Planning for the Unknown:   Risk Awareness for Nonprofit Organizations by Michele Braun, Director, Institute for Managing Risk, Manhattanville School of Business The leaders of every nonprofit organization know that they face risks:   challenges to delivering services, ensuring sufficient funding, specialized staffing for mission-driven services, facilities, technology, perhaps the local political environment, existing laws and regulatory changes, to name only a few.   How do leaders, with their plates already full—or overflowing—address these risks and manage them accordingly?   What tools are there for nonprofit leaders to decide which risks to take, which to manage and how to manage them?   Importantly, the very first step in the International Standards Organizations’ risk management framework (ISO 31000) is to establish the context .     For nonprofits, the context includes that they have goals and missions other than financial pro...

Background: Mary Meyer is the Project Director of the Comprehensive Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention (CAPP) grant at the Economic Opportunity Council of Suffolk, Inc. located in Suffolk County, New York.  The CAPP program helps to decrease adolescent pregnancy through a comprehensive approach to reducing the risk of initial and repeat pregnancies, reducing STDs and HIV/AIDS rates among adolescents, and promoting healthy sexual behaviors. The initiative – which receives funding from the New York State Department of Health – addresses the underlying issues associated with adolescent parenting as well as race, ethnic, and geographical disparities related to adolescent sexual health outcomes. CAPP encourages alternatives to sexual activity by promoting an optimal transition into healthy young adulthood with after-school programs, evidence-based interventions, and community service learning. Mary is also a licensed social worker, receiving her Masters of Social Work from Stony...

New York Times 2-14-2016 Can Health Care Providers Afford To Be Ready For Disaster?  At the Institute for Managing Risk at the Manhattanville School of Business, we will be talking about how organizations assess their risks and how they decide to manage their risks.   An Op Ed in the February 14, 2016, New YorkTime s highlights the tradeoffs that companies make.   The article, “Can Health Care Providers Afford to Be Ready for Disaster,” addresses potential Federal regulations specifying certain levels of planning, preparation, and testing for nursing homes and hospitals.   Are full preparations for another Hurricane Katrina or a Superstorm Sandy reasonable and appropriate?   How much back-up power capacity, which might be useful for continuing operations through events far less catastrophic and possibly more frequent than these two weather-driven disasters, is reasonable and appropriate?   How should a hospital assess its risks?   Are there re...

November 20th New York Times Magazine Over the last couple of weeks the news seems to be dominated by articles focused on the dearth of women leaders in business.  The cover story of the November 20 th New York Times Magazine highlighted the gender imbalance of women executives and filmmakers in Hollywood.   A December 1 st article discussed the paradox of how the high end fashion industry is dominated by male executives despite the fact women make 85% of their high end purchases.  On December 7 th CNN reported Japan slashing its target for women in senior positions as a way to boost its economy.  “Even with monetary incentives, companies appear to be reluctant to support women”.  Japan may use new legislation to mandate large companies as well as their government to set numerical targets for hiring and promoting women.  How is this still possible as we approach 2016?  In 2014 women represented 45% of the S & P 500 work...

Credit Score – How does it work? By Audrey Washington –  Manhattanville School of Business  2004 Founder/ CEO – Washington Consulting Group Signature Program – Workplace Financial Fitness® www.workplacefinancialfitness.com Credit Score - How does it work? Most students will think about their credit at some point during their academic life.  Whether it’s to obtain a student loan or if you find yourself with reduced income as you focus on completing your degree and are juggling your finances to stay on track.  Your credit score is a major part of the credit process and for many students, Credit Score is a mystery.  Most of you have heard of it but don’t really know how it works and more importantly, how it impacts you.  In the early years of loans and credit, people used letters to identify a person’s credit worthiness – A, B, C, and D.   In 1989, F air I saac CO mpany introduced the credit score model – called FICO score...