Nonprofit Finances
How do you keep your nonprofit financially stabile when the economy has the jitters and donors have cold feet? Weathering a bad economy should not send your nonprofit skittering to the bunkers, but it should sharpen your focus and improve your efficiencies. Here are five suggestions to consider for the economic bad times.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, enacted to govern publicly-held companies, provides a blueprint for nonprofits that want to ensure financial responsibility and transparency.
With the increasing need for accountability by nonprofit organizations, more and more nonprofits are turning to audit services.
With more and more nonprofits offering donors the ability to make credit card payments, there is the potential for plenty of confusion. Your organization could end up paying more than you need to for processing transactions.
Managers and executives of nonprofits almost invariably come from the program side of the organization. They know how to design and deliver programs and services, curate art shows, heal patients, do academic research, perhaps even how to raise funds. What they are almost always weak on is finance.
Typically, a nonprofit and for-profit pay for unemployment claims through a state unemployment insurance tax (SUI). But unlike their counterparts, nonprofits have an alternative choice – to become a reimbursing employer.
When asked what about their organization keeps them awake at night, most nonprofit executive directors and senior managers will give the short and simple answer: money. [p]While most bring financial management experience to their job, many have less expertise in this area than they would like. All, however, are aware that sound financial management is linked with every function of the nonprofit and is essential for organizational success.
It is perplexing that approximately one third of nonprofits, more than 450,000 organizations, operate perpetually in financial distress, i.e., the Zone of Insolvency, and approximately 7%, are totally insolvent.
The Society of Nonprofit Organizations publishes one of my favorite journals about nonprofit management. It is called Nonprofit World and a recent issue included a wonderful article, 25 Ways to Cut Costs.
We have excerpted 10 of those suggestions here.
