Building a board is a continuous improvement process. You want committed, passionate, and expert members to help guide your nonprofit—and you want to continuously fine-tune the board to be its best.
It’s challenging to find people with the right skills for board positions. Here are a few best practices: (more…)
Does your staff cringe when you talk about goals? Do your coworkers roll their eyes when you discuss your objectives for the coming year?
If this is the case in your organization, it may be time for a new way of thinking about your aims—one that is well established, motivating, and clear.
Try using the SMART framework to make your goal setting more effective. SMART is an acronym for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. This technique can add clarity, structure, and motivation to your organizational goals. (more…)
By Nick Sabbatini, CPA, Audit Manager
Social distancing has led to a reduction of customer foot traffic and a shift towards a remote workforce, notably impacting revenue streams. For nonprofit organizations, this means finding ways to cope with a reduction in program participation while also grappling with ways to alter processes and program management to ensure health and safety. However, nonprofit organizations face an additional blow, as donations and grants, which often provide the bulk of funding needed for general operations, dry up due to the cancellation of fundraising events, and tightening of budgets during the crisis. Given this significant drain on operational funding, nonprofit organizations need to adjust operations and use existing resources to ensure their doors remain open. (more…)
Does your development strategy include pursuing grants from donor-advised funds (DAFs)? Considering the recent growth of these charitable investment vehicles, it should.
DAFs are managed financial accounts dedicated to charitable giving. Individual account owners establish and contribute to their own fund and then direct the account manager, also known as the sponsor, about which organizations should receive donations. Cash and other non-cash assets can be contributed to these funds, with the donor generally able to receive a tax deduction at the time of the contribution to the DAF. (more…)
By Samantha Ramirez, CPA, Tax Manager
In December 2019, the Taxpayer Certainty and Disaster Tax Relief Act was signed into law, and retroactively repealed the “parking tax” that had taken the not-for-profit (NFP) community by surprise. This is good news for exempt organizations that were subject to unrelated business income tax (UBIT) solely because they provided their employees transportation fringe benefits. NFPs will no longer owe UBIT for these disallowed benefits, and for organizations that already paid the tax, refunds can now be claimed! (more…)
Nonprofit organizations are stressed. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has affected charitable giving, and nonprofit executives are seeking more innovative ways to attract talent and attention to their mission.
To explore the current challenges and opportunities facing nonprofit organizations, Wipfli polled more than 700 financial professionals and executives from the nonprofit sector across the U.S. The resulting report, the Nonprofit Priorities Benchmark: 2019 Outlook Survey Report, highlighted several concerns, and a clear theme emerged: uncertainty. (more…)
All nonprofit organizations have boards of directors, but many have advisory boards as well. Unlike boards of directors, advisory boards have no formal governance or fiduciary responsibilities, nor any decision-making authority. Their role is to provide guidance to the executive staff and board members on strategic or tactical objectives. (more…)
Are you up to date on your state registration and reporting? It’s estimated that as many as 90 percent of nonprofit organizations failed to register to solicit funds in one or more states, even though they were required to do so by state law.
The IRS and state governments are taking notice. (more…)
By Josh Cross, CPA, Principal
ASL Nonprofit Group
Many of those who work in the nonprofit field do so because of their commitment to the mission of the organization or their passion for serving others. It’s these aspects that make so many Silicon Valley nonprofits effective at reaching strategic goals over the years. A management team that can juggle the multiple demands of program management, employee engagement, volunteer recruiting and fundraising is necessary for success. However, another variable in the success formula is just as important – an engaged and effective Board of Directors. Engagement levels vary across organizations, leaving management wondering about how involved members should be and how to encourage engagement. To address this concern, Urban Institute published a report, Boards of Midsize Nonprofits: Their Needs and Challenges, and here is a summary of their findings. (more…)
