As the
organization continues to flourish, there will be a need to search for
continued funding, especially if operated as a public charity. Foundations that don’t rely upon a single
large grant to fund their operations will have already created a network of
contacts to work out from. When looking
for new sources of funding, remember that the primary focus of your business
needs to remain the work of the mission, so however donations come in, they
should do so efficiently.
Making
sure there’s enough money in the bank to pay all the bills is basic budgeting
as you might find in any small businesses.
Make sure there are designated channels for how someone requests funds
of the NPO setup in the by-laws.
If you
operate a till, someone will have to make a deposit every evening and maintain
the requisite amount of change in the morning.
A till log will probably be kept if there is one. The same goes for petty cash.
The
appearance of the organization must be kept neat if anyone is to visit. People don’t want to give you money if they
think you’ll have to spend part of it on roach control. If your organization is ecologically
focused, landscaping and green building might be part of your educational
mission.
If
there are volunteers or employees, work schedules will need to be drawn up and
hours agreed upon. There will have to
be pens and pencils and notes and maybe even a computer or two. Making sure there is working office
equipment and paperclips is important.
The
mail will have to be picked up and dealt with, the answering machine emptied
and emails answered. Depending upon
your office location, the floors might need a sweeping. All the things a business does everyday is
determined when
To
begin with, you’ll need to begin keeping regular books that are reconciled at
least once a month. It’s a good idea to
produce a monthly statement report. It
should include a positive column with assets, income, and net assets against a
negative column with liabilities and expenses.
It’s very much like making a household budget except that have to keep
up on it every month and be responsible for reporting it to someone else.
During the course of operation, a non-profit is sure to
require steering back towards the original or refined mission statement. You can take steps to make sure these
adjustments are small and useful.
There are ways to evaluate whether the non-profit remains
committed to its primary purpose.
Relative funding levels will give one picture of commitment, but so will
time spent on given tasks. Actually
talking with people will generate yet another picture of the situation. It is possible to generate a good picture of
the organization’s mood by having a few people present such reports.
It is reasonable to bring this topic up with the board at
least once per year. Many organizations
willingly submit themselves to a 2nd party audit on a schedule to
see how they continue to stack up.
There are some tried and true methods for analyzing the
NPO financial success. Generally, as
outlined by Stevens[i], the four
major points of emphasis are
·
Income
vs. budgetary spending emphasis
·
Emergency
cash on hand
·
Ability
to fully fund programs in the long range plan
·
Surpluses
on a single or multi-year basis
You can tell if your board’s emphasis is upon budgets
rather than income at the next meeting.
Whether there is emergency cash on hand largely depends upon the
efficiency of whoever is running the daily operations.
Long-range funding is a gauge of your marketing and
fundraising committees ability to come through with reliable and steady
grants. Surpluses mean your treasurer
in charge of allocating funds is doing a good job.
A review of the NPOs finances might just give your
organization reason to congratulate its self.
Your constituency can change over time, especially as the
focus of your group shifts and is refined.
It’s a good idea to take some time every few years to determine how you
can better serve the members of your community.
Some people meet with focus groups of students or
researchers and just ask them what how they feel about services. Public question and answer sessions have
also been utilized. Questionnaires can
be used but are less helpful with poorly written questions. A study of the local Demographics allows one
to hypothesize as to the community make up.
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