Jim Ulvog

Financial fallout from fiascos at Willow Creek Community Church and Harvest Bible Chapel

Willow Creek Church by Mary Fairchild is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

If you read this blog and haven’t yet tuned in to the disasters at Willow Creek Community Church or Harvest Bible Chapel, it would be worth your time to do so. It is painful to read of the fiascos in those high profile churches, but those of us working in or serving the Christian community need to pay attention and learn.

Bill Hybels resigned from Willow Creek in April 2018.

James MacDonald was released from Harvest in February 2019.

There has been a lot of coverage of both situations. Because there is so much here to learn, I want to write about both situations. To this point, I’ve only written a few twitter comments pointing to some of the coverage.

An article on 2/13/20 in Christianity Today provides some information from the ripple effects on finances and attendance: Willow Creek and Harvest Struggle to Move On / The departures of Bill Hybels and James MacDonald leave churches waiting for new leadership and hoping to rebuild trust.

I will try something new for this post. Following discussion was first written for Twitter. Will try bringing that into a blog post. Let’s see how it works. My comments on Twitter:

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Jim Ulvog

Summary of GIK exposure draft

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

FASB has provided an explanatory article and video for the exposure draft on gifts-in-kind disclosures.

The ED would require presenting GIK on a separate line of the statement of activity and additional disclosures in the notes. Most significant new disclosure would be the valuation techniques and inputs used for calculating value of the GIK.

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Jim Ulvog

FASB releases exposure draft on presentation and disclosure for gifts-in-kind.

    Image courtesy of FASB under Fair Use.

The exposure draft will require the amount of donated nonfinancial assets to be disclosed on a separate line in the statement of activities.  Some additional disclosures will be required. The main new disclosure is the technique and inputs used to value the GIK along with the principal market for the items.

The draft is titled Not-for-Profit Entities (Topic 958) / Presentation and Disclosures by Not-for-Profit Entities for Contributed Nonfinancial Assets.

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Jim Ulvog

One more sentencing in college admissions scandal and prosecutor recommendations for next three parent facing a judge.

White-Gravenor Hall of Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Fourteenth sentence for a parent in the college admissions scandal was handed down today. Also, feds have recommendations for the next three parents already scheduled for sentencing, which will be heavier than previous cases.

The LA Times provided an update on federal recommendations on 2/4/20:  Admissions scandal:  Prosecutors seek longest prison sentences yet for four California parents.

Prosecutors assert the four worked on the scheme for 11 years, cumulatively paying $1.6M to help out nine children.

Recap of status for these four, each of whom have pleaded guilty on two felony counts:

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Jim Ulvog

Cost to develop one new drug

Federal Trade Commission Building in Washington, DC. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

How much does it cost for a pharmaceutical company to get one new drug onto the market? As with all variations of “what does it cost” questions the answer is complicated. Any such answer requires explanation of what the calculation means.

Other posts discussing this issue:

According to a 2016 study by Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, here is their calculation of what it takes to get one compound to the point of where it is approved for sale:

  • $1.395 billion – out-of-pocket costs – actual cash expended at the point approval is obtained to sell the compound
  • +$1.163 billion – “time costs”, in other words the capitalization of having to invest more than a billion dollars over many years – this represents the opportunity cost of having otherwise been able to invest that money in something else that would have produced a return earlier
  • =$2.558 billion – total capitalized cost at point of receiving approval to sell one compound
  • +0.312 billion – costs incurred for follow-up required by FDA as a condition of obtaining approval – this includes factors such as monitoring long-term side effects, monitoring safety, looking at new formulations or dosage strength
  • =$2.870 billion – total lifecycle costs to develop one new medicine that is approved by the FDA for sale

The study was based on a random selection of 106 drugs from 10 pharmaceutical companies. Since that is a random selection presumably the calculation would apply to all medicines.

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Jim Ulvog

Two more parents sentenced in college admissions scandal over last two months. Recap of previous sentences.

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Two more parents have been sentenced in the college admissions scandal.  Been watching the news lately and no more sentences have been declared in the last six weeks.

According to my count of the status listed by Wikipedia, there are 6 parents who have a plea deal and are awaiting sentencing. Another 15 parents are awaiting trial.

New sentencing since my last post on 10/28/19:

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Jim Ulvog

Update on exposure draft for increased GIK disclosures

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

FASB update presentation today (12/19/19) indicated the GIK disclosures project is moving forward as previously outlined.

An exposure draft is expected to be released in January 2020.  There will be a 60 day comment period.

Previous post described the outline and limited scope of the project as approved by FASB:

In condensed form, the project will require separate disclosure of donated goods on the face of the statement of activities and require some additional disclosures in the notes. There will not be any change in valuation of donated medicine.

Jim Ulvog

More articles on GIK valuation. The issue isn’t going away.

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Nicola White, writing at Bloomberg Tax, has several articles following up on the GIK valuation issue after the veto of California AB 1181 by the governor. If you have been following the issue, you will want to check her recent writing.

End of this post discusses the departure from FASB of a project manager long involved with nonprofit rulemaking.

The articles, with a few highlights:

11/4/19 – Bloomberg Tax – Small Fixes Eyed for Charity Accounting as California Backs Off – Article describes why FASB is strongly resistant to any change in GIK valuation.

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Jim Ulvog

FASB provides outline for new disclosures on GIK

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

On November 6, 2019, FASB discussed the GIK valuation project.

Back on August 21, 2019, FASB set the scope for the project to include only nonfinancial GIK with measurement (that means valuation) off the table. Staff was directed to work toward an exposure draft (ED) that would address only presentation and disclosure. That means an ED will only describe how GIK is presented on the statement of activity and what information is explained in the notes.

According to minutes of the 11/6/19 meeting, available here, FASB ratified that previous scope.

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Jim Ulvog

A Halloween costume that would make any CPA pass out from fright – an auditor performing one pension plan audit

Photo courtesy of DollarPhotoClub.com
Photo courtesy of DollarPhotoClub.com

Amid the cute little kids in their funny costumes, this pleasant Halloween night there was a grown man in a suit at the door asking for candy. White shirt, red tie, gray pinstripe.

Not so scary, thought I.

“What are you dressed up as?”

“An auditor,” came the reply.

That’s not frightening, since I’ve been an auditor for a long time. But it did explain the old-style, standard issue uniform.

So, putting on my peer reviewer hat, I asked, “what audit work do you do?”

“Oh, only one pension plan….

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Jim Ulvog

How big is the world of donated medicine? Updated estimate.

Medical factory storage warehouse. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

This post updates the previous estimate of the volume of donated medicine for the relief & development community of the nonprofit world.

There are a few charities receiving big volumes of medicine donated by the pharmaceutical companies. Those charities then get all those meds distributed to charity clinics and hospitals around the world. That is incredible work which is improving the lives of millions upon millions of poor people around the world.

Following is an estimate of the size of that sector, with subtotal of charities with over $20 million of donated medicine and supplies, under $20 million, and zero reported meds:

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Jim Ulvog