Nonprofit Harvest

We’re very excited that our executive director, the “wildly practical Kate Barr,” is featured in this month’s Nonprofit Quarterly.  Her article, Improving Nonprofit Decision Making amid Economic Crisis, highlights the importance of taking action:

Over the next year or two, budgetary challenges are clearly in the cards, and there are likely to be successive and different situations requiring action. Change may be inevitable, but the impact of this change on an organization depends on which decisions are made and how.

Although Kate doesn’t use the old adage “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today,” she does illustrate the dangers of allowing a problem to “fester until it [becomes] a crisis.” She also offers some suggestions for how to improve organizational decision making.

After reading the article, you can use our resources to start making decisions at your organization.

• Cash Flow Template
• Scenario Planning Worksheet

This Week’s Harvest: Frequently Asked Questions

Audits

Not-For-Profit Accounting returns to answer some frequently asked questions, starting with questions on audits:

Our nonprofit is getting ready for our first audit.  What are we supposed to do, and what does the auditor do?

You should receive a letter of engagement from the auditors that helps spell out the relationship.  You’ll also get a lists of things to do and get ready before the auditors come to your offices for the field work.  This article also talks about the process.  But if you have any questions you should ask your auditors before things get going to avoid any confusion and additional cost.

Read more about audits in Balancing the Mission Checkbook and see what other FAQ’s Allan tackles in blog post.

Collaboration

• Mergers seem to be the hot topic these days. But there are many ways to collaborate beyond mergers. The Foundation Center provides information on different types of strategic alliances, including few different typologies, which underscores the range of possible collaborations.

Stimulus

• 2009 Recovery Act Resources for Nonprofits from MCN’s Public Policy team

• Want Stimulus Money? Act Fast! from Fieldstone Alliance

• Special Reports on Economic Stimulus & Recovery from the National Council of Nonprofits

It may be a coincidence, but on the heels of Lucy Bernholz’s thoughtful piece, It’s not a recession, it’s a restructuring, there has been a lot of discussion about the relationship between nonprofits and money. From unpacking the complexities of nonprofit funding to re-framing the idea of financial markets to everything in between.

Nonprofit Funding: It’s Not One Size Fits All

Ten Nonprofit Funding Models: A Proposed Lexicon

Social Standford Innovation Review points out one of the reasons that nonprofit financial models are more complex than for-profit ones:

When a for-profit business finds a way to create value for a customer, it has generally found its source of revenue; the customer pays for the value. With rare exceptions, that is not true in the nonprofit sector. When a nonprofit finds a way to create value for a beneficiary (for example, integrating a prisoner back into society or saving an endangered species), it has not identified its economic engine. That is a separate step.

The article, Ten Nonprofit Funding Models from the goes on to identify different models, arranged by the dominant type of funder – individuals and/or foundations, government, corporations, and a funding mix.

So, What’s the Best Model for My Organization?

When trying to figure out your organization’s funding mix, it’s important to remember that there is no one right answer.  Blue Avocado elaborates in Just Tell Me: What’s the Best Way to Raise Money? Choosing the Right Revenue Strategy:

The decisions you make about your revenue strategy – that is, who should be supporting your work and how to go about soliciting that support – should be based not only on who is most likely to give you money or pay for your services, but what makes the most sense in terms of who you are, what kind of change you’re trying to make in your community and how your funding sources can help you get there.

And Is Profit Important?

Not-For-Profit Accounting addresses a frequently asked question, Why Nonprofits Have Profit

In order for an organization to do its work and carry out its mission on an ongoing basis it must generate more income than the expenses it incurs. It must make a profit. Any organization, either a for-profit or a nonprofit, that does not take in more money than it spends will fail in the end.

Fresh from the Farmer’s Market: This Week’s Harvest

• A Social Capital (Farmer’s?) Market from Tactical Philanthropy

• Resetting the Capital Approach from Social Velocity

• A Social Solution, Without Going the Nonprofit Route from the New York Times

• Increasing Service Opportunities Would Revive Nonprofit Finances, Report Says from the Chronicle of Philanthropy

• Academic Endowments: The Curse of Hoarded Treasure from Business Week