NYN's 4th Annual Nonprofit Opcon

The Importance of Leadership in Assessing your Nonprofit’s Health

Leadership can be one of the top factors in assessing the health of your nonprofit’s organization. Leadership in nonprofit organizations presents a specific set of challenges and therefore requires a unique set of skills.  The session will examine how to effectively handle leadership transitions and will also address the steps of building and assessing the board of directors.  It will also address the other important factors in assessing your nonprofit’s health and efficiency.

• Executive Director, Options for Community Living, Inc. (moderator)
• Chief of Staff, NYC Service, Office of the Mayor
• Executive Director, Madison Square Boys & Girls Club
• Partner, PKF O'Connor Davies, LLP 
• Principal & CEO, Public Works Partners

Streamlining Processes, Operations, Finances & Investments through Strategy

Successful organizations align many levels of strategy — organizational, programmatic, and operational — in advancing the mission. A focused approach to strategy can help make operational decisions related to systems, resource allocation, data management, finances and investments and other operational processes more integrated and intentional. This panel will address how operations and processes aimed at enhancing a nonprofit’s administrative efficiency, streamlining accounting functions, financial stability, preparedness, and execution are key to strategic execution and impact. 

• Chief Financial Officer, AHRC New York City (moderator)
• Vice President, Unemployment Services Trust 
• Regional Director Long Island, NESC
• Senior Manager, Gelman, Rosenberg and Freedman
• Partner, Tate & Tryon
• Institutional Consultant, Managing Director, UBS Private Wealth Management 

Special Presentation:  Herding Cats - Why Change is Hard

We've all heard the (over two-thousand year-old) adage that "...change is the only constant in life." Today, however, even the pace of change is accelerating at a dizzying rate. If you are going to streamline processes, that means making changes and change is hard. In fact, resistance to change is often cited by leaders as the biggest obstacle to making organizational improvements. Why is change so hard? And more importantly, what can we do to make it easier? This presentation will look at how differing perspectives challenge our efforts to effect change and what we can do to put ourselves and our organizations in the best position for success in making change happen.

Presented by VP of Technology Strategy, Roundtable Technology

Networking/ Break

Integrating the right technology needed to take your operations to the next level

Is your organization’s technology in need of advancement?  Are they concerned about choosing the right technology, managing change and getting acceptance from employees?  This session will address best practices around how to integrate new technologies into existing organizations.  This panel of experts in technology and change management will explain real life experiences around tech integration.

• Senior Project Manager, Center for Court Innovation (moderator)
• Founder, JMT Consulting
• Senior Director of Social Impact, Oracle+NetSuite
• Partner, Garfunkel Wild P.C.
• Executive Director of Information Technology, Lutheran Social Services of New York
• Managing Partner, NCheng, LLP
• Business Analyst, New Leaders

Real Estate: Trends in Nonprofit Office Space

While every group has a different mission, they all have similar choices to consider. Even nonprofits need to decide whether to lease or buy, sell or hold, relocate due to changing demographics, plan for expiring leases and take advantage of a down market or manage a hot market.  The panel aims to help nonprofits with their real estate decisions and allow them to reduce costs – both financial and time.

• Executive Director, Vicus Partners (moderator)
• Chief of Staff, Chinese-American Planning Council, Inc.
• Senior Associate, Goldstein Hall
• Vice President, Business Operations, The New York Foundling
• Executive Managing Director, Co-Chair, Not-for-Profit Advisory Group, Cushman & Wakefield
• Co-Founder and Principal, Vicus Partners

Special Presentation – The Rationale of Ratio Analysis: Uncovering key metrics in your nonprofit’s financial statements

Ratio analysis is an effective management tool that looks at relationships in an organization’s financial statements to measure key areas of performance and financial health. The results uncover insights into program efficiencies, fundraising costs, accounts receivables, payroll and more. In this session, nonprofit professionals from Marks Paneth and the CEO of Charity Navigator will discuss several ratio analyses and the ways nonprofits can use them to track performance, identify trends and develop strategic goals.

• Co-Partner-in-Charge, Nonprofit, Government & Healthcare Group, Marks Paneth LLP (moderator)
• Partner, Nonprofit, Government & Healthcare Group, Marks Paneth LLP
• CEO, Charity Navigator

Networking Luncheon

How to create and manage your relationship with the healthcare system

This panel session will review statewide projects that allow for, support, and sustain partnerships between community-based organizations and health care organizations which are vital to addressing social determinants of health and improving health outcomes. The discussion will include everything from technology, measuring, capturing, reporting outcomes, payment terms and more.

• Chief Executive Officer, Grassi Healthcare Advisors LLC 
• Assistant Vice President, Ambulatory Care & Population Health, Greater New York Hospital Association
• Director, Population Health and Health Reform, New York Academy of Medicine
• Senior Policy Analyst, Human Services Council

Networking/ Break

Human Resource Challenges and Importance of Good Governance

The job of recruiting, selecting, and terminating employees is a core responsibility of any HR department. HR professionals must ensure that there is a direct connection between the policies, procedures, programs and services they offer and the organization’s larger purposes. HR should be developing, supporting, encouraging, and enabling employees–building capacity. The panelists will address strategic planning and learning tips for enacting good governance in your nonprofit.

• Executive Director, Directions For Our Youth Inc (moderator)
• Executive Director/CEO, VISIONS/Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired
• Member, Caplin & Drysdale
• Benefits Manager, Unity Health Care

Nonprofit Efficiency: Managing Risk, Overhead and Failure

Risk management is a tool that helps nonprofits deal with uncertainty. An organization ideally reviews its susceptibility to unexpected losses, and then develops strategies either to prevent losses from happening, or to reduce damage and expense when they do. Factoring into managing risk is trying to understand overhead ratios and what they indicate for an organization’s impact or financial efficiency. And on top of it all, fraud among nonprofit entities has been on the rise or at least rising in the public eye. Nonprofits with efficient risk management tools in place are far more likely to succeed.

• Chief of Staff / Director of Operations, Girl Be Heard (moderator)
• Director, Trinet
• Audit Director, BDO
• Director of Finance & Administration, ProbonoNet
• Advisor, PRB Wealth Management, LLC
• Chief. Charities Bureau. Office of Attorney General Eric Schneiderman