Therefore, it's important that nonprofit management understand the basic principles of program development and evaluation. Particularly with nonprofits engaged in human services, nonprofit management must have strong knowledge of the vast amount of rules and regulations governing public services. Nonprofits often are at the forefront of guiding public policy, including championing new legislation to serve the public. Although charitable nonprofits typically cannot lobby or advocate for legislation, they are usually directly effected by changes in federal programs for social welfare. Nonprofit board members and executives often must have strong working knowledge of the various agencies that influence legislation, and rules and regulations effecting federal funding.
Many nonprofit organizations rely to a great extent on the use of volunteers.
Volunteers should be managed much like any other human resource. There should be staffing planning, recruitment, job descriptions, suitable policies and risk management measures, some form of performance management, etc. Performance management includes setting suitable goals, evaluating performance, providing appropriate rewards or actions to terminate services.