Nonprofit Harvest

It’s that time of year when basketball and brackets seem to overtake the office.  The NCAA tournament is a time when small schools (with small athletic budgets) have a chance to upset the higher seeded teams from power conferences. That’s one of the reasons I love tourney, the chance to watch mid-majors like George Mason reach the Final Four.

Build a Winning Program

For nonprofits, there might be another lesson here: How can you transform your team from just another mid-major hoping to get invited to the dance into a legitimate contender each every year?  How can you be the nonprofit version of Gonzaga’s basketball program?

Here are some ways to improve your financial practices and lay the groundwork for a sustainable organization.

Recruiting Your Team

In order to be successful, you need the right team members for your organization’s staff and board.  Here are some resources to help you recruit and work with board members:

• Treasurer and Finance Committee – Who to Recruit and How to Use Them
• Recruiting and Vetting Nonprofit Board Members

Coaching and Strategy

A successful coach sets their team up for success.  They draw up plays that have the best chance of scoring, but ultimately trust their players to implement it.  Likewise, boards and staff leadership engage in strategic planning, develop realistic budgets, and put their organizations on the path to success.

• This Scenario Planning Worksheet is a step by step guide to contingency planning.  This resource will help you consider several possible scenarios and get ready to make informed budget and management decisions.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Successful teams spend the necessary time developing and honing their skills. At Nonprofits Assistance Fund, we have a resources and trainings that can help you improve your financial management.

But practice is more than just training and skill development. It’s also about working together effectively, staying in rhythm, building on what’s working and rethinking what is less successful.  Nonprofits need to keep their financial reports, cash flow projections, and other key benchmarks up to date. Without this information, it’s hard to know where to focus your efforts.

• Managing Cash Flow and the Cash Flow Template are resources to help you understand your organization’s cash position . Many organizations have an uneven cash flow. Recognizing when you may need additional capital will help you plan.

Rally Supporters

Successful teams have fans.  So do nonprofits.  Effective nonprofits are able to leverage their volunteers and in-kind donations to save resources and strengthen their organization.

• Blue Avocado has an excellent resource, Tracking Volunteer Time to Boost Your Bottom Line: A Complete Accounting Guide, to help you get the most out of your volunteers, including how to improve your financial position by accurately reflecting the value of this donated time.
• If you’re looking for a good primer about in-kind donations, Alan the Nonprofit Accountant, answers many common questions, including how to record donations at auctions and other events.

For another take on how March Madness can inspire nonprofits, check out Razoo’s March Goodness.

It’s a new year, a new decade, time to turn over a new leaf. Like many of you, I have New Year’s resolutions to get my life (and notoriously messy office) in better shape.

Many nonprofit and social enterprise bloggers have the same idea.  My favorite was Nell Edgington’s ideas about Social Impact Finance:

It’s a new year and a new decade, and both hold tremendous promise for creating real social change.  And key to significant social change is a fundamental restructuring of how we finance that change.  I think (hope) that in the next decade we will see the emergence of a new Social Impact Finance.  And I imagine it will look something like this…

• Nonprofits Understand the Power of Finance. Nonprofit organizations understand and become successful at financing their overall operations, instead of fundraising for them.  And they begin to think bigger about their work, the overall outcomes they are trying to achieve and how finance fits into that (The GiveWell blog did a great series on the “Room for More Funding Question.”)

Another one of her predictions, Individual Donors Become a Powerhouse, echoes Kate’s post, The Year For “Right-Sized” Donations and the outpouring of support we have seen in response to the tragic earthquake in Haiti.

(For more on Haiti, I suggest visiting Philanthropy.com and PhilanTopic, which have done a great job covering this story from a nonprofit and philanthropic perspective.)

2010, The Year of the Board?

Is 2010 the year of the board?  Two blogs I read regularly are focusing on  governance to start the new year:

• Nonprofit Law Blog: 10 New Year’s Resolutions for Your Board
• January Risk Management Tip of the Month: Getting Your Board’s House in Order

Are you looking for ways to help your board of directors take their leadership to the next level? Check out our webinar Financial Clarity for Nonprofit Boards next Friday, January 29th at 2pm CT (3pm EST). This training is a great way to prepare boards to assess and pursue new financial strategies, as well as shore up their understanding of nonprofit financial reports, terminology, and responsibilities.

We offer a range of financial trainings throughout the year.  They are an easy and affordable way to enhance your nonprofit’s financial management. For more information you can visit our website or sign up to receive training updates.

New Year, New Rules

We know there’s a new 990. Since organizations operate with different fiscal years (our Fiscal New Year is also April Fool’s Day) how do you know which form to use? Not-For-Profit Accounting has a short explanation to help you:

When do we file the new 990? Read below or click here for a PDF of a general overview of the instructions.

Calendar year – Use the 2008 Form 990 to report on the 2008 calendar year accounting period. A calendar year accounting period begins on January 1 and ends on December 31.

Fiscal year – If the organization has established a fiscal year accounting period, use the 2008 Form 990 to report on the organization’s fiscal year that began in 2008 and ended 12 months later. A fiscal year accounting period should normally coincide with the natural operating cycle of the organization. Be certain to indicate in the heading of Form 990 the date the organization’s fiscal year began in 2008 and the date the fiscal year ended in 2009.

The Nitty Gritty

There have been many useful guides to the new 990. Here are some of my favorites:

• Not-For-Profit Accounting’s 990 To Do List
• From Guidestar: The Revised Form 990: A How-to Guide for Your Organization
• The Charities Review Council’s New IRS Form 990 Resources
• Eve Borenstein’s Form 990 Tips and Resources

In case you want to go directly to the source, these are updates and resources from the IRS:

• Form 990 Resources and Tools
• Form 990 Case Study – The New Form 990: Getting Started – Video Series Introduction – This series of videos, each between five and ten minutes long, are part of The New Form 990 Getting Started case study. Each video covers a key area of the Form 990, using facts from the case study.
• Form 990 Filing Tips archive
• Questions about Schedule A (Public Charity Status and Public Support) and Schedule L (Transactions with Interested Persons)
• IRS Stay Exempt Mini Course, including special features on how to file the new form and information about the revisions.

This is also a good time to review the Top 5 Compliance Problems for 501(c)(3) Organizations.

For folks interested in taking their analysis to the next level, check out The Door Has Opened: New Form 990 Creates Strategic Opportunities and Risks for Nonprofit Organizations.

Nonprofit Harvest

• What Does Grantmakers’ 2010 Funding Outlook Mean for Minnesota Nonprofits?
• Nonprofit Fiscal Rules for the “New Normal”
• Tips : Third Sector Connector : Nonprofit and NGO Tips, News, Best Practices, Resources
• Nonprofit Managers Say Top Investment Priority Is Having Assets in Spendable Form
• NFF’s State of the Sector Survey