Nonprofit finance, accounting, and tax news. Other tidbits of interest to the charity community.
Thomson Reuters Tax & Accounting News reports Proposed Changes for Not-for-Profit Reporting May Come in March. An exposure draft from FASB could be out in March.
This would be the biggest overhaul of NPO rules since statements 116 and 117 were released back in 1993. Has it been 20 years already? Wow.
Article point to several major areas of change: (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.
Admit It: You’re Rich is a discussion from Megan McArdle.
If you are making more than about $16 an hour, you are in the top 1% of income earners in the world. If your time horizon is the last few thousand years of history, sitting in the lower end of middle class or perhaps working poor, you would be in the very tip-top of the 1% for all of history.
(Cross-posted from my other blog, Outrun Change, because I think it may be of interest to readers of this blog.)
She is on the story of why people living on either coast are complaining they can barely get by on $350,000 a year.
I’m on it. So is David Sirota. And if your personal income is higher than $32,500, so are you. The global elite to which you and I belong enjoys fantastic wealth compared to the rest of the world: We have more food, clothes, comfortable housing, electronic gadgets, health care, travel and leisure than almost every other living person, not to mention virtually every human being who has ever lived. We are also mostly privileged to live in societies that offer quite a lot in the way of public amenities, from well-policed streets and clean water, to museums and libraries, to public officials who do their jobs without requiring a hefty bribe. And I haven’t even mentioned the social safety nets our governments provide.
So how is it that everyone who is making more than $33K a year doesn’t feel like they are incredibly, wonderfully, amazingly blessed to live a live of such luxury and comfort and ease?
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…)
The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability is graciously making two resources available for the really low price of registering at their website.
I encourage churches and parachurch organizations to seriously consider becoming accredited members of ECFA.
As you ponder doing so, you really ought to register at their site. They provide a variety of information even for those who merely register. If you do that, which already makes sense, then the books free.
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
The IRS announced the standard mileage rates for 2015. You can find the announcement in IR-2014-79.
Beginning on January 1, 2015, the standard mileage rates for the use of a car (also vans and pickups) will be: (more…)
The people at 15 separate locations that make up Mars Hill are leaving, to stand or fall on their own. Mars Hill is where Mark Driscoll was senior pastor. The corporate ‘parent’ will end its existence in a few weeks, on New Years Day 2015.
The dramatic implosion of the megachurch is the subject of a 3,600 word case study at Leadership Journal: The Painful Lessons of Mars Hill.
The article points us to a very sobering teaching. In Proverbs 24:32 we read
I applied my heart to what I observed
And learned a lesson from what I saw.
Perhaps we ought to apply ourselves and learn from this rapid collapse. As a far-away observer, this was a fast and unexpected disintegration.
I will only mention a few lessons that jump out at me. I still need to process the article more, so my comments are incomplete and likely confused. Putting my ideas into words pushes me to sort this out.
Please check out the article and ponder it yourself. What can you learn out of this sad event?
What got you here may bring your downfall
Social media is a wonderful thing. You can create videos or blogs and spread your message far. The downside is your message can spread far.
Two recent examples of the upside and downside.
(Cross-posted from my other blog, Outrun Change.)
First, the upside…
11/14 – Wall Street Journal – This Rabbi Raps and Riffs – on Judaism – Ordained Hasidic rabbi Medny Pellin also does comedy and rap videos. You can check out his signature video, Talk Yiddish to Me.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX2rm-jLLFY&feature=player_detailpage]
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…)