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Financial Strictures
Financial Strictures
Spring 2003
Welcome
Welcome | Spring 2003
Financial Management: Processes
The Numbers Game: How Important Is It?

In a frank and clearheaded introduction to this issue, the authors explore the economic challenges that lie ahead and offer guidance for negotiating the various conundrums of nonprofit financial structures.

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Financial Management: Structures & Patterns
In, but not Of, the Market: The Special Challenge of Nonprofit-ness

The complexities of our financial systems derive from the distinctive nature of the nonprofit market--its cost and revenue structures, its limited access to capital, and the fact that nonprofits often serve dual buyers (funders and constituents). Sound financial management must take this unique market into account.

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Case Study
From New Hampshire, "With Love and Comfort"

Ellen Ahlgren never intended to launch a global phenomenon in community service learning. And thereby hangs the tale...

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Financial Management: Processes
An Executive Director's Primer on Financial Management

A back-to-basics review of what you need to know, and who needs to do what, for a smooth-running organization.

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Financial Management: Processes
Is Grant Proposal Writing a Fundraising Expense?

Author Mark A. Hager presents a detailed examination of how U.S. nonprofits are reporting--and often underreporting--grant proposal writing expenses, arguing that a more accurate accounting would benefit both individual organizations and the sector as a whole.

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Financial Management: Processes
The Challenge with Fundraising Costs and Multi-Year Grants

Large multi-year grants may take years of consistent effort to secure, but if a grant arrives in a lump sum, it will have to be reported as revenue that year, causing fundraising costs to appear much higher as a percentage of revenue in non-receipt years. Be sure to explain this fluctuation to your funders.

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Financial Management: Structures & Patterns
Management and General Expenses: The Other Half of Overhead

Some variations in how organizations report management and general expenses on their IRS Form 990s defy plausibility. Based on the largest study to date of overhead costs in the nonprofit sector, this article explores the consequences of these inconsistencies.

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Financial Management: Structures & Patterns
Know Your Ratios? Everyone Else Does

Many nonprofit rating agencies use financial ratios as a means to evaluate organizations, posting their findings online for all to see. Learning the lay of the ratings agency land will help you make the best of this information--and make sure your story is told a completely as possible.

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Financial Management: Structures & Patterns
Is There Enough Overhead in This Grant?

Calculating overhead costs is a tricky part of grant proposal writing, especially since funders often want these costs kept to a minimum. Learn to determine the true overhead costs for a program idea, then decide if the proposal will genuinely benefit your organization or run you ragged because it included too little overhead.

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Financial Management: Structures & Patterns
Budget Cuts and Sudden Overhead Conundrums

Most nonprofits run with minimal administrative infrastructure, so when cutbacks strike, overhead usually rises in proportion to program costs. Emil Angelica offers practical advice for weathering the current "perfect storm" of economic hardship and for explaining our suddenly higher overhead costs to funders.

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Financial Management: Structures & Patterns
Focus on the Core Business
As sources of capital, funders can unintentionally contribute to the systematic under-capitalization of the sector--encouraging the growth of programs without providing for a commensurate growth in capacity. Clara Miller offers advice for reversing this trend.
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Financial Management: Processes
Assessing Fraud Risk
The authors present questions that every organization should ask when determining fraud risk.
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Accountability: Regulation
Anti-Terrorism Law Could Impact Nonprofits

Learn what the new USA PATRIOT Act could mean for your nonprofit.

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Satire
How I Cooked the Books and Why

Phil Anthrop shares his experience as a nonprofit manager forced to compromise his integrity and risk hail time to make payroll.

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