You are browsing: Steve Zimmerman
A Board Member’s Guide to Nonprofit Overhead
Calculating overhead rates and managing overhead expense are important staff roles. Board members are not required to know how do staff accounting work, but we do need to bring an informed perspective to our oversight: Harvard’s indirect cost ra …
Adding It All Up: Nonprofit CFO Study
This survey of 906 nonprofit finance professionals reveals some surprises about these crucial-but-often-overlooked staff, looking at questions ranging from educational backgrounds, workload, board and CEO understanding of finance, and CEO compensation: …
Matrix Map Part II: The Strategic Imperatives
In this article, Steve Zimmerman continues presentation of the Matrix Map model from the book Nonprofit Sustainability: Making Strategic Decisions for Financial Viability: In our last Blue Avocado column, we introduced the Matrix Map, which you …
The Matrix Map Approach Part One: How to Create the Matrix Map
You may have heard of the Dual Bottom Line: the idea that strategic choices must serve both mission impact and financial viability. But how do you turn this idea into a quantitative decision-making tool? Blue Avocado columnist Steve Zimmerman su …
Deconstructing Nonprofit Sustainability
Maybe in some mythic past it was possible to think first about strategic impact goals, and then about how to raise the money. But today we know better: you can’t talk about what you’re going to do without talking about how to get the money. And, …
Take A Fresh Look at Scrip Fundraising
Increasingly, nonprofits are finding scrip to be a comparatively easy way to raise funds. How does scrip fundraising work, anyway?
Nonprofits: How to Survive an IRS Audit
Uh oh. We are all afraid of getting audited by the IRS, but we don’t really know what would happen in one. Here is the True Life story of an environmental organization’s audit, how they survived, and their tips for the rest of us. I Survived an IRS Aud …
Outsource Your Bookkeeping!
Outsourced accounting — having the accounting done by an outside person or firm — isn’t new, but it is getting a second look as nonprofits search for ways to cut office costs.
How to Hire a Great Accountant for Your Nonprofit
Blue Avocado provides some FAQs on hiring accountants for nonprofits, including what to do if you’re having an impossible time of it.
Finance Fear Factor Ratios
Watching indicators of financial health like performance-to-budget or reserve size are important, but may not say if you need to worry now.
