Study on Nonprofit Investing (SONI) Dashboard

Understand how your organization compares to similar nonprofits using publicly available financial data.

Benchmarking Against 380,000+ Peers

Nonprofit staff, boards, and finance committees are often asked to assess financial performance, reserve levels, and investment practices relative to peers. Finding reliable, relevant comparisons can be challenging when much of the available data is anecdotal or based on voluntary surveys with limited participation.

The SONI Dashboard is a complimentary peer benchmarking resource developed by Raffa Investment Advisers. It analyzes IRS Form 990 and other publicly available data from more than 380,000 nonprofit organizations, allowing users to compare their organization’s financial metrics to their peers.

Comparisons can be filtered or segmented by factors such as:

501(c) type
operating budget
focus area
employee range
location

Access the Dashboard

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How to Leverage SONI

The SONI dashboard is a helpful starting point for board conversations, particularly when discussing reserves, risk, and long-term financial sustainability. SONI can help:

SUPPORT DISCUSSIONS

Provide peer context for board and finance committee discussions

VALIDATE DECISIONS

Validate reserve levels and financial policies against like organizations

IDENTIFY AREAS OF CONCERN

Uncover potential outliers in operating performance when compared to peers

What You Can Learn

The SONI Dashboard helps organizations gain clearer context around their financial position by showing how key metrics compare within a relevant peer group.

Specifically, the dashboard can help organizations understand:

How reserve-to-budget ratios and days of cash on hand compare to peers
How similar organizations allocate reserves between cash and investments
Typical operating margins for similar organizations
Trends in revenue, reserves, and operating results across the sector over time

Many organizations use these insights to validate current practices, identify potential outliers, and support more informed financial decision-making.

Sample SONI Dashboard Charts

Data Disclosure

All data presented has been sourced from Cause IQ, which aggregates information from IRS Form 990 filings and other public sources. While we believe the data to be reliable, we cannot guarantee its accuracy or completeness. The financial metrics and results shown are for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as the sole basis for financial, investment, or operational decisions.

What are the Top Indicators of Nonprofit Financial Health?

Nonprofit leaders must balance meeting immediate financial needs with positioning their organizations for long-term success. Evaluating whether your investment policy and strategy align with sector norms can help strengthen decision-making and build confidence among stakeholders.

Actively evaluating key liquidity, operational, and financial measures can help support this assessment. Common metrics to review include:

Days of cash on hand
Amount of budgeted expenses held in reserve
Liquidity
Short-term vs. long-term investment segmentation
Growth in total reserves over time

While there is no single right answer for how much an organization should hold in reserves, understanding how your nonprofit or association compares to similar organizations can be valuable. These insights can help identify and prioritize strategic, governance, and operational areas that may warrant closer attention.

Knowledge is Meant to Be Shared

Education & Insights Related to Nonprofit Peer Benchmarking

Education & Guides

5 Signs Your Nonprofit Is Ready to Hire an Investment Advisor

A nonprofit is usually ready to hire an investment advisor when more than one sign appears rather than after a single event. Reserves may have grown, the investment policy may have fallen behind, committee members may have changed, or the person managing the portfolio may have been doing so informally for years. Any one of these can be managed for a time, though together they often indicate that the organization's investments have outgrown the oversight structure around them.

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Education & Guides

What the Middle East Conflict Means for Your Association’s Financial Strategy

The impact of the Middle East conflict is already showing up in association budgets, board conversations, and finance committee agendas. Read more.

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Common Questions That Often Arise Regarding Nonprofit Benchmarking

When should we start investing our excess cash?

Typically, as soon as a detailed Investment Policy Statement is in place. We recommend working with your investment adviser while creating this to confirm the strategy aligns with your organization’s financial needs over time. How excess funds should be invested is based on your organization’s operating expenses, intermediate-term goals, and long-term goals. Most nonprofits will define a strategy for different buckets of reserves based on the length of time until they are required. This is because the risk you are willing to take on and the length of time until the funds are needed heavily impacts the investment vehicle that should be selected.

How much should we keep in cash vs. Invest?

The answer to how much an organization should keep in cash vs. investments depends on how certain/predictable your cash flows are. We typically recommend keeping 1 – 3 months of budgeted expenses in an operating checking account with any additional funds expected to be spent in the next 6-12 months in a cash/operating reserve. Granted, this varies per organization due to the consistency and reliability of the income stream.

When should we start thinking about spending from our reserves?

Reserve assets are there to support the organization in times of operating stress or to further the organization’s mission. In some instances, you may have funds held within your reserves for an upcoming capital investment and in other times they may be held in reserves for unplanned future initiatives. We believe an organization should consider spending from its reserves when it makes sense and won’t affect the organization’s financial security. Your adviser can work with you to understand how to leverage your reserves to support planned and unplanned expenses and how to minimize the financial impact of doing so.

Study on Nonprofit Investing (SONI) Dashboard

Benchmarking Against 380,000+ Peers

Access the Dashboard

How to Leverage SONI

SUPPORT DISCUSSIONS

VALIDATE DECISIONS

IDENTIFY AREAS OF CONCERN

What You Can Learn

Sample SONI Dashboard Charts

What are the Top Indicators of Nonprofit Financial Health?

Education & Insights Related to Nonprofit Peer Benchmarking

5 Signs Your Nonprofit Is Ready to Hire an Investment Advisor

What the Middle East Conflict Means for Your Association’s Financial Strategy

Common Questions That Often Arise Regarding Nonprofit Benchmarking

When should we start investing our excess cash?

How much should we keep in cash vs. Invest?

When should we start thinking about spending from our reserves?

Interested in a one-on-one Demo?

What are the Top Indicators of Nonprofit Financial Health?