Financial Leadership for Nonprofit Executives: Guiding Your Organization to Long-Term Success

by Jeanne Bell, Elizabeth Schaffer

Overview

Guide your organization to financial sustainabilityMaking sure that your nonprofit is going to be around long-term requires financial leadership. This means creating a financial vision for your organization and planning how you’ll get there. Financial Leadership for Nonprofit Executives gives you the framework, specific language, and processes to lead with confidence. With it, you’ll learn how to protect and grow the assets of your organization and accomplish as much mission as possible with those resources.The good news is you don’t have to be a trained accountant, earn an MBA, or have run a for-profit business in another lifetime. You already have many of the skills it takes to be a financial leader. This useful guide makes the process understandable and doable. Logical, clear, and well-writtenYou’ll find clear, logical steps to learn how to 

1. Get accurate financial data—in a format you can understand
2. Use financial data to evaluate your organization’s health
3. Plan around a set of meaningful financial goals
4. Communicate progress on these goals to your staff, board, and external stakeholders. 

You’ll also find 

• five foundational financial leadership principles
• three overarching questions every financial leader needs to be able to answer (and where to find those answers)
• two fundamental budgeting principles
• five steps to building a strong annual budget. 

Case study brings concepts to lifeThis hands-on guide includes a recurring case study designed to help you understand the book's concepts in real-world terms. You can also use the sample statements and formats to improve your own organization's financial reporting."Red, Yellow, Green" evaluation keeps you on trackAt the end of each chapter is an evaluation tool. You can rate how your organization is doing relative to the component of financial leadership covered in each chapter. Each attribute is scored as being red, yellow, or green. “Red” items are below standard and require immediate attention; “yellow” items are widely practiced though not generally ideal; and “green” items are considered best practice. Over time, as you and your partners on the board and staff move the organization toward “green” in each of these areas, you will create an environment in which financial leadership can flourish.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780940069442
Publisher:	TURNER PUB CO
Publication date:	03/31/2005
Pages:	134
Sales rank:	811,455
Product dimensions:	8.40(w) x 10.90(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Jeanne Bell, MNA is Chief Executive Officer at CompassPoint Nonprofit Services—a leading provider of training and consulting services to nonprofits and philanthropy. In addition to speaking and consulting on nonprofit finance and strategy, Jeanne conducts research on such topics as nonprofit staff retention and executive leadership.

Elizabeth (Liz) Schaffer is a nonprofit management consultant and trainer. Liz helps clients enhance their decision-making ability by improving the quality of their financial data and analysis. 

Table of Contents

Introduction: How to Use This Book
CompassPoint's Finance Philosophy
Who This Book Is For
How to Use This Book
 
1. Defining Financial Leadership
Mission or Money?
Financial Leadership
Five Leadership Principles
  1. Move beyond mission-versus-money thinking
  2. Cultivate financial leadership on both staff and board
  3. View the nonprofit business as an interdependent set of programs and activities
  4. Recognize the relationaship between strong infrastructure and strong programs
  5. Set a tone of financial accountability and transparency
Evaluate Your Financial Leadership
Summary
 
2. Getting Financial Data You Can Trust
Staffing
Accounting Practices
  1. Treatment of restricted contributions
  2. Functional classification of expenses
  3. Employee time tracking
  4. Allocation of common costs
  5. Accrual basis accounting
  6. Capitalization and depreciation
Accounting Systems
Evaluate Your Staffing, Practices, and Systems
Summary
 
3. Assessing Your Organization's Financial Health
The Financial Leader's Key Assessment Questions
  1. What are our immediate financial strengths and vulnerabilities?
  2. What are our long-term financial strengths and vulnerabilities?
  3. Do our constituents perceive us as efficient and competitive?
Evaluate Your Organization's Financial Health
Summary
 
4. Financial Planning
Guiding Principles of Effective Budgeting
Building the Annual Budget
  1. Define the planning context and goals
  2. Estimating costs
  3. Forecasting income
  4. Striking the balance
  5. Approving the plan
Evaluate Your Financial Planning
Summary
 
5. Communicating Progress
Match the Message to the Audience
  Program managers
  Development director
  Management team and board finance committee
  Full staff and board
  Funders
  Constituents
  IRS and regulators
Evaluate Your Communication of Financial Progress
Summary
 
Conclusion
Appendix A: Key Terms
Appendix B: Red/Yellow/Green Evaluation Forms
Appendix C: Resources

What People are Saying About This

Gloria Nedved

"I need this book for teaching! I've had trouble finding a solid text that gives a good overview of how the system should work. This book simplifies financial processes into an easy-to-understand graphical model."
—CEO, Ripple Creek Business Solutions

Barry Zack

"I wish I had this five years ago-though it's also 'perfect timing' right now!"
—Executive Director, Centerforce

Peter Brinckerhoff

"An invaluable hands-on resource! In an era of more scrutiny, more accountability, and more demands for services with inadequate funds, this book will be a day-to-day resource for staff and board. Read it, then keep it close at hand."
—President, Corporate Alternatives, Inc., and author, Nonprofit Stewardship and Financial Empowerment

Roni Posner

"Executive Directors can now step out from behind our "financial people" and we, ourselves, can use finance as a precise tool in the fueling of social change-in our daily task of making the world a better place. Wow."
—Executive Director, Alliance for Nonprofit Management

John Manzon-Santos

"Clear, accessible, painless-even inspiring! In my thirteen years as an executive director, I've never come across a resource that helps me confront and slay my finance demons as efficiently as Financial Leadership for Nonprofit Executives."
—Executive Director, Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center

Editorial Reviews

"Clear, accessible, painless—even inspiring! In my thirteen years as an executive director, I’ve never come across a resource that helps me confront and slay my finance demons as efficiently as Financial Leadership for Nonprofit Executives.” —John Manzon-Santos, Executive Director, Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center

“Executive Directors can now step out from behind our ‘financial people’ and we, ourselves, can use finance as a precise tool in the fueling of social change—in our daily task of making the world a better place. Wow!” —Roni Posner, Executive Director Alliance for Nonprofit Management

“I wish I had this five years ago—though it’s also ‘perfect timing’ right now!” —Barry Zack, Executive Director, Centerforce

“I need this book for teaching! I’ve had trouble finding a solid text that gives a good overview of how the system should work. This book simplifies financial processes into an easy-to-understand graphical mode.” —Gloria Nedved, CEO, Ripple Creek Business Solutions

“An invaluable hands-on resource! In an era of more scrutiny, more accountability, and more demands for services with inadequate funds, this book will be a day-to-day resource for staff and board. Read it, then keep it close at hand.” —Peter Brinckerhoff, President, Corporate Alternatives, Inc. and author, Nonprofit Stewardship and Financial Empower

From the Publisher