Financial Management for Your Nonprofit

Financial management impacts everyone at a nonprofit organization. Becoming comfortable with key terms and concepts will enhance your effectiveness in any role, build the capacity of your organization, and position you for future success.

The Nonprofits Assistance Fund recently participated in the Emerging Leaders Network coordinated by the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits. The topic for this session was ‘Healthy Financial Practicies for Nonprofits’ and each of the following topics were discussed:

• How do you know a good budget?
• Cost allocations
• What are the differences between budgets, income statements, and balance sheets?
• If you are a start-up organization, how can you craft budgets from scratch, without historical documents as a guide?
• One-time expenses
• How often do you look at multi-year trends?
• Topics for learning/career checklist
• Board members and their ultimate fiduciary responsibility
• Thinking about the current economic conditions
• Is there value in sitting down with my Executive Director to discuss a program budget?

Click here for the complete notes from the Emerging Leaders Network discussion.

If you are interested in learning more about financial management, Nonprofit Assistance Fund offers a range of workshops as well as hosts a monthly peer-learning opportunity, the Financial Management Network. Visit their website at nonprofitsassistancefund.org for more information and to sign-up for their enewsletter.