By: Margaret Karren I often hear Executive Directors say that they have board members who aren’t living up to their expectations or they are having trouble recruiting new members. If this sounds like your organization consider forming a Governance Committee. The core responsibilities of this committee are board development issues. Their responsibilities include: Di [...]

By: Margaret Karren A Board self-assessment is a great tool to use to help improve your Board members' understanding of their roles and responsibilities. Boards that do an assessment are rated as being more effective. A good time to do this is before retreats or strategic planning meetings. An assessment should be done at least every two years. Some sample questions t [...]

Last week I blogged about the new FAQs related to understanding and applying the new Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards, otherwise known as the Supercircular. The AICPA’s Governmental Audit Quality Center (GAQC) has scheduled an event open to non-GAQC members that may be of interest to you as a recipient of f [...]

Legislation to protect unpaid interns and volunteers from sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace was signed by Gov. Jerry Brown last week, on Sept. 9, 2014. The bill, AB 1443, expands current protections against sexual harassment and discrimination for employees to unpaid interns and volunteers. The types of discrimination covered in the bill include ra [...]

In our recently released whitepaper, The Give and The Get: The Future of Philanthropy, we noted that many nonprofits are now investing funds in a way that promotes equity. These investments are made with the intent to generate a measurable, beneficial social or environmental impact alongside a financial return. Of our survey respondents, 23% invest all or part of thei [...]

The Financial Accounting Standards Board’s (FASB) Accounting Standards Update (ASU) No. 2016-14 “Not-for-Profit Entities (Topic 958): Presentation of Financial Statement of Not-for-Profit Entities” is the biggest change to nonprofit financials in years. In our two-part series “How and Why Private Foundation Financial Statements Changing Under ASU 2016-14,” GHJ Nonpr [...]

Originally published by Training Magazine. It makes sense that nonprofits were early advocates for building diversity within their organization. After all, they often serve diverse demographics with varied needs in the community. Still, many nonprofit boards continue to struggle with diversity and inclusion. In Leading with Intent: Reviewing the State of Diversity, [...]

By: Richard Ruvelson Happy Super Bowl weekend! This is the inaugural issue of our GHJ Nonprofit Tax Blog and I want to start out by saying how happy I am to be back in Southern California after 14 years and am enjoying the relatively warm weather. Although we had a cold spell recently, it’s still a lot warmer than the Twin Cities and I am enjoying my view of Catalina [...]

By: Richard Ruvelson While many tax-exempt organizations have been concerned about the provisions of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, there are some other tax “reporting” issues that I want to remind tax-exempt organizations to consider over the next few weeks. Form 990 Since the 2012 Form 990 instructions were released on the IRS website on February 1st, [...]

By Margaret Karren Congratulations to Faye Washington of YWCA Greater Los Angeles. Ms. Washington was named as a Southern California Champion on the PBS airing of “Makers: Women Who Make America”. Check out this link to share in Ms. Washington’s vision and see her great accomplishment of the completion of the Los Angeles Job Corps Urban Campus: http://www.youtube.c [...]