No matter your organization’s size, history or location, you’re an important part of the goal to have 100% of the community foundation field in compliance with National Standards. To date, 60% of your colleagues have achieved this status.

This page details the process and support materials you’ll need to use to confirm your compliance. The process was carefully developed by and for community foundations to ensure that all applicants receive a fair, consistent compliance review.

The confirmation process involves reviewing each of 35 tabs on this website, declaring your organization’s intent to comply with National Standards, assembling and approving the documentation that fulfills key elements described within each tab, creating a record binder and submitting it for review.

Prepare to embark on the process by reviewing National Standards with your board. Help them understand the value of National Standards—for your community foundation and for the field. Describe how the 41 National Standards address six key areas of community foundation operations. Share the process described on this page so they will understand what you and they will be undertaking.

Take these steps toward confirmation:

1. Declare your intent to comply.

You express your intent by submitting a Statement of Agreement signed by your president/CEO and board chair. This agreement also expresses intent to comply. You must also make a non-refundable deposit at this time.

 

2. Receive an invitation to submit.

The Community Foundations National Standards Board will invite you to submit your application form and record binder documenting your compliance with National Standards. Your submission date will be approximately 12 months after we receive your intent to comply in order to give your organization adequate time to prepare.

 

3. Assemble core documents.

Many key elements can be satisfied by the content you’ve already created in your community foundation’s core legal, tax, governance and communications materials. A good way to start gathering National Standards content is to pull together your:

• Annual audit
• Governing document/bylaws
• IRS Form 990 for two years
• IRS Determination Letter
• Minutes and dates of policy acceptance
• Nominating policy
• Spending policy
• Gift acceptance policy
• Conflict of interest policy
• Confidentiality policy
• Investment policy
• Due diligence policy
• CEO evaluation
• Sample fund agreements
• Corresponding gift acceptance letters
• Basic communication materials (annual report; grantmaking guidelines, prospecting and donor development materials, etc.)

 

4. Review the compliance tabs.

Before you begin documentation, peruse each of the 35 tabs of this website. Each tab describes a set of key elements you’ll need to evidence by submitting specific materials. In some cases, you must complete the requirements for multiple tabs in order to satisfy a single standard. As you browse through the tabs, you’ll notice that some elements are flagged with an or symbol. These symbols call out new or baseline National Standards requirements to community foundations who are reconfirming their compliance and who may not need to resubmit many of the materials they submitted for their initial confirmation five years ago. As a foundation confirming for the first time, you must submit materials to satisfy all requirements—not simply the ones flagged with these symbols.

 

5. Print cover sheets.

Each tab is represented by a cover sheet—a template that you’ll complete to describe the documentation you’ve assembled to address the tab’s key elements. Print out all of these coversheets to guide and organize your documentation. Later, use completed cover sheets to organize your record binder by tabs. Each cover sheet contains:

• “Key Elements,” describing the documentation you are to submit in order to comply with the related National Standards.
• “Supporting materials,” providing space to name the documents you’ve supplied under each coversheet (e.g., “Bylaws”) or to include a cross-reference if you’ve already supplied the evidence beneath a different tab coversheet.
• “Page and/or Section,” providing space to direct the reviewer to the specific evidence within the submitted material (e.g., “Page 1, Article III-Directors, Section 2.”). Within the actual materials you supply, you should also highlight the language that evidences the key element.

In some cases, the same material can be used to address more than one key element. For example, your bylaws or your corporate minutes may satisfy a key element for several tabs. In this situation, use the cover sheets to cross-reference the material to the appropriate section in your record binder.

 

6. Gather, review, approve.

Make sure you have everything you need by using the Compliance Tabs Checklist. Each policy and practice the National Standards call you to gather should be approved by your board and institutionalized at your community foundation. If the National Standards process leads you to develop a new policy or change an old one, make sure that these changes are vetted and approved by your board before the related documentation becomes part of your National Standards record binder. In the resources section and on each tab page on this website, you can find a number of examples and templates that may help you validate or develop your documentation. Keep in mind that the National Standards process should be intentional and reflective—simply copying templates or examples will not result in a verified process or true compliance with National Standards.

 

7. Build your record binder.

Using cover sheets and the Compliance Tabs Checklist as your guide, compile your record binder.

• Create a narrative introduction. Use the early page(s) of your record binder to provide relevant information in narrative form as a convenience to the reviewer.
• Place each single-sided, completed cover sheet before its corresponding set of required materials.
• Divide each of these physical stacks of evidence with actual binder tabs, numbered 1 through 35. When necessary, further divide individual pieces of evidence using colored sheets of paper or some other device (e.g., separate board minutes into sections by meeting date; separate two years’ IRS Forms 990 into two sections).
• Make three complete record binders: two for submission and at least one more copy at your office. Submitted record binders cannot be returned.
• Avoid using staples and sheet protectors on the evidence you’re preparing for submission because they make it difficult for reviewers to scan and handle. Exceptions include materials, such as annual reports, that cannot be hole-punched for inclusion in a binder.
• Clearly mark “confidential” on any documents that should be shared only with those directly involved in the confirmation process (primarily reviewers). To promote use and knowledge of effective practices in the field, we anticipate sharing exemplary documents not marked “confidential,” so please limit the number of documents you mark in this way to those containing nonpublic, sensitive information. We will contact you prior to sharing any of your documents.
• Assemble record binder content, including cover sheets and tabs, in one or more three-ring binders. Large binders fall apart during shipping and repeated use, so please do not send binders larger than two inches thick. If you use more than one binder, indicate the number of volumes on each binder (e.g., volume 1 of 3).
• Avoid including any identifying information on the outside of your record binder. The Community Foundations National Standards Board considers compliance reviews to be private. Any identifying information on the outside of record binders will be removed or covered.
• As you prepare your confirmation package, be sure you don’t fall into one of the pitfalls of submission.

 

8. Complete the application.

Using the sample board resolution, develop and validate your own board resolution testifying to your intent to pursue confirmation.

 

9. Ship your record binder and fee.

Along with two hard copies of your record binder, enclose the original and two paper copies of your completed and signed National Standards Application form, as well as a board resolution signed by your Board Chair and President/CEO. Pay the balance of the fee needed to defray costs incurred during the review process. Pack everything carefully: Please use paper or airbags—not packing peanuts. Ship with a tracking system, such as that available through FedEx, UPS or the U.S. Post Office (delivery confirmation or return receipt).

Send your package to:

 

10. Receive acknowledgement.

The Community Foundations National Standards Board will notify you of receipt of your record binder within 10 business days from the time it arrives. Due to the volume of work involved in processing, tracking and preparing record binders for review, please be patient with our staff as it make take several days to respond to phone and email inquiries about compliance status.

 

11. Await the review process.

Using a consistent, rigorous framework, peer compliance reviewers will assess the policies and procedures documented in your record binder, considering each individual document as well as your foundation’s overall adherence to National Standards. If your community foundation’s documentation demonstrates compliance, you will be notified of this decision. If a reviewer finds that your community foundation is not in compliance or that it is not possible to confirm your compliance due to omissions, draft content or other discrepancies:

• The reviewer will notify the Community Foundations National Standards Board.
• Community Foundations National Standards Board staff will contact you to clarify what additional information is needed.
• Your foundation will have approximately one month to submit the appropriate documentation.
• Your foundation may have up to three opportunities to provide additional documentation to meet compliance.
• If, after three such interactions, the reviewer remains unsatisfied with your organization’s submissions, the CFNSB Determinations Committee will perform a secondary review.

 

12. Receive notice of the decision.

Following your successful confirmation of compliance, you will be notified in writing and receive details about the benefits.

 

13. Uphold the National Standards and reconfirm.

Your community foundation’s compliance with National Standards is valid for five years; at five years you will require reconfirmation. During this time, keep your record binder up to date. Your foundation has an ongoing responsibility during the five-year period to ensure its policies and procedures continue to meet National Standards and your foundation may be subject to a random verification during that time.  Your foundation should inform the Community Foundations National Standards Board if the information submitted for review during the confirmation process materially changes (i.e., key elements no longer support compliance). Reviewers may also use reconfirmation as an opportunity to recommend best practices and seek out examples of excellence that transcend simple satisfaction of baseline National Standards. The objective would be to use reconfirmation to share innovative practices and strengthen the work of individual community foundations for field-wide benefit.

• Reconfirm your compliance

  Learn the steps. Get started.

• About National Standards

  They guide sound policies and accountable
  practices. They build capacity to carry
  out our missions. They make
  community foundations distinctive.
  

  

  Learn more about National Standards