller nonprofits in topics ranging from board management to internal financial audits. It has also produced three video training sessions that review board legal roles and responsibilities, financial oversight and organizational policies. These videos are a portion of the live training that takes place in workshops around the Northwest, and they allow rural board members to access the videos via the CNS website.
The Murdock Trust is proud to invest in board training for nonprofits across the Pacific Northwest. For more board training resources, visit our Nonprofit Development page on our website.
