Standards for Excellence: Staying Ethical and Legal

Nothing ruins a Tuesday quite like an investigative journalist in your lobby, a surprise letter from the IRS, or discovering your board treasurer just awarded a five-figure catering contract to their own food truck. The public holds nonprofits to a sky-high standard of integrity—and "we did not know that was illegal" has never once worked as a defense strategy.

In this interactive session, Dorian Hines breaks down the legal and ethical guardrails inside The Standards for Excellence®: An Ethics and Accountability Code for the Nonprofit Sector. Forget dry legal jargon that puts you to sleep by 9:15 AM. We are diving straight into the real-world minefields of nonprofit leadership: ethical decision-making, rooting out conflicts of interest, ironclad whistleblower protections, and staying on the right side of legal compliance. Through wild case studies and interactive scenarios, you get to dissect other people's compliance disasters from a safe distance while learning how to bulletproof your own shop.

Why does this matter? Because your reputation takes years to build and one bad decision to tank. Putting clear ethical and legal frameworks in place protects your mission, shields your staff and board from personal liability, and proves to your community that your organization is the real deal.