Brenda Jacinto, on July 29, 2021
If you're finding it hard to hire staff for your back-office, you are not alone. There is increasing news coverage of organizations struggling to hire the staff they need to fill key roles. Businesses of all types state that they are having trouble hiring despite high unemployment.
And the nonprofit sector is not excluded. In today's blog, we'll share how to use a sample church succession plan to help you keep your back-office moving forward even when hiring has stalled.
People of faith believe in the importance of stewardship. The word steward refers to a person who manages—but does not own—a household. In ancient times, a good steward was trustworthy and accountable for everything from a household’s finances and property to its reputation. Today, we see it as taking good care of the things that God entrusts to us.
Often, there is a church finances committee, council, or board of trustees. To fully engage all these stakeholders and religious donors, faith-based nonprofits are under increasing pressure to demonstrate the impact of tithes, offerings, bequests and endowments on the dual missions of helping people and supporting the congregation. Precise accounting and complete, transparent reporting of church finance are the hallmarks of stewardship.
Alyssa Nunez, on July 8, 2021
After six blog posts going in-depth on the subject of using outcome metrics to measure nonprofit impact - why they’re important, why they’re elusive, what metrics they involve, and what it takes to track them - we hope that two things are clear:
Nonprofit outcomes. That’s the subject of this ongoing blog series highlighting why (and how) organizations must prove their mission is working to keep funding streams flowing.
Nonprofit dashboards are the final component of any effort to track outcomes. After identifying what KPIs to track, and how, nonprofit dashboards offer a means to put those outcome metrics to work on behalf of the mission; where the rubber meets the road.
Allison Webb, on June 24, 2021
In our previous blog article from AcctTwo’s series about tracking nonprofit outcomes, we highlighted some of the metrics that nonprofits can define their success with. You can use these indicators to assess whether the nonprofit is on the right track, and prove your positive results to donors and grant managers who want to invest in effective nonprofits only.
Knowing what to track is an important start, but the hard part comes next: figuring out how. Nonprofits are in the dark about outcomes because the necessary data is hard to capture, categorize, and quantify in a meaningful sense without the right nonprofit dashboard indicators.
Allison Webb, on June 17, 2021
Halfway through our six-part blog series on nonprofit outcomes, we have explored why outcomes are so important (funders insist on seeing results) and why they’re so obscure (lack of good data). In this article, we’ll address the most important subject of all: The metrics for your nonprofit KPI dashboard you can use to measure your own success in terms of outputs and outcomes.
The good news is that these metrics exist, and when tracked correctly, they put success in the clear, quantifiable terms that funders insist upon. The bad news is that defining success isn’t simple, and tracking it isn’t either. Think of your own organization: Are you certain you’re fulfilling the core mission and values, and if so, to what extent?
This is the second blog in our series exploring outcome KPIs for nonprofits. In our previous article, we wrote about how today’s nonprofits need to track the outputs and outcomes of their efforts – the actual impact of their mission in action. Why? To build and maintain the confidence of funding sources that expect transparency and accountability like never before.
Before we address how to measure and track nonprofit outcomes in later posts, we need to debunk a common myth: That most nonprofits understand their performance already. Rather, most organizations make some attempt to understand it but come up shorter than they realize.
For up-and-coming churches and other nonprofits, QuickBooks is usually the entry-level choice for financial software in the organization’s early days – and for many reasons. QuickBooks offers the basic functionality that almost any nonprofit needs to get off the ground.
However, successfully growing teams quickly realize that what was good enough when they started out is now overshadowed by limitations and compromises. Here are the five challenges that cause nonprofit CFOs and Church Finance Leaders to look for alternatives to QuickBooks for nonprofits.
Allison Webb, on May 17, 2021
The status quo is changing in the nonprofit world, and the pandemic only picked up the pace. Every nonprofit, regardless of size, location, or mission, needs to be prepared for a future that looks drastically different than the past – and right now is the inflection point.
This is the first in a six-part blog series from AcctTwo exploring how and why nonprofits are evolving and why reporting your nonprofit outcomes will be necessary to remain relevant. Our partnerships with diverse nonprofits and deep experience within the industry has made us aware of an emerging trend that we believe needs attention, followed by planning and preparation. This blog series is intended to be a call to action.
Brenda Jacinto, on September 14, 2020
David’s podcast focuses on enhancing the stewardship of church finances with increased CFO insight and expanding ministry impact. Church financial software for financial leaders in ministry are often ill-equipped to address, let alone overcome, the many challenges they face. Too often they pivot from crisis to crisis. In this mode they run on the tactical treadmill instead of proactively contributing strategic value to their nonprofits. Unfortunately, the full impact of their ministry suffers without the right Christian accounting software. Proverbs 19:20: “Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom in the future.”
