When I lived in a small, very small, town in Vermont, it was not uncommon to see people buring their trash in either steel cans or pits.

I am, like most men, a big fan of the open flame, and, as strange as it is, when one of those trash fires would get going, we would gather around this Dantean tableau, and warm ourselves, even in July.

Even burning trash has value.

In the last three weeks, two nonprofit organizations, located at opposite ends of the philanthropic spectrum, were poised to suffer profound organizational distress from forces outside of their control.

Planned Parenthood stood to loose thousands of dollars in grant funding from the Susan Komen Foundation and the Roman Catholic Church was poised to forcibly embrace a set of government directives that were antithetical to their theological teachings.

While Planned Parenthood stood to loose thousands of dollars, an interesting thing happened: thousands of donors, many of whom were unknown to that organization, flooded regional offices with donations and, I suspect, many Diocesan annual fund operations will see an increase in donations this year.

Both organizations learned an invaluable lession in nonprofit dynamics: burning trash often has value.

When I was a lad, my father would give me 45 cents a week as an allowance, which was the prevailing wage for those sweatshop activities that fell upon the youngest son.

It was enough for a movie and a box of Good and Plenty.

Although I have had a marginal increase to my weekly allowance, I still, inflation aside, buy a large box of that wonderful confection weekly.

Last week, I left my most recent, unopened, purchase on the counter.

My black Labrador, who is approaching his sunset years, is still quite adept at counter surfing.

I found out that he also likes Good and Plenty.

Unfortunately, they do not like him and, as such, it has made our walks as of late very interesting.

I forgot that, when buying food, I am accountable to him as to my storage selections.

Accountability.

We all manage a pledge process in the context of our annual programs.

Money comes in. Pledge reminders go out.

Simple, yes?

Yet, I find, in a lot of places that I work with, that this simple process portends potential disaster.

Nonprofit organizations should never be the party that both handles the cash and manages the pledge process.

They need to be distinct, and profoundly separated processes.

They should never even touch the cash, apart from the odd donation that may land in the office.

If they are considering a service provider to manage the pledge process, they should consider two: one to take the money in and another to get the pledge statement out.

And the providers they choose should have the necessary internal controls to manage either process in a manner consistent with best practice.

You are, after all, accountable.

To your donors.