June – Founders Forum by Rollin Schuster

Progress Report!

I find it hard to believe that we are almost halfway through 2022. They say “the older you get the faster time goes by” . . .  I’m feeling pretty damn old!

That being said, we’ve accomplished a lot as we emerge from the dark days of the pandemic and I’m extremely excited about what lies ahead for TANGO and our impact in the sector.

Here is a quick progress report of what we have accomplished and what we are focusing on for the next 180 days:

• TANGO Rising Star Scholarship Awards. In May we had a fantastic evening at our TANGO Night at the Hartford Yard Goats. Thanks to the generosity of our Partner’s we donated close to 900 tickets to nonprofit members for their staff and clients to enjoy a great night of baseball. We also recognized our four TANGO Rising Star Scholarship recipients and awarded $30,000 to fund their professional development in the sector. We are committed to helping train the next generation of nonprofit leadership.
• TANGO’s DEI Initiative has been improved thanks to the great work done by Fred Jenoure and Anne Ruwet. Our program provides employers who wish to train their employees of diverse backgrounds on how to become an effective member of a nonprofit board of directors. We connect our graduates to nonprofits seeking to further diversify their board’s. This initiative was born out of a Boardsource Report highlighting the number of diverse candidates serving on nonprofit boards has not increased in over 20 years.
• Employee Recruitment, Retention and Recognition resources; we all know todays labor market is extremely tight. Nonprofit employers are struggling to compete for good talent. In partnership with our primary fiscal sponsor NFP, we have developed some high impact, no or low cost programs to help nonprofit employers become “the employer of choice”. The market has been extremely receptive to this initiative.
• Legislative Updates, we continue to follow and provide training on employer compliance requirements. The world seemingly gets ever more complex for employers every year. We recently had Heidi Lane an attorney at the CT DOL to enlighten our seminar attendees on how to “stay in compliance with regulators”. We will continue to provide information on local and federal legislation that effects nonprofit employer workforce requirements.
• TANGO Woman’s Leadership Network, this new group has been spearheaded by two of our partners; NFP’s Monica Guinn and FML’s Amber Tucker, CPA. They are building a powerful woman’s network of socially conscious business leaders together with nonprofit leaders to create positive change.
• Continued expansion of the number of members and partners. We now have 1492 nonprofits who have joined TANGO, this represents approximately 175,000 employees who have chosen a career is the nonprofit sector. The scale we have built is a key ingredient in our ability to help nonprofits. Please help us grow by spreading the word about TANGO. In fact we are going to award the person who refers our 1500th member with a $100 gift card to celebrate this milestone.
• We are also working on a broader geographic expansion to include hub development in New York and Seattle. More to come on this initiative; but remember, the bigger we get the more we can do to support the sector.

I could go on…but it’s time to get back to work! There is obviously a lot happening here at TANGO. I am extremely thankful for the support of our staff, Partners and nonprofit Members. If there are important initiatives that you feel TANGO can support, please do not hesitate to let us know.

We will continue to push forward with our mission to help nonprofits thrive!

Thank you!
Rollin

Rollin Schuster, President & Founder of TANGO
Managing Director, NFP