NonprofitEye

How did I make sense of the nonprofit universe before I discovered the Urban Institute (a Nonpartisian Economic and Public Policy Research Organization)? There are 11 policy centers under the umbrella of the Urban Institute. The one that rocks my boat is, of course, the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy (CNP). The mission of CNP is to promote understanding of civil society and improve nonprofit sector performance through rigorous research, clear analysis and informed policy. Even more enticing is one of CNP's programs: the National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS) - the national clearinghouse of data on the nonprofit sector in the United States . Current NCCS Projects include: The " Form 990 Wiki " (a collaborative website) for helping the nonprofit research and practitioner communities reason together about the draft IRS Form 990 released in June 2007 by the IRS. The goal is to develop a set of practical recommendations that have been carefu...

What words strike fear into the hearts of nonprofit accountants? Here is my list so far: Matching Costs Depreciation In-kind Donations Cost Allocation Overhead If auditors want to play "gotcha" all they have to do is utter these 4-letter words. No matter how properly a nonprofit handles these, they will always be open to question. Auditors know this, and so, when they have no findings, they seem to always pull these out of the hat. Matching Costs: How did you calculate these costs? How do you ensure you haven't used the same funds to match multiple grants? Depreciation: Why haven't you depreciated your capital improvements? Because you won't let us own the building! In-kind donations : How did you value these? Did you reflect them on your general ledger ? Cost Allocations : What is your basis? Do they fluctuate over the year? Did you allocate based on budgets (g-d forbid!) Overhead : You can't charge this here, it's unallowable....