While one committee was writing this code, another was developing materials to educate nonprofit leaders about the Standards and help nonprofits meet them. Materials were written in plain English and presented in user-friendly formats. The design for a booklet introducing the Standards was based loosely on a spiral-bound ethics code employed by the Lockheed Martin Corporation, printed in 5" by 7" format featuring cartoons and other eye-pleasing graphics. During the spring and summer of 1998, Maryland Nonprofits prepared write-ups covering many of the management issues addressed by the Standards. Maryland Nonprofits has continued to work on these materials ever since, and now has 22 educational packets—each spelling out a challenge, detailing concrete strategies, and suggesting sample policies groups can draw from to upgrade their management systems.

“We felt that as a membership organization it would not be responsible, nor do we have the right, to articulate standards for nonprofits unless we also provided resources to help organizations learn how to meet those standards,” says Maryland Nonprofits’ Peter Berns. 

MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN MARYLAND

Though Maryland was not the first state to develop nonprofit standards—Minnesota’s nonprofit association produced a set of guidelines in 1994—the publication of the Standards for Excellence was a big event in the nonprofit sector. In its July 16, 1998 edition, the Chronicle of Philanthropy reprinted the eight guiding principles of the Standards code verbatim.

The launch of the Standards program was even bigger news in Maryland. Maryland Nonprofits distributed copies of the code to nonprofit organizations all over the state (including many that were not Maryland Nonprofits members), and to state legislators and county executives, media and others. Maryland Nonprofits offered introductory workshops on the Standards for nonprofit leaders statewide and it began distributing copies of the code at every Maryland Nonprofits event and training program. Maryland Nonprofits also developed training sessions on a variety of topics included in the code (such as personnel policies, budgets, office policies and procedures, and evaluation), plus an intensive, multi-session training program to help nonprofits roll up their sleeves and begin implementing the Standards in their organizations. Within a year, Maryland Nonprofits distributed 11,500 copies of the Standards for Excellence and provided introductory training on the program to 230 Maryland organizations.

Many Maryland nonprofits also responded enthusiastically to the final piece of the Standards program—an opportunity to become certified and earn a Seal of Excellence by demonstrating that their organizations met all of the program’s requirements. In the first year, 125 nonprofits requested applications for the certification program and Maryland Nonprofits trained 70 nonprofit executives statewide to serve as “peer reviewers” to assess and approve the applications. (Each application is reviewed first by Maryland Nonprofits staff, then by a team of three peer reviewers.) When Maryland Nonprofits announced the first cadre of certifications in October 1999, however, just seven groups were included. The complexity of the 55-item code and the demands of the application process proved too much for most nonprofits—a trend that continues to this day.

Despite the low number of certified organizations, the project yielded important benefits in Maryland. A statewide survey of nonprofit organizations conducted in June 2000 found that nonprofits—both dues-paying Maryland Nonprofits members and other nonprofit groups—were far more likely than nonprofits surveyed in 1996 to have a mission statement, evaluate their own programs, publish an annual report and implement conflict-of-interest policies. Maryland Nonprofits members were more likely to take these steps than other nonprofits. Moreover, nonprofit executives who had been exposed to the Standards for Excellence had far higher expectations for how their organizations should operate than executives without access to the program.

The program also proved invaluable for Maryland Nonprofits itself: membership in the association has grown substantially since the Standards program was launched (from 900 members in 1998 to 1,550 in 2005). The Standards also provided a center of gravity for Maryland Nonprofits. “Once we got into the project,” Berns says, “ethics and accountability became a big part of our identity.  Over time we integrated the code into everything we do as an organization.”

EXPORTING ETHICS AND ACCOUNTABILITY

“It wasn’t our goal to create something that would be used outside Maryland’s borders,” Standards program director Amy Coates Madsen told the Chronicle of Philanthropy in 2003. “But as soon as the ink was dry, we started getting calls from groups in other states asking to replicate the program.” Nonprofit associations in California, Colorado, Louisiana, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Utah all called in the first year expressing interest in replicating the project and the North Carolina Center for Nonprofits began distributing copies of the Standards to its members in 1999. Madsen and Berns quickly began thinking about a national replication project. In 2000, as more and more organizations sought to replicate the Standards model, Maryland Nonprofits reached out to foundations and quickly won initial grants from the Surdna Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Then in early 2001 it secured almost $1.3 million—$900,000 from Carnegie Corporation of New York and $380,000 from Atlantic Philanthropies—to support a two-year replication project.

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