http://www.nonprofitsassistancefund.org/blog Kate Barr shares her thoughts and insights on nonprofit management and finance Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:52:56 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en How do you know what you don’t know? Someone asked this question last week in a workshop on the topic of board oversight and some high-profile problems. It’s such a great and critical question. There’s been a swirl of conversations in the last week or so about financial problems and ... http://www.nonprofitsassistancefund.org/blog/2008/07/18/accountability-lesson-number-1-questions-must-be-asked/ Eight years ago, ACORN, a national grassroots community organizing nonprofit, was the victim of an embezzlement of almost $1 million from an employee who was the brother of the organization’s founder. The fraud was never reported to their board of directors or legal authorities, but a small internal group negotiated ... http://www.nonprofitsassistancefund.org/blog/2008/07/11/the-opposite-of-accountable/ How can you appeal to donors at a time when costs and demands for services are increasing? How about a letter or email detailing your line by line budget increases? Probably not – because what it costs to provide services isn’t compelling. It’s what results from the services that makes ... http://www.nonprofitsassistancefund.org/blog/2008/06/27/measure-something/ A headline last week in Philanthropy Today read "Mass. Charities Urged to Merge and Pool Resources". The story comments on a report just released by The Boston Foundation on the financial status and condition of nonprofits in the state. The online story offers a few nuggets from the report and ... http://www.nonprofitsassistancefund.org/blog/2008/06/18/the-boston-foundations-call-to-action/ When economic times get stressed, as they are now, nonprofit organizations are often urged to consider mergers or other collaborative structures as a strategy to navigate reductions and shifts in funding. The topic came up again at a meeting last week titled "The State We're In: Fulfilling Human Service Needs ... http://www.nonprofitsassistancefund.org/blog/2008/06/03/speed-dating-for-nonprofits/ Right now, about 25% of the nonprofits that we are working with pretty closely are in the midst of a capital campaign, are just finishing their campaign, or have plans to launch one in the next year or so. The meaning of “capital” campaign is evolving, and about one-third of ... http://www.nonprofitsassistancefund.org/blog/2008/05/21/reality-check-for-capital-campaigns/ The State of Vermont recently adopted legislation creating a new type of entity, a Low-profit Limited Liability Corporation. The L3C, as it is called, is sort of a hybrid of for-profit and nonprofit created as a way to attract both private and philanthropic capital to build businesses with a social ... http://www.nonprofitsassistancefund.org/blog/2008/05/12/where-for-profit-and-nonprofit-meet/ Many nonprofits think about the Internal Revenue Service only once a year - when they are filing their 990 return. Since the IRS is the regulator and enforcer of exempt status and activities, you might want to pay closer and more frequent attention. Of increasing importance are questions about the ... http://www.nonprofitsassistancefund.org/blog/2008/05/01/the-irs-comes-to-the-party/ Following up on questions raised during some training workshops I presented last week, I’ve decided to start an occasional series called Mythbusters – Nonprofit Finance Edition. There are a number of pieces of “common wisdom” that I hear over and over again, and some of them are just not helpful. ... http://www.nonprofitsassistancefund.org/blog/2008/04/24/the-cash-reserves-myth/ For those of you who are not familiar with Alltop, it's a place that gathers and posts stories on a particular topic, in this case nonprofits. You can visit Alltop and see the most recent posts from a range of news sources and bloggers, as well as find new ... http://www.nonprofitsassistancefund.org/blog/2008/04/24/were-on-alltop-nonprofits/