Jack's Journal - November 2021
The Nonprofit Sector’s Special Sauce
Jack Horak
Director of Nonprofit Education & Consulting
TANGO
The trainings consist of three live Zoom sessions of ninety minutes each based on the first eight chapters of our textbook, The Tango Nonprofit Method.
As I think back to the questions and discussions during these sessions, I suggest that perhaps the most poignant information provided to students is contained in a slide (reprinted below) that I developed to explain what I refer to as the “special sauce” that makes the nonprofit sector such an engaging and interesting sector place to be.
The special sauce is illustrated by the red and the green arrows on the slide. The red arrow demonstrates that nonprofits must be organized and operated to fulfill a public (charitable) purpose in the same manner as federal, state, and local governments operate for the benefit of the public; but, as the green arrow indicates, nonprofits are governed by the private citizens who populate their governing boards and are also the recipients of private money which must be used for the designated charitable (public) purpose. The special sauce is the conceptual basis for the tax benefits nonprofits enjoy – no income tax on any net income and the deductibility (to the donors) of the amounts they contribute.
If any readers are interested in learning more about the information on this slide, the course, or the textbook, please contact me at .
April 2026 – Founders Forum by Rollin Schuster
What is TANGO
Why Financial Clarity Has Become a Leadership Issue for Nonprofits
One of the defining pressures on nonprofits right now is not simply that resources are tight. It is that uncertainty has become harder to separate from day-to-day decision-making.
Recent research shows how widespread that pressure has become. Many nonprofits are facing a difficult mix of rising service demand, tighter margins, funding uncertainty, and growing pressure to make confident decisions in real time.
CONTACT
TANGO
Jack Horak
Director of Nonprofit Education & Consulting
TANGO – The Alliance for Nonprofit Growth & Opportunity
135 South Road
Farmington, CT 06032
877-708-2646
tangoalliance.org