Financial Essentials for Nonprofit Managers

Course Description

Managers of nonprofit organizations (NPOs) generally are not skilled in financial matters. Or, managers may be preoccupied with its welfare objectives and fund raising and ignore the operations efficiency and operating cost controls. A series of appropriate questions that nonprofit financial managers must address in connection with an organization’s financial condition and activity include: 1. Do we have a profit or a loss? 2. Do we have sufficient reserves? 3. Are we liquid? 4. Do we have strong internal controls? 5. Are we operating efficiently? 6. Are we meeting our budget? 7. Are our programs valid? 8. Are we competing successfully? 9. Is our prioritizing of programs and activities reasonable? The course is an attempt to help answer these questions.

Learning objectives

• a:7:{i:0;s:65:"Recognize financing options available to nonprofit organizations.";i:1;s:80:"Identify different cost types and classification for the nonprofit organization.";i:2;s:63:"Recognize costs that are relevant to nonprofit decision making.";i:3;s:55:"Recognize the use of accrual vs. cash basis accounting.";i:4;s:62:"Identify the processes of budget recording and accountability.";i:5;s:56:"Recognize GASB rules for nonprofit financial statements.";i:6;s:68:"Identify examples of accounting by specific nonprofit organizations.";}
• a:6:{i:0;s:69:"Identify the concepts answered by Cost-Volume-Revenue (CVR) analysis.";i:1;s:64:"Differentiate among the methods to analyze financial statements.";i:2;s:48:"Recognize components of the break even analysis.";i:3;s:47:"Recognize different examples of trend analysis.";i:4;s:96:"Identify objectives in analyzing the statement of activities and different performance measures.";i:5;s:84:"Identify different examples of qualitative and quantitative forecasting methodology.";}
• a:6:{i:0;s:46:"Identify between the various types of budgets.";i:1;s:86:"Recognize characteristics of different budgets and how to measure their effectiveness.";i:2;s:72:"Recognize the elements and characteristics of Zero Base Budgeting (ZBB).";i:3;s:86:"Identify the characteristics and the time considerations of program budgeting process.";i:4;s:87:"Identify how cost behavior and variance analysis can assist with the budgeting process.";i:5;s:66:"Calculate different costs and variances for the budgeting process.";}
• a:11:{i:0;s:81:"Recognize use of mission centers and service centers for nonprofit organizations.";i:1;s:118:"Identify the role of the contribution approach to cost allocation for measuring performance of responsibility centers.";i:2;s:85:"Recognize how cost allocations can affect performance metrics for managerial control.";i:3;s:60:"Calculate costs associated with different sources financing.";i:4;s:52:"Estimate future NPO budgets based on past donations.";i:5;s:62:"Differentiate between fixed, variable and semi-variable costs.";i:6;s:47:"Calculate the cost of long-term debt financing.";i:7;s:55:"Identify examples of the various cash models available.";i:8;s:44:"Recognize costs that impact working capital.";i:9;s:44:"Differentiate between investment objectives.";i:10;s:79:"Identify different financial instruments available for investing surplus funds.";}
• a:6:{i:0;s:77:"Recognize the purpose for allocating service center costs to mission centers.";i:1;s:124:"Differentiate among cost allocation techniques using the direct method, step-down (two-stage) method, and reciprocal method.";i:2;s:95:"Identify the benefits of activity-based costing (ABC) and some factors that can be used in ABC.";i:3;s:49:"Recognize components of the make or buy decision.";i:4;s:74:"Compute the present values and pay-back periods in a make or buy decision.";i:5;s:72:"Identify different types of investment instruments and financial models.";}

Final examination expiration date:

The program participant will have one year from the date of purchase to complete the course and final examination.