Julep’s Nonprofit Glossary
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Sarbanes-Oxley Act: An act passed by Congress in 2002 which imposes two provisions directly on nonprofit organizations, the prohibition of retaliatory action against whistleblowers regulations governing the destruction of important financial documents and provides best practices for other issues.
Schedule A: The section of Form 990 that provides detailed information to support the annual return required by the IRS of all tax-exempt organizations as specified in section 501c of the United States Internal Revenue Code of 1986.
Scholarship Fund: A type of fund that provides grants in the form of scholarships in which the criteria are established by the donor and the selection process jointly managed by the organization. Scholarship funds may be either permanent (only a portion of the income is granted and principal grows in perpetuity), or non-permanent (both principal and income may be granted).
Screening: The process of assigning prospects to broad categories of potential giving ranges, preliminary to conducting more refined evaluations through the process of prospect rating.
Secretary: An officer position that involves taking minutes and keeping records and archives of the board; duties are often delegated to staff.
Secured Loan: A loan for which something of value is pledged in the case that repayment cannot be made.
Security Agreement: A legal document executed by a borrower granting a lender the right to take a specified asset in case the borrower defaults on a loan.
Seed Money: A substantial gift, generally by a foundation or an affluent individual, to launch a program or project.
Seed Money Grant: A funding agreement intended to support an organization in its first few years.
Segmentation: The process of dividing your supporters into groups based on shared characteristics and past engagement. These groups then receive more personally tailored outreach and fundraising appeals during your campaign. Some ways to segment your audience are by giving history (frequency and how long they’ve been a donor), lapsed donors, gift size, program interest, or email inactivity.
Self-assessment: A process by which boards and/or board members evaluate their own performance.
Self-dealing: A private foundation is generally prohibited from entering any financial transaction with disqualified persons. This includes organization staff, board members, family members of staff and board members, and the businesses they control. The few exceptions to this rule include paying reasonable compensation to a disqualified person for services that are necessary to fulfilling the foundation’s charitable purposes. Violations will result in an initial penalty tax equal to 5% of the amount involved, payable by the self-dealer. See Disqualified Person.
Sequential Giving: A cardinal principle of fundraising counsel: gifts in a campaign should be sought “from the top down”; that is, the largest gifts in a gift range chart should be sought at the outset of a campaign, followed sequentially by the search for lesser gifts.
Service:
Help given to others to repair.
To furnish a service to something or someone.
Service-learning: Goes beyond volunteerism, community service and youth service by connecting the service experience to the school curriculum and by requiring students to reflect on the meaning they attach to the service they performed.
Set-aside: Funds designated for a specific project that are treated as a qualifying distribution in the year they are established but not in the year the funds are actually paid.
Share: A part or portion given to or by one person; one of equal parts; to divide or distribute portions, sharer.
Short-term Debt/Liability: A loan which is issued with a final payment date of one year or less.
Significant Deficiency: A weakness in internal controls that is less severe than a material weakness yet merits attention.
Site Visit: Visiting an organization that has received a grant or is being considered for one. The purpose is to observe the organization, meet with staff, and get to know the program that will be or is being funded.
Social Action: Persons in the process of doing or acting for the general welfare of all.
Social Capital: Features of social life-norms, and trust that enable participants to act together more effectively to pursue shared objectives.
Social Change Funds: A fund or foundation that focuses support on the advancement of disenfranchised constituencies.
Social Fabric: Networking of relationships in the process of doing or acting for the general welfare of all.
Social Investing: The practice of aligning a foundation’s investment policies with its mission. This may include making program related investments and refraining from investing in corporations with products or policies inconsistent with the foundation’s values. Also referred to as ethical investing and socially responsible investing.
Social Justice: Justice applied to the framework of social existence; consideration of the requirements of justice applied to the benefits and burdens of a common existence.
Social Media: The widely available electronic tools that generate interaction, participation, and collaboration, including blogs, videos, podcasts, photo sharing, and the use of social networks.
Social Sector: Referring to the nonprofit sector emphasizing work with and to better society.
Social Venture Funds: Funds whose donors also contribute labor. Like funds from a venture capitalist in for-business enterprises.
Society: People working together for a common purpose; companionship.
Soft Credit: Acknowledging the efforts of someone, other than the legal donor, who facilitated a gift by providing ‘soft’ (or associated) credit for that gift. Soft credit allows an organization to acknowledge these efforts without compromising their legal obligation to record a donation in accordance with IRS regulations.
Solicitor: Volunteers and institutional staff who ask for contributions to a campaign or development program; professional solicitors are paid to solicit for programs or causes.
SYBUNT: (Some Years But Unfortunately Not This) Describes donors who have contributed to your organization in the past but not within the previous year. Like LYBUNTs, they are considered Lapsed Donors. See LYBUNT.
Special Event: A fundraising function designed to attract and involve large numbers of people for the purpose of raising money or cultivating donors.
Special Events Revenue: The portion of revenues raised by fundraising events representing the fair market value of the event. The fair market value received is recorded separately from contributions.
Special Gifts: Contributions that fall within the fourth tier of giving to a campaign; gifts that require special attention by the recipient organization to attract donor participation.
Sponsored Organization: An organization that uses a fiscal sponsor to receive its charitable donations.
Staggered Terms: An organizational structure where board members’ terms expire in alternating years.
Standard of Giving: Arbitrary but generally realistic assignment of giving potential to groups or categories of prospects, based on past performances and other criteria.
Statement of Activities: One of the primary financial reports for an organizations, reporting the income, expenses, and change in net assets for a period of time. See Income Statement.
Statement of Cash Flows: A financial report component summarizing the sources and uses of cash for a period. This is a historical report and is different in form and use from a cash flow projections. See Cash Flow.
Statement of Financial Position: One of the primary financial reports for an organization, reporting the assets, liabilities, and net assets as of a specific date. See Balance Sheet.
Statement of Functional Expenses: A report of expenses by their function, such as programs, management, fundraising, etc., and by the type of expenss, such as salaries or rent, in the form of a matrix.
Steward: One who manages another’s property, finances, or other affairs.
Stewardship:
The philosophy and means by which an institution exercises ethical accountability in the use of contributed resources and the philosophy and means by which a donor exercises responsibility in the voluntary use of resources.
Stewardship: Stewardship is essentially thanking donors and maintaining relationships with them. Increasingly, stewardship involves communicating with donors regularly about the impact of their gifts. Some charities hire stewardship specialists, acknowledging that it’s cheaper and easier to keep a donor than to cultivate new ones.
Stock: A share in ownership, as in a company or corporation.
Strategic Plan:
Strategic Planning: Engagement of board and other constituencies to articulate a grantmaker’s goals and the actions and resources required to achieve them.
Sunshine Laws: State regulations that require government agencies and some nonprofit organizations that receive public funding to open at least some of their board meetings to the public. See Open Meeting Laws.
Support: Income from voluntary contributions and grants (as distinct from revenue or earned income).
Support Services: Full range of activity required to support a fundraising effort: office management; word processing; gift receiving, posting, and acknowledging; budget management and control; and others.
Supporting Organizations: A supporting organization is a charity that is not required to meet the public support test because it supports a public charity. To be a supporting organization, a charity must meet one of three complex legal tests that assure, at a minimum, that the organization being supported has some influence over the actions of the supporting organization. Although a supporting organization may be formed to benefit any type of public charity, the use of this form is particularly common in connection with community foundations. Supporting organizations are distinguishable from donor advised funds because they are distinct legal entities.
Surplus: Income in excess of expenses; an operating profit or a positive Change in Net Assets.
Sustainability: How an organization can fund a project after a grant period has elapsed.
Sustaining Gifts: A donation with multiple ongoing payments, including payments of a specific amount that occur over a defined period that may or may not have an end date. Also commonly referred to as Recurring Gifts, Monthly Gifts, Ongoing Gifts.