The Budget Building Book For Nonprofits

This best-selling nuts-and-bolts workbook, now in its second edition, has become the gold standard for nonprofit managers and boards who must work through the budget cycle. The book offers practical tools and guidance for completing each step of the budgeting process. Designed to be comprehensive and easy to use, The Budget-Building Book for Nonprofits provides everything budgeters and nonfinancial managers need to prepare, approve, and implement their own budgets. Includes new chapters on Zero-Based and Capital Budgeting as well as an accompanying website with spreadsheets, worksheets and a new budget-building software, the CMS Nonprofit Budget Builder, designed to help you implement the concepts in the book. The software includes an expandable standard chart of accounts (COA) and will aid in building, organizing, tracking and planning budgets.

Well-prepared and sound budgets are essential for effective management of nonprofit organizations. This concept "came to life" for us over thirty years ago and is the foundation of The Budget-Building Book for Nonprofits. Our client was a community based nonprofit organization running a number of pre-school programs in a county in the Northeast. The programs were in complete chaos due to poor management and the community was ...

Take control of your organization's short- and long-term financial plan Now fully revised, Not-for-Profit Budgeting and Financial Management, Second Edition, offers a financial planning system that is not only easy to use and monitor, but also ensures true fiscal accountability in the complex not-for-profit arena. Adds three entirely new chapters on Footnoting the Statement of Activity, Presenting Cash Prepared and Accrual Statements on the same page, and The Importance of the Executive Summary Fully updated with the latest financial advice to benefit your nonprofit Explains how to separate controllable, semi-controllable, and fixed expenses Reveals how you can prepare and present such top-notch budget documents that budgets will be approved the first time Written in a nontechnical, understandable format, incorporating dozens of relevant forms and documents, this completely revised and expanded edition will enable your nonprofit organization to create and manage reasonable financial plans that fit their organization's needs.

The first and only guide of its kind to offer nonprofit executiveshelp with the vital task of cash flow management! Murray Dropkin--an expert in the field of nonprofit accounting andauthor of The Budget-Building Book for Nonprofits--reveals how tocreate an effective plan for cash flow management. Thisunprecedented guide offers you nuts-and-bolts suggestions for usingthis plan to develop successful strategies for the day-to-day andlong-term financial planning of any nonprofit organization. Filledwith to-do lists, sample forms, worksheets, schedules, policies andprocedures, and checklists, The Cash Flow Management Book forNonprofits is a fundamental financial management toolkit fornonprofit managers and board members.

A nonprofit’s mission cannot be achieved unless there are resources available to fund it—without a sound financial strategy, a nonprofit cannot thrive. By creating stable financial foundations for their nonprofits, managers take advantage of the nonprofit sector’s size and scope, realize all of the sources and distribution of revenues, and effectively develop fiscal risk assessment methods and apply strategies to mitigate risk. Nonprofit managers must comprehend and efficiently use the financial tools available to them to develop financial policies that will help them to succeed in many types of economies. The Second Edition presents financial concepts in a straightforward format grounded in real examples that are readily accessible to students from any background. The authors provide the groundwork for solid accounting principles and ethical guidelines, define and set standards for internal controls and audits, and explain the ingredients used to measure program performance. Today’s nonprofits must also be aware of the growing scope of the fourth sector of social enterprise, which can inspire nonprofits to be flexible, creative, and innovative in achieving their missions.

BOOKKEEPING FOR NONPROFITS Bookkeeping for Nonprofits is a hands-on guide that offers nonprofit leaders, managers, and staff the tools they need to create and maintain a complete and accurate set of accounting records. This much-needed resource provides those with little or no bookkeeping experience with practical advice in a highly accessible format. Written by Murray Dropkin and Jim Halpin, Bookkeeping for Nonprofits is a step-by-step introduction to keeping accounting records, which form the foundation for a nonprofit organization's financial reports, tax returns, budgets, cash forecasts, and grant proposals. Using this volume as a guide, nonprofit leaders and staff will be able to set up books with or without accounting software and ensure that the records meet the needs of their organization. Bookkeeping for Nonprofits is a comprehensive resource that Discusses how transactions provide day-to-day information for tracking cash balances and cash requirements Shows how transactions provide information to management and the board of directors for budgeting and other essential tasks Explains basic bookkeeping concepts, such as the accounting equation, the chart of accounts, and income and expense tracking Guides readers through the nuts and bolts of recording a transaction Provides an overview of alternative recordkeeping methodologies and how to choose among them Designed to be easy to use, the book is filled with illustrations and checklists. "Bookkeeping for Nonprofits is the remarkable new guide for a new generation of accounting challenges bookkeepers face every day." —Frances Hesselbein, chairman and founding president, Leader to Leader Institute "Bookkeeping for Nonprofits provides a rare combination of consummate professionalism and clear, accessible writing. Underlying the wealth of technical information lies a great deal of wisdom. The authors have found a way to translate their enormous, on-the-ground experience into usable, actionable policies, procedures, and practices. It is a book that gives all you need to create a fiscally responsible agency with the bonus of helping you become a better manager and a wiser person." —Peter Block, business consultant and author of Flawless Consulting and The Empowered Manager "Bookkeeping for Nonprofits provides an excellent understanding of the practical application of bookkeeping in the real work environment." —Ron Werthman, vice president, finance/treasurer and CFO, Johns Hopkins Health System, The Johns Hopkins Hospital "This is a wonderful book that every bookkeeper in a nonprofit organization should have." —Eusebio David, fiscal director, Federation of Multicultural Programs, Inc.

Making 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. You’ll find clear, logical steps to learn how to get accurate financial data—in a format you can understand; use financial data to evaluate your organization’s health; plan around a set of meaningful financial goals; and 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; and five steps to building a strong annual budget. At 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.

The no-cost way to improve your organization on a daily basis Most nonprofits are already benchmarking informally. This unique book defines a formal way to benchmark. You'll learn how to prepare your organization, measure performance, and implement best practices as well as learning the five key steps of benchmarking, the arguments against benchmarking--and why you should disregard them, how benchmarking differs from evaluation and assessment, how to form a benchmarking team, how to create a "success equation" that helps you measure your organization's performance, how to make sure to measure what matters, how to choose your benchmarking partners--and what you can learn from the "wrong" partner, and how to overcome staff resistance to benchmarking. Practical tools help you benchmark what matters Real-world examples illustrate benchmarking in action. Exercises and worksheets guide you through processes such as drafting a benchmarking plan; identifying and analyzing the things in your organization that need improvement; prioritizing which processes to focus on; identifying your CTQ (critical to quality) outcomes; and more. The way to survive as a nonprofit in today's market is to thrive. With so many organizations seeking the same dollars, only the best will endure. Benchmarking ensures that your organization is always operating at peak performance. It's something you can't afford not to do--especially since you can do it for free!