Nonprofit finance, accounting, and tax news. Other tidbits of interest to the charity community.
Check out how to present multiple pieces of data from every country on the planet over a 40 year trend in such a way that anyone can get your point. Professor Hans Rosling has a way of showing extremely complicated data so you can get the idea in a few minutes.
Some examples:
Both ECFA and Guidestar recently released survey results of giving trends in 2010. Wanted to put the results side by side. (more…)
More news on giving trends. The news recently is almost good news, sort of. At least the news isn’t really bad. ECFA just released their Nonprofit Economic Impact Survey. (more…)
Cutoff for filing that new, long 990 is dropping in 2010. If your fiscal year ends December 31, 2010 or later, here is the rundown on what forms you will have to file: (more…)
(duplicate of post from Attestation Update blog)
Update – SSARS 19 had been replaced by SSARS 21. All the reports have been revised. You can check out these posts at my other blog, Attestation Update:
If you prepare compiled financial statements for management use only (which means the reports will not be going to third parties), you will be glad to know the new SSARS 19 document includes the guidance that used to be in SSARS 8. Let me describe some of the provisions. (more…)
Incredible visualization of 200 years of economic development and improvements in health around the world. A professor creates an entertaining visual of how health and wealth has increased in 200 countries over 2 centuries. Does it all in under 5 minutes. (more…)
Great article on tips to avoid email disasters along with a few horror stories to show why awareness is needed. Very short read. (more…)
Along with the incredible opportunities from wonderful technology we get some unusual risks. Previously discussed the risk from not owning your domain name and the chance you could wind up without the ability to use it.
Illustration 2 – being stranded by changes made by your vendor (more…)
There are lots of special risks when using technology. You need to identify and manage them. A new one that I have just started to appreciate is the danger of being trapped by your technology provider. (more…)
Guidestar reports good news in survey of over 2,500 charities: 2010 Fundraising Survey Results: The Worst May Be Over. (more…)
Having discussed the fraud triangle, you may wonder if there is anything you can do in your organization to stop the three sides of the fraud triangle from coming together and igniting into a disaster. Well, you can not absolutely prevent fraud. However, you can work to minimize the risk on each side of the triangle and as a result greatly reduce the danger of fraud. Some of the things you can do as an organization are discussed here, here, and here.
It is obvious to me that most ministries and businesses should be in social media because of the tremendous potential to further your mission or revenue stream, so the issue is pretty much resolved on whether to move forward or not. The next issue is to identify the risks in moving forward because there are risks. The action steps are then to manage those risks. (more…)
As you dive into the social media world, what are the limits for doing so and how do you do it without causing more problems than the benefits produced? That is where policies come into play. (more…)