In real world practice, becoming a board member for a nonprofit organization usually comes with little personal risk, and the probability of a member being legally accountable for actions taken by the nonprofit is relatively low. The fear of being…
One of the most essential aspects of starting a nonprofit is the organizational governance. Governance starts with the board of directors. Not surprisingly, setting up the original board of directors trips up people right from the start. We often have…
In one of our recent articles, we discussed the importance of having a strong organizational structure and the role of a board of directors within a nonprofit organization. That article will give you a general introduction to the various pieces of…
If your nonprofit is in the midst of shopping for new accounting software, here are a few tips to keep in mind for a pain-free switch. Selecting the right nonprofit accounting system: Accounting software is not one size fits all, so…
Dean Karlan, professor of economics at Yale University, recently wrote an article about determining if a charity is wasting donated money on overhead expenses. In this article, he discusses the “overhead ratio,” which we have discussed in a previous article…
January 2023 UPDATE: the links to the Overhead Myth letter in the article below have been disabled due to the site no longer being active, however the Overhead Myth is important enough of a topic for us to keep the…
The IRS released two notices (Notice 2014-65 and 2014-68) in late October that state the following: President Obama has stated that the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in West Africa is a public health emergency, a humanitarian crisis, and a…
All 501(c)(3) organizations are required by law to file some version of IRS Form 990 annually, with the notable exception of churches. Since the establishment of Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3), churches have been exempt from this annual reporting requirement. …
A New Jersey appeals court has ruled that donors in that state who gave to charities, only to have the charity use the money for purposes other than that intended by the donor, are due a refund. This precedent-setting decision…
If you had told me three years ago that state-level compliance for nonprofits would someday become more of an issue than dealing with Uncle Sam, I would have been quite skeptical. If you had told me that it would happen…