Nonprofit finance, accounting, and tax news. Other tidbits of interest to the charity community.
March 14 is referred to as Pi day by people who enjoy math. Since pi equals 3.14159, that makes March 14 pi day.
3/14
3.14
Get it?
Well, it’s funny for some of us. Really.
Million Dollar Way points out that tomorrow, March 14, 2015, is the Pi day of the century.
I’ll let Mr. Oksol explain it: (more…)
Most sources I have read over the years suggest the document retention timelines for employee files should be three years after the person leaves the organization.
Perhaps you should set to permanent the retention timeline for reference checks on applicants. Might want to extend that to all the materials that support your screening of employees.
That is the suggestion from Richard Hammar in his March/April issue of Church Law & Tax Report. (If your interest in this post has lasted this far into the discussion, you probably ought to be reading that newsletter, available from Christianity Today.)
The reason for permanent retention?
Here are a few more articles in the ongoing conversation of how to assess charities: overhead or impact.
2/25 – Christianity Today – Welcome to the Golden Age of Global Charity – Review emphasizes portion of book that describes the growing levels of accountability for effectiveness.
General Peter van Uhm is the Netherlands chief of defense. In the following TED presentation, he explains why he chose a gun to make the world a better place. Others choose a pen or brush.
He intentionally picked up a gun.
I’ve not talked about my military service on my blogs. His presentation is a superb proxy for why I took my turn carrying a gun, especially one that held frightening power.
Here’s the reason in one phrase: (more…)
I use the “good stuff” description on my other blogs for groups of articles I find of interest that might be of interest to my readers. Typically the articles don’t have much in common with each other. Think I’ll start doing the “good stuff” update here as well.
Here’s a few articles I’ve enjoyed over the last few weeks on nonprofit issues: burnout in helping others, good news for dissidents in denominational doctrine disputes, unintended consequences of free malaria nets. Three very different articles, but a common thread seems to be that life is complicated.
2/1 – The Guardian – The cost of caring – why I had to leave the charity sector – (more…)
Double check who is getting your texts.
We’ve all heard the stories of hitting ‘reply all’ instead of ‘reply’ when discussing something in an e-mail that shouldn’t go to ‘all’.
Here’s a new oopsie I learned about personally but at low cost.
Forum News Service has a seven part series on human trafficking in North Dakota dealing with multiple aspects of the prostitution issue. Shift in our cultural perceptions is focusing more on the issue of women getting sucked in and trapped by this destructive world.
This article is cross-posted from my other blog, Outrun Change, because I think it will be of interest to many of the faith-based readers of Nonprofit Update.
The series is set in the Bakken oil field of North Dakota. The general issues apply all across the U.S. This is news because many sides of the downside of economic growth are visible in North Dakota. If the series were set in Los Angeles or New York area, this would be ancient, boring news.
In North Dakota we can easy watch as the reporters describe the devastation of prostitution. The scale of the issue is small enough and new enough in a relatively small state that the story can actually be covered in just seven parts.
One thing I’ve learned in the last few years of blogging is that certain names pop up regularly as authors of routinely superb writing. There is a short list of authors for whom I try to read everything they write. Ms. Dalrymple, who is also a very prolific writer, is one of those.
If you are deeply interested in either the Bakken or the trafficking issue, this is a series you will definitely want to read.
12/4 – Forum News Service in Bismarck Tribune – Trafficking in North Dakota is on the rise, and often the victims can’t escape – Seven part series on human trafficking in the state coauthored by Amy Dalrymple and Katherine Lymn.
First article in the series traces one man from looking on-line for an underage girl through his conviction and sentencing to a five-year prison sentence.
Here is the millions of square feet of new construction and additions for religious buildings (approximated):
Those are my estimates from a graph in the Wall Street Journal article, Decline in Church-Building Reflects Changed Tastes and Times.
Article says the estimated 10.3M square feet in 2014 is down 6% for the year and down 80% from the peak in 2002.
Several factors are cited in the article for the drop in construction. (more…)
I haven’t seen a lot of articles in the last few months on the overhead and “worst charities” issue. Haven’t seen anything on deworming meds in a long time. Maybe I’ve just not been paying close enough attention.
Here are a few articles I’ve noticed lately. First, on for-profit thrift stores, and a few old stories gaining new coverage. Finally, a couple of articles on donor advised funds.
For-profit thrift stores
That headline is my feeble summary of a superb 6,000 word article at the New Republic by Michael Hobbes: Stop Trying to Save the World – Big ideas are destroying international development.
In the last year he has read all the books on the shortfalls in development he can find.
The article covers a lot of ground. Here are the three biggest points for me:
There is no silver bullet that will fix all problems or work in all situations.
and
We need to modify our expectations that we can find a silver bullet.
and
Projects that work splendidly in one specific location in one set of circumstances won’t scale up by a factor of a thousand and might not do any good if you roll it out across the country.
I often talk of unintended consequences.
New phrase for today is “complex adaptive systems.”
Bit of short notice, but tomorrow (Wednesday 12/31 at 11 am Central) Clifton Larson Allen will provide a free webcast:
Looks like it will be a great survey for small NPOs.
Hat tip to my friend, Tim Murphy (@NonprofitCFO), of CLA for mentioning the course.
If you are involved with a small ministry with just a few staff people, you may not have yet tuned into the health care law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. If so, it might be wise to dive into the details.
Prof. Corey Pfaffe has provided a few introductory articles at MinistryCPA. (more…)
Let me share a few ideas on how my writing is organized.
The basic idea is that blogs need to have a narrow focus in terms of topics or issues. Then the blog will gather an audience of people with that interest. Cover too many topics and everyone will lose interest.
That means I have split up the core of my writing into three blogs, each designed to appeal to a different audience. People interested in one of those areas may not be interested in the other topics, so I assign my posts to the blog that will have readers who will be more interested in that discussion. The main blogs are:
In his article at Christianity Today, Pr. Warren Bird surveys five ways a transition to a new pastor can fail.
Check out How Pastors Are Passing the Leadership Baton.
His list: (more…)
Transitioning from one senior pastor to the next is a difficult and dangerous time for a church. I’ve watched a few of my clients walk through the transition. It is always difficult.
Pr. Warren Bird provides a superb introduction to the topic in his article at Christianity Today – How Pastors Are Passing the Leadership Baton.
He starts by quoting Rick Warren: (more…)