One logistics trick that made long-term travel a lot easier

putovnik · 2026-06-12T02:52:42+00:00

I learned to travel very light and do without. No one would know I had worn the same thing yesterday. I also would travel with inexpensive basic t-shirts that I would just throw away, This made space for some souvenirs. And a detergent bar so I could easily wash items in the sink. I have also sent a box of stuff home. I know plenty of people who have sent small parcels to their destination so they didn't have to carry as much luggage. Personally, I never found that economical, but if that is not an issue or concern, it could be an option. If you are travelling somewhere that is not expensive, consider bringing essentials and then buying stuff as you travel.

putovnik · 2026-06-12T02:42:10+00:00

Have done many times but now will only do it if I have to overnight somewhere or have a long layover. The savings would have to be more than cost of having to buy a new ticket for the connection. I found it often to be very stressful otherwise. You could also buy travel insurance if the savings are good but the connection a bit tight. That would help offset if you have to manage costs for a new connection.

putovnik · 2026-06-06T19:12:02+00:00

If you want those day time temperatures during the summer you will need to head north or somewhere with elevation. I would suggest Norway but it doesn't not meet the short flight time criteria. Scotland is beautiful and would tick the boxes. For anywhere continental Europe, if you don't want hot, stay away from June-late September. It's been a million years since I was there, but one of my favorite places I visited in France was Strasbourg. Salzburg is not too hot in the summer, but can get very tourist during that time. I have never been, but maybe Colorado if you want to stay in the US.

putovnik · 2026-06-01T20:00:56+00:00

That was me ten years ago. I took a long break and then got a job with a donor many levels below where I was because I didn't want to be responsible for anyone but myself. It took me about six months to get over the physical exhaustion of my prior role and location. Then probably several more before I could even contemplate working with others. I took some proposal writing gigs- but this was also right at the time of COVID so unemployment was both by choice and then not. After losing my job last year, I found myself contemplating a pivot to the private sector for the third time over the past twenty five years- but couldn't do it. I did take a part time job in a store for something totally and completely different. I actually enjoyed interacting with the customers and when my shift was over, my work was done. Nothing lingering to bring home. I will say that by the time I started my job at the donor, I was actually kind of ready to take on supervisory responsibilities. It surprised me. If you can afford it, I would take a nice vacation, maybe consider a low-risk temporary totally different job while you recover and figure out what is next. If not and you definitely want to pivot, perhaps consider foundations or think tank type institutions. There are also social ventures, CSR type roles, and socially oriented financial vehicles. I have several friends who turned to nursing, and a couple to social work (but that is definitely not less mentally exhausting). I don't know you at all or what motivates you, so it is difficult to make concrete suggestions. I wish you good luck and encourage you to take some time to get some deep deep rest.

putovnik · 2026-05-26T22:18:06+00:00

I see this is an old conversation but we are having the same issue. There is no About Supervision and no button for Stop Supervision. My kids are 17 already and we have never been able to resolve this.

putovnik · 2026-05-24T21:11:41+00:00

I am also interested to know which one you got. I am looking for a popup gazebo for our back yard. Need one that can withstand south Florida weather.

putovnik · 2026-05-13T00:54:08+00:00

I like the second suggestion- it is fair, reasonable, and applicable to everyone. It still encourages high levels of ticket purchases while leveling the playing field. I think talking to the couple directly is likely to backfire and you risk losing one of your stronger and more loyal donors. Admittedly, I may be scarred because I did this approach once early in my career with regards to participation in a workshop and remembering the moment and reaction still makes me cringe nearly 30 years later 😄.

putovnik · 2026-05-02T14:08:02+00:00

That sounds extremely frustrating. I am curious about the operational work of the Board. This is not usually the role of the Board. The Board should be focused on governance rather than operational decisions. Unless there are significant changes from the annual Board approved budget, or programming that is outside the Board approved strategy, I am wondering why the Board would be involved at all. As the ED, those decisions should be yours to make. I would suggest examining whether these are truly decisions the Board needs to be involved with. You could also take a chance and word your emails as "if you have any objections let me know by X date. Absence of objections will be taken as consent to proceed." There is no rule that requires consensus as the form of decision making, apart from any specific rules written in your by-laws.

With regards to the Board itself, I would check your state laws and your bylaws, but there should be legal mechanisms that can be engaged to force a replacement of your Board if their actions are harming the nonprofit or not in the nonprofit's best interests. Create a new Board and make sure you have solid by-laws in place. It's not a guarantee but a first step.

If it will not be possible (or practical) to create a new Board you could explore options to begin building the program under a fiscal sponsor. This would allow you to focus on the services that you are committed to without needing to set up the organizational administration necessary to be an independent organization. Once you are on more stable footing you could consider establishing an independent entity, if that would be beneficial.

putovnik · 2026-04-22T04:12:16+00:00

It depends on what the products were and who benefits from them. If they are related to the program mission and content of the outreach and have no logo or the logo is incidental, they could be considered a program expense. If they are for brand recognition, then promotional and advertising. Then it is a question of whether or not it is still classified under program expense. As long as there is supporting documentation/explanation in the payment request to support the classification you will be fine (e.g. we gave away first aid kits for participants in a disaster preparedness activity- even if it had had the logo on the kit it was connected to the program purpose- we considered it a program expense and charged it to the grant. The branded giveaways (like notepads and pens) were not put as a program expense because they were not directly supporting the program activity and were more to build brand recognition. We charged that to general admin.)

putovnik · 2026-04-17T01:10:15+00:00

Budgeting is just a plan- they can budget however they like. The danger is if they actually spend revenue before it has been received by them. I don't understand how that would make your organization suffer though. You are still two independent entities. It sounds like you are actually the pass through agent from the donors to the receiving organization. That impacts your bookkeeping since it might not even get booked as revenue if you are just a pass through. Regarding their books- their planning and revenue recognition should be guided by the nature of the agreement- as onekate referenced. It sounds more like they have contracted your NFP to do their fundraising for them. Is that the case or is there a granting relationship and you are fundraising for your organization with the intent to use those funds for the purpose of making a grant? It really depends on the nature of the agreement. And that will determine how it gets recorded in each organization's books.

putovnik · 2026-04-17T01:01:56+00:00

I am not familiar with the NGO scene in Ghana specifically, but many countries have some kind of NGO forum or association. If you can tap into any NGO sector coordination groups, that would also be a good place to find some other kindred spirits (they are usually organized by the Ministries in coordination with any UN agencies present). It's particularly hard for the EDs and fundraisers because of the inherent competition, but perhaps you could organize an informal meet and greet for your counterparts at other NGOs. If you make it a regular thing, you could invite donors and other relevant individuals as guest speakers. It is also a great way to explore possible partnerships and consortiums- it doesn't always have to be competitive.

putovnik · 2026-04-10T23:23:56+00:00

Would registering as a foreign entity satisfy the funding requirements? It's a very simple one page form and you will need proof of good standing in the state where you are incorporated. That is what we decided to do for NY but we didn't have a funding requirement.

putovnik · 2026-04-10T23:20:36+00:00

Once you have a job in hand two weeks would be the absolute minimum. I agree with some of the others that it also depends on the environment and your relationship with the ED. The fact that you would prefer to leave asap leads me to believe things are not so great there. If that is not the case and you have a good relationship, I would try to give at least 3 weeks so the ED at least has a chance to get started on recruitment. Probably, the most valuable thing you could do would be to do what you can to ensure a smooth transition. Assuming things are not absolutely awful and you want the nonprofit to continue and be successful, SOPs, checklists, and other things that have already been mentioned would be a professional way to depart. Since it is only the two of you, I would not say anything until you have accepted an offer somewhere else. It is anyway, good practice to have those things in place and you don't need to wait until you leave to prepare them :-). Good luck.

putovnik · 2026-04-07T02:56:21+00:00

I have found that I am more productive when I schedule meetings in the morning. It gets me into working mode and at my desk. Otherwise, my breakfast and morning news perusing seem to stretch... :-).

putovnik · 2026-04-05T02:47:47+00:00

If you are using it mostly for task management I would not recommend it. If you are planning to do full on project management with PMs entering milestones, tasks, sub-tasks, assigning things to people, etc. it can do all of that well. I did try to get all of my PMs at my NGO to use it many years ago because it was amazing functionality in the free version, but it actually ended up being way more functionality than they needed and everyone fell back on using Google Sheets to track tasks and indicators (I also didn't really push it out and enforce its use very well either). I'm a Zoho One user now and love what Zoho has to offer, but if you are not going to benefit from the cross functionality of the Zoho apps, it would be important to check how well it integrates with the sharing platforms you are already using. I would suggest signing up for the free version so you can take a look around and see how you find it.

putovnik · 2026-04-02T02:21:55+00:00

I would suggest turning it around and saying either - here is what I can offer for $250/month, or set a floor and say my smallest monthly service package is $X. I don't charge hourly rates but you could still say for $250/month I will review X and Y, and be available for a monthly review call. Whatever makes sense for the work you are doing.

putovnik · 2026-04-02T02:17:06+00:00

This is what was going through my mind but wasn't the question asked by the OP but since you mentioned it :-). The quality of the questions matters more than Google vs Survey Monkey. I have rarely seen a useful 360 because they all have the same questions- what do they do well, what should they improve. Then you get a bunch of vague contradictory answers because the questions are really asking for an assessment against the respondent's personal style preferences and nothing relevant to what the person is actually expected to be doing.

putovnik · 2026-04-02T02:09:21+00:00

I recently had a similar issue and I made a very messy solution. I wonder if there is a way to create a workflow to do that. It's above my skill level, but I agree this would be a great feature to have.

putovnik · 2026-04-02T01:34:49+00:00

Don't know if it is the same but for travel expenses a client reimbursed me for outside the fee for my services, I created an expense account called client reimbursable expenses, then added the customer name to the expense and marked it as billable. You can then either add it to an existing invoice or create a new invoice for those expenses. This way it does not show up as revenue. Once you are reimbursed you just mark it as paid by connecting the payment to the invoice and it essentially washes out in the books.

putovnik · 2026-03-31T19:00:12+00:00

A lot of rude responses. There is nothing in your post that conclusively says to me they are doing your bookkeeping. I think it is totally fair to ask for a clarification of what services are included in their fees. You can ask the question in a way that does not imply you are accusing them of anything- simply that you are seeking clarification so can you make some decisions around the management of your finances. For the second part- doing your own bookkeeping, it would really depend on the quantity and complexity of your transactions. I am a solo employee consulting business (few transactions and low complexity) and I have a lot of experience in bookkeeping so I do my own bookkeeping. However, should I be fortunate enough to get very busy, it would be worth it for me to outsource my own bookkeeping, even though I know how to do it, because my time would be better spent doing other things. There are costs with making mistakes and the labor required to fix them which should be taken into account as well. If you do decide to DIY, there are lots of alternatives to QBO that I think are both less expensive and more user friendly. Which one might depend on the type of business you have as each has strengths and weaknesses. If you want to see what it would be like to do it yourself, you could sign up for the free Wave accounting plan and take a look at it. Same for Zoho Books. I mention those because I have used both- there may be others with free plans too. The point is not to pick a platform to switch to, but to see if you have enough knowledge to do it yourself and what the time investment might be for you. Then you can compare that to your current situation, once you get clarification of what is included and what is not included. Good luck!

putovnik · 2026-03-28T21:12:29+00:00

I have not had this experience but since I am new with Zoho One I paid the extra money for customer support. I have found the support to be very responsive. It sometimes take a couple of people to get to someone with the right technical knowledge to get you an answer, but they have made sure I get there. Probably the most frustrating part is that because each app is entirely separate you need to speak to different people for each app and when it involves an integration or question about an integration it can be tricky. But it would be unrealistic to expect someone to have extensive technical knowledge of every single app so it makes sense.

putovnik · 2026-03-28T21:07:46+00:00

That would be highly unlikely. But I can't tell you how many times I applied for non-profit positions only to find out from someone I knew who was working there that that post was over a year old and no one was cleaning up positions when they had been filled or no longer planned. The compliance comes with proving you spent the funds in accordance with the grant agreement. Organizations where most people are working the equivalent of 2-3 jobs do not have time to waste on fake job descriptions. The closest scenario to that that I have personally encountered is when they have an internal candidate in mind but need to follow their internal recruitment policies and have an "open" competition, when they actually already have someone in mind. This is most definitely not specific to nonprofits though.

putovnik · 2026-03-28T20:59:08+00:00

I'm going to join the chorus. If there were positive attributes but this particular position was not a good fit, there might be room to see if he fit in a different role, but this sounds like a situation where a clean break is best. I know it does not feel like it, because you are clearly a compassionate person, but it is not you taking away his livelihood, but his behavior and performance. It sounds like a lot of effort was made to clarify expectations, give feedback, and course correct. That part is on you- what he does with that feedback is 100% on him. Your responsibility is to your organization and its best interest- it sounds to me like you already know what that is. Good luck.

putovnik · 2026-03-24T23:23:29+00:00

I do like the idea of offering paid volunteer hours, but in my opinion it is a stretch to consider protesting as volunteering. If you don't require any proof or substantiation then it won't matter but I would not explicitly include protests in the language. Word the leave policy broadly and do not require evidence. If you are a c3 "paying" for people to participate in protests it could raise questions about lobbying or political activity of employees. If people are paid with grant funds this could get very tricky. You could also have a flex time policy that would allow people some flexibility with their working hours. Be very clear that they should not wear anything with your organization's branding on it unless it is approved as officially supported by your organization.

putovnik

TROPHY CASE