Certified nonprofit operations managers

What our certification means

Nonprofits that hire a certified operations manager are hiring a person and a system together. This page says exactly what that covers, and what it does not.

Sample certificate: Certified Nonprofit Operations Specialist, certified by 501c3.help

Comes with the person

What a certified manager has

The catalogue.

Twenty-six areas of nonprofit operations, broken into concrete steps, built from what small organizations actually have to do.

Open the catalogue, all 496 steps →

A compliance calendar.

Federal and state obligations, computed from your organization's own facts: your state, your fiscal year, your registration dates. Not from a generic checklist.

The state compliance guides behind it →

A working system.

Drafting, scheduling, document handling, and a weekly report of what was done.

Your manager doesn't buy any of this, and neither do you. It comes with them.

The work

What a certified manager does

Runs a daily queue of your deadlines, tasks, and approvals
Interviews you at the start to find what you're actually trying to build
Keeps your organization's facts current
Prepares web content, posts, and operational correspondence for your approval
Sends you a weekly report of what was done

The line

What a certified manager never does

We publish this list because it matters more than the one above.

Never files your taxes or prepares your 990. That is your accountant's work. We track the deadline and tell you when it's coming.
Never gives legal advice. Not about your bylaws, your board, or your state filings.
Never quotes a deadline from memory. Every date comes from the system, computed from your facts. If your manager doesn't know, they will say so and come back with the answer.
Never promises a result. We promise work, not donations.

Issuer

Who certifies

Certification is issued by 501c3.help. It is not a government credential and it is not accredited by anyone; we say so plainly because other people don't.

It means a person trained with us, then carried client organizations under our supervision before being certified, works inside our system, and is accountable to us for how they work. It is not granted for attending a course, and we withdraw it when someone stops meeting the standard.

Accountability

If something goes wrong

Write to [email protected] and name the manager. A person reads it, not a queue.

We can and do withdraw certification, and when we do, we move that manager's clients to someone else and tell them why.

Not a law firm or a CPA firm. We prepare structure and drafts for professional review.