Other stuff

The “worst charities” discussion isn’t about overhead ratios

The ranking approach used by the Tampa Bay Times in their “America’s Worst Charities” articles is focusing on the high fees paid to telemarketers rather than just the overhead ratio. One of the threads of the online discussions is that their methodology is just focused on overhead ratios.

That is not the case. The overhead ratio conversation is a separate issue. The Tampa Bay Times approach focuses on the high cost of telemarketing as a fundraising technique and the issues related to that industry.

The reporters outlined their approach in a separate article here.

As I looked at bits and pieces of the data, I noticed several of the charities had respectable program ratios, so I decided to poke at the data.

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Jim Ulvog

Verify state exempt status – You can look up the status of an organization with the California Franchise Tax Board

This is cool. The Franchise Tax Board has an online feature call the Entity Status Letter which allows you to quickly find whether an NPO is exempt with the state of California.

You can go to the Self Serve Entity Status Letter – Entity Search page. If the link breaks, just search “entity status letter” at the FTB website.

This will also work for a for-profit business.

When you find the organization, you can print a PDF file that says the organization is in good standing with the FTB and that they are exempt under 23701d.

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Jim Ulvog

Reminder – Google RSS Reader goes away on July 1

Time to find a new RSS reader if you’ve been using Google. I know a small group of people are reading this blog with that service. Time to find another one.

I looked at several and tried out a few. I’ve jumped to the Old Reader.

Not quite like Google’s, but it is working fine.

It is very easy to export a file containing a list of your subscriptions. Also easy to import that into most readers. But do that before June 30.

Jim Ulvog

Part 3 of “America’s Worst Charities” – family manages a family of charities and GIK issues – AGs involved

Big news:  The Attorneys General are taking depositions.

The third part of Tampa Bay Times series on “America’s Worst Charities” discusses a group of five NPOs that are run by family members. Four of them are reportedly formed by or facilitated by the founder of the oldest charity in the group.

A report aired last night on CNN’s AC:360.

AG involvement

Near the end of the Tampa Bay article is this comment: (more…)

Jim Ulvog

Part 2 of “America’s Worst Charities” focuses on regulation

“Lack of regulation and meager penalties allow worst charities to thrive” is the second part of an ongoing series from the Tampa Bay Times and Center for Investigative Reporting. Part 3 expected in a week.

If I were to summarize a several thousand word article, the main point would likely be the patchwork of federal and state regulatory structure has a difficult time chasing bad players out of the telemarketing business.

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Jim Ulvog

Major report out on “America’s Worst Charities” – Parts 2 and 3 are on the way

The title of the series is “America’s Worst Charities.”  This is a collaborative effort from the Tampa Bay Times, the Center for Investigative Reporting, and CNN.

Don’t know how many words are in the first report, but it took fifteen clicks to page down the article on my monitor.

The report accumulates a list of what is labeled the 50 worst charities in the U.S.

If you ever check in with my blog, you will definitely want to read the Tampa Bay Times reports in detail.

Here’s some links for you: (more…)

Jim Ulvog

Here is an outcome measure you would love to have. Would this be better than a low overhead ratio?

How would you like to share this with potential donors instead of describing your low overhead ratio?

Let’s say you are a child sponsorship organization.

Here’s your message:

Children sponsored in our program are

27 to 40 percent more likely to complete secondary school, and 50 to 80 percent more likely to complete a university education

than children in their village who were not in the sponsorship program.

Furthermore, when children sponsored in our program grow up, they are (more…)

Jim Ulvog

Overview of what churches should include in board minutes

For a quick summary of how to prepare minutes of church board meetings, check out Mastering Minutes for Church Business Meetings at Church Law & Tax. The article is written by Frank and Elaine Sommerville.

Churches often struggle with preparing minutes that are appropriate, helpful, and not dangerous.

Read the full article for a great primer.

Here is what minutes should do: (more…)

Jim Ulvog

Upcoming posts – Thoughts from Christian Leadership Alliance conference, May ‘13

I attended the CLA conference in Anaheim this week. Had a great time. It was a blast visiting with a lot of the lenders and other CPA firms serving the nonprofit community. (Yes, yes, you can pray for me that I enjoy visiting with accountants and bankers.)

General sessions were superb as usual. The selection of breakout sessions was good (not superb as in the past, but still very good).

Here are a few topics for posts to I want to write soon.

Resource books

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Jim Ulvog

Insider trading fiasco in audit world

In a major embarrassment for one particular CPA firm and all CPAs in general, last week a partner from one of the Big 4 firms was indicted for conspiracy to commit insider trading.

Mr. Scott London, formerly a partner with KPMG, was indicted by the US government and charged with insider trading by the SEC in the context of allegedly passing information about his clients to a buddy who allegedly traded on the info.  He obtained that information as a part of his role as a senior level audit partner.

Several posts at my other blog, Attestation Update, talk about the story as it developed during the week. Here’s the posts in chronological order: (more…)

Jim Ulvog

2 businesses opting of health insurance as illustration for impact on NPOs

Previous post discussed the specifics of two businesses that are thinking about dropping their health insurance in 2014 and paying the penalties under ACA.

Now to get a feel for the impact on NPOs, I’ll revise that analysis by adjusting the data we see there to an NPO.

First scenario – currently providing health insurance to some staff

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Jim Ulvog