Make a difference in the lives of others!

With busy lives, it can be hard to find time to volunteer. However, the benefits of volunteering are enormous to you, your family, and your community. The right match can help you to reduce stress, find friends, reach out to the community, learn new skills, and even advance your career. Giving to others can also help protect your mental and physical health.

Volunteering offers vital help to people in need, worthwhile causes, and the community, but the benefits can be even greater for you, the volunteer. Volunteering and helping others can help you reduce stress, combat depression, keep you mentally stimulated, and provide a sense of purpose. While it’s true that the more you volunteer, the more benefits you’ll experience, volunteering doesn’t have to involve a long-term commitment or take a huge amount of time out of your busy day. Giving in even simple ways can help others those in need and improve your health and happiness.

One of the better-known benefits of volunteering is the impact on the community. Volunteering allows you to connect to your community and make it a better place. Even helping out with the smallest tasks can make a real difference to the lives of people, animals, and organizations in need. And volunteering is a two-way street: It can benefit you and your family as much as the cause you choose to help. Dedicating your time as a volunteer helps you make new friends, expand your network, and boost your social skills.

At this time we are looking for volunteers to help us design an oasis.  A park like setting where painting, music, sculpting, etc. is available to observe, participate in, and learn.  We need painters, musicians, sculptors, dancers, and other artists to help us create that oasis, the beacon of light, where pain can be forgotten.

Horse of Destiny Foundation Volunteer Director

We are people who live in a culture of volunteerism here in the and countries around the world.  We volunteer to serve lunches to the poor. We volunteer to rehabilitate houses. We volunteer to tutor students at the neighborhood school. We volunteer to take patients to their doctor appointments.  And we volunteer to serve on boards of directors of nonprofit organizations.  In fact, most nonprofits would not function successfully without the volunteer assistance they receive. Not only do we as volunteers give generously of our money, we give of our time and expertise—which may be invaluable.

As a volunteer board member, you take steps to make sure that the assets of the organization are used only for the purposes for which the Horse of Destiny Foundation was founded:  Reviving and Rebuilding the Spirit of Individuals who are experiencing physical or emotional pain. 

In order to fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities of a nonprofit organization, the directors and officers need to act in the best interests of the organization.  Here are some of the specific areas you, as a director and/or an officer, need to oversee.

1. Control of the money. Help create policies and guidelines to insure that there are sufficient financial controls. Often it is best to require more than one signature on financial accounts.  In addition to the officers, it is wise to for a board member to have proper access in order to review financial accounts.

2. Employment issues. When it comes time to compensate individuals for their work, employment aspects of the organization have begun.  For example, there will be questions involving, minimum wage and hour laws, tax withholdings, unemployment insurance, etc.  The board members will want to be certain that policies and procedures are created and then documented in an employee handbook. 

3. Compensation. All assets of a nonprofit have to be used to advance the purpose of the organization. This means that, although compensation can be paid to people rendering services to the organization, this compensation must be reasonable. Compensation includes salary and other benefits. Salary surveys an acceptable way to learn the reasonable compensation for a particular job.  If the board thinks that a higher amount is reasonable, the justification for the amount must be included in the resolution approving the higher compensation.

4. Gifts. One common problem that arises with nonprofits is the desire to make gifts to volunteers. As has been noted above, all the assets must be used to benefit the purpose of the nonprofit Foundation. Although incidental gifts may advance the purposes of the organization by encouraging the continued involvement and efforts of the employee or volunteer, a significant gift is likely to be found to be a private benefit to the recipient and should not be allowed.

5. Appropriate governance policies must be set. As a director one of your roles, is to assist in creating policies that help further the Foundation’s purpose.  For example, establishing what criteria is necessary to receive assistance from the Foundation; In addition, once the criteria is met, the type of benefits a recipient will receive.  The board might decide that the policy should become that no individuals are to receive direct benefits, but rather establish policies furthering the idea that the best way to alleviate pain and suffering is for individuals to experience an oasis.  A park like setting where painting, music, sculpting, etc. is available to observe, participate in, and learn. 

6. Form 990 as a public relations piece. As a director, you should review the IRS form 990 before it is filed to make sure that the information is correct and that it tells the Foundation’s story in the best possible light. In addition, one of the questions now on the form is whether the directors were furnished with the form before it was filed (and what review was done).

Conclusion.  The time you spend working with the nonprofit can be very rewarding and provide a way to give back to our community. However, a director is not here to be a rubber stamp; it is your responsibility to provide thoughtful oversight of the nonprofit Foundation’s operations.