Accountability and Responsibility of Non-Profit Organizations’ Staff

Name: Instructor: Course: Assignment: Topic: Improving the Accountability and Responsibility of Professionals and Volunteers of Non-Profit Organizations’ Staff Project Summary: Many charity organizations fail each year often before achieving their desired goals because of poor mismanagement. The very nature of failing non-profits stems from their management. Each non-profit organization must have a board of directors to steer the organization to achieve its strategic goals. They can hire and fire staff among other responsibilities. The intention of having board of directors is to check the powers of the chief executive to ensure accountability and commitment to the objectives of the organization. However, in some cases, the chief executives install puppet board of directors or collude with the board members for mutual malicious gains. In such cases, the initial checks and balances intended to ensure accountable leadership of the organization is lost and many non-profits are unable to run sustainably. Healing Arts Initiative (HAI) was a non-profit founded in 1969 aiming to remove barriers to arts and culture and inspire healing growth and learning through engagement. In 2011, it hired Kim Williams as a payroll clerk who went on to embezzle funds from the organization for nearly 5 years. The scheme went undetected and even measures to establish why the organization had a bad financial footing were unsuccessful. In 2015, a new chief executive, Alexander Dyer, was hired and uncovered Kim William’s scheme. She was however fired with a new CFO who she had hired to streamline operations and uncover the money trails of the organization. Dyer claims that her firing was retaliatory from the board of directors w...