Board training

This week I gave a presentation at Heartbeat International. The topic – helping board members of a nonprofit understand their responsibilities.

The course was well received by the board members in attendance.

I’ve long been concerned about helping time-stretched board members learn and grow in their responsibilities so they can be more effective.

This presentation was part of my efforts to help the NPO community.

I plan to take the presentation and expanded it to a large number of blog posts. Then I will weave them together into an e-book.

Many posts will arrive on this site. Check back often.

Jim Ulvog

4th State of the Plate report released for 2011 church giving trends

ECFA and Maximum Generosity released their 4th annual survey of church giving trends. You can see the ECFA press release here and visit the executive summary here.

At an overall level, giving is improving a bit. Comparing the portion of church reporting giving up, down or flat looks like this: (more…)

Jim Ulvog

Sample compilation and review reports under SSARS 19 for NPOs

Update – SSARS 19 had been replaced by SSARS 21.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:

Here is a list of the sample reports under SSARS available on my blogs. The samples are available on this blog as well as my other blog, Attestation Update. (These links go to the other blog.)

Jim Ulvog

Creative Visualization – mapping the growth of retail stores

Check out these time-lapsed maps showing the growth of a retail chain from Flowing Data.  Great visualization of the speed and location of new stores.  Also shows the diffusion across the country.

Lets you see the data of Walmart from 1 store in 1962 to 4,393 in 2010.

Check out these visuals:

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Jim Ulvog

Some traps church business administrators need to avoid

The urgency of things that must be addressed now can take focus away from bigger issues that have long-term payoff.  Verne Hargrave, CPA, of PSK has started a good series on traps that business administrators can fall into because of tyranny of the urgent.

Looks to be a very helpful series. Would be worth your time to visit his blog regularly. Maybe even set it up on your RSS feed.  I’ll highlight it occasionally.

Ten Things to Avoid  in Church Administration starts the discussion. Mr. Hargrave points out a few problems that can arise if tyranny-of-the-urgent takes over your life: (more…)

Jim Ulvog

Cost of conducting deworming programs – fair value of deworming meds, part 3

I have found a few sources that suggest the cost to conduct a large-scale deworming program is in the range of pennies per child.  If I’m reading these articles correctly, the amounts include the cost to buy the medicine.

A meta-study from the World Health Organization: Estimation of the cost of large-scale school deworming programmes with benzimidazoles.

The abstract says:

(more…)

Jim Ulvog

So what is the fair value of deworming medicine? Part 2

Let’s look at one indicator of fair value of deworming meds on the international market – list prices and actual transactions.

Why?  As I understand, the biggest med in financial statements of U.S. relief and development NPOs is mebendazole. The usual dosage is 500 mg. I also understand that particular dosage is not approved for distribution in the United States.  Since you can’t use or distribute that dosage of that medicine in the U.S., seems like we should look at international pricing instead.  In addition, after FAS 157 went into effect, the principal market should be considered.

One source for international pricing is the International Drug Price Indicator Guide.

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Jim Ulvog

10 ways for NPO board members to reduce their personal liability

Beth Chase has some great suggestions for NPO board members:  10 Ways boards can reduce their personal liability risk.

All 10 are great ideas. Two that I think have particular value:

Insisting that board meeting minutes only record decisions made.

Avoiding completely any conflicts of interest, fully disclosing any potential conflicts and assuring any disclosures are included in the board minutes.

If you get into a serious conflict of interest mess in California, the Attorney General could sue the organization to have you removed from the board and then sue you to reimburse the organization for any losses incurred.

Full disclosure and board approval of possible conflicts can prevent a lot of problems.

Jim Ulvog

Not-for-profit Advisory Committee discusses valuation of GIK meds

This morning I listened to a webcast of the Not-for-profit Advisory Committee (NAC) as they discussed the issue of valuation of donated pharmaceuticals.  The NAC provides feedback to FASB about issues affecting the NPO community.

You can find an outline of the agenda, which includes an attachment for issues regarding donated meds here.  Attached to the agenda are several articles from William Bennett Barrett and Caroline Preston. (Oops! Sorry Mr. Barrett.)

You can find an on-line archived recording of the meeting here.  It is the March 1, 2012 meeting that started at 10 AM.

I have just a few thoughts after having listened to the meeting.

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Jim Ulvog

So what is the fair value of deworming medicine? Part 1

What’s the fair value?  That is the central question behind the whole issue of booking albendazole and mebendazole as GIK contribution revenue.

I will have several posts on this issue, including one or two on the accounting rules.  I’ll start with a very casual discussion, work towards more objective and verifiable valuation, and then discuss the accounting.

In recent weeks I’ve read two particular articles on health issues that describe the cost of a deworming regimen as an aside.   I doubt either of the authors or their editors knew how intense the valuation issue has become in the last 60 days.

So, let’s give the magazines and authors some slack.  Don’t pick on them too hard.  At the same time, their comments provide some background.

Here’s two weak data points for the cost of deworming meds:

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Jim Ulvog

Time to talk about GIK issues again

In the midst of a discussion of GIK valuation issues in December and January that I thought was taking place within the nonprofit community, news surfaced that the IRS had finished an audit which identified major concerns about the same issue.  I discussed that here and here.

I’ve held off on more discussion to see how many more shoes were going to drop.  Haven’t been too many – the Better Business Bureau and Charity Navigator are paying attention.

(more…)

Jim Ulvog