Nonprofit & philanthropy thread: doing donos in the parking lot

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Nonprofit & philanthropy thread: doing donos in the parking lot

pseudanonymous: Aug 30, 2008; When you make the second entry and the debits and credits balance, and you blow them to hell.

I�m the finance director of a 501(c)(3) I have 7 direct reports with accounting and HR and I�m taking over our program tracking department / reporting department.

I�m actually trying to build out development since it doesn�t exist in this org, I would expect to pay an entry level grant writer out of school maybe 50-55k, and then for it to go up with experience.

Actually I don�t know what market you�re in but I have several pay surveys as I�m doing a compensation analysis right now.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2022 21:22

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 20:28

pseudanonymous: Aug 30, 2008; When you make the second entry and the debits and credits balance, and you blow them to hell.

Doc Fission posted:

Just seeing the heinous amounts of digits that get thrown around chips away at you, for sure.

I was thinking about the services community foundations and donor-advised funds provide. Basically, they facilitate philanthropic giving both logistically and supposedly in due diligence terms - theoretically the foundation I worked at would do "homework" on a nonprofit and then theoretically show donors that, yes, this is a good place to put your money because we looked into it all. But there's genuinely very little that qualifies people at foundations and the admins at DAFs to make those assessments. The kind of metrics that funders ask for are often difficult for small organisations to generate or calculate accurately. So they fudge the numbers, and then funders fudge giving a poo poo about those numbers and make relatively arbitrary decisions about how to allocate resources. The idea that both a nonprofit and a funder have to run like a business has functionally made the fundraising process something of a smoke-and-mirrors situation, to me. The due diligence obligations that nonprofits have to funders are mostly nonsense.

The push for equity in philanthropy (which in itself is a nonsense phrase) has made some more progressive funders pull back on their due diligence or means-testing. But that really only goes to show how bullshit it all is.

The obsession with admin and indirect takes up a huge amount of my time that could be spent improving operations and accomplishing the objectives funders claim to have.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2022 20:43

pseudanonymous: Aug 30, 2008; When you make the second entry and the debits and credits balance, and you blow them to hell.

Valicious posted:

Please tell me if I�m on the right track before I spend untold hours diving down the rabbit hole.
My extended family cares for a number of properties in Upper Michigan totaling a considerable acreage. (bought by my grandpa in the 50s) We�re currently trying to figure out how to establish an org. for looking after them that is independent of any one family member. (But control still stays wholly within the family in perpetuity) I started looking at trusts and LLCs at first, but would establishing a nonprofit work? Nobody lives on them full-time, so would it count as environmental stewardship or 501(c)(3)?
Property taxes are starting to be handled by regular monthly family member contributions, and it�d be awesome if I could figure out a way to qualify them as fax-exempt too.

There's a difference between nonprofit and not-for-profit. You're looking at possibly a community benefit association or something, but "to benefit a family" isn't typically the kind of community that the IRS supports. Do you allow orgs like the boy scouts or whatever to use the properties at below market rates or something? How is your family not paying taxes on their land benefiting a community?

I'm pretty sure if you're sufficiently adroit with the paperwork and careful with how you phrase things, you might get away with it. But really we're talking, like, the Trump Org here. The Trump org really existed to benefit Donald Trump and his family, and claimed tax-exempt status. So is that what you want? To be the ______________(your family name) Org?

If you're actually committing to never selling or developing the land, you might be able to be some kind of environmental trust that is a nonprofit.

Having seen your posts in various threads, I'd say your desire not to pay taxes on your property does not meet a tax-exempt purpose under the IRS code.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2022 01:01

pseudanonymous: Aug 30, 2008; When you make the second entry and the debits and credits balance, and you blow them to hell.

Valicious posted:

Absolutely never going to sell or develop the land. It�s a couple hundred acres of pretty heavily forested land. A sizable portion does border DNR land if that�s applicable in any way. As property taxes continue to rise over the years, we�ve had to sell disconnected snippets just to pay the taxes on the rest. An environmental trust is about what I was thinking in order to continue to ensure its never developed/forested. (I�m pretty sure all the old hardwood trees would be gone pretty fast otherwise.)

So, it's a hideous amount of paperwork to be a nonprofit, you probably want to consult an attorney and or a CPA who specializes in that sort of thing, and is familiar with the laws in your state (I am not, I am familiar only with OR, NV and WA) being a nonprofit is a federal tax designation, but getting property taxes exempted is a state process that relies on your federal tax filing status and whatever the state has set up. In Oregon, we have to file 10 different property tax exemptions because property taxes are handled at the county level. The level of scrutiny ranges from rubber stamp to me having to answer 20+ questions across multiple emails (which is inversely correlated with the population density of the county, I think some of the rural county tax assessors are just bored or whatever or really want the revenue).

# ¿ Sep 27, 2022 16:27

pseudanonymous: Aug 30, 2008; When you make the second entry and the debits and credits balance, and you blow them to hell.

Lemon Trees posted:

I just started working in a non profit and I'm not really sure if I like it so far. It seems very...micromanaging to me?

The other day I got an email to earn $35 if I attended a meeting to attend a product demonstration of a new nonprofit CRM. I wasn't going to attend because we have a contract with RE and honestly we're not going to switch anytime soon, but I figured why not. I had a call today to schedule the demo.

Then my coworker asked me what I was doing. I did tell her the truth, which I now regret and she told my boss. My boss is now upset at me because it was "unethical" for me to attend on the company's time to get myself a personal gift card.

This should be covered in your employee handbook, are you even allowed to accept gifts from vendors? If it isn't covered there, it should be in your orgs finance policies. There's probably a threshold, either $25 or $50 tend to be common, beyond which you may not accept gifts or things of value from vendors or potential vendors.

Also as to the question of it's a good use of time or not, can you articulate why it benefits your job in terms of your mission for you personally to attend that demo? If you're an hourly employee and you spend an hour of paid time doing something largely for your own benefit, like writing an article for a medium in order to make money, but say it's about your work at the nonprofit, then does that seem okay to you?

Yes, it is true that you should be periodically reviewing your major contracts and vendors and reevaluating them, depending on if you receive any federal grants it may actually be mandatory, if that's the case you should have something like a decision matrix with scoring set up and be evaluating and documenting 3-5 potential vendors, is that what you're doing?

All that being said I don't think it's actually a big deal, just something your boss should talk to you about and work through the issues and relevant policies.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2022 06:52

pseudanonymous: Aug 30, 2008; When you make the second entry and the debits and credits balance, and you blow them to hell.

BougieBitch posted:

So not sure if this thread gets frequent enough replies to be worth asking the question, but does anyone have resources or info about establishing a union at a nonprofit?

I've been working here for a bit under 2 years and basically everyone's role is poorly defined, there's issues with the board and director not stepping up, and the people under me are getting jerked around because anyone who doesn't have face time with the director is treated as disposable. This ends up especially problematic because the community is majority Latin@ and some of our hourly workers only speak Spanish, meaning they aren't able to directly advocate for themselves.

I think I'm likely unfireable myself because I am batting 1.000 on grant applications for my department, and on a scale that is largely the reason the org can afford to keep going, but the director is a constant micromanager and makes things difficult for basically everyone.

Up until this point I was wondering if we work for the same 501(C)(3).

# ¿ Jan 21, 2023 20:45

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 20:28

pseudanonymous: Aug 30, 2008; When you make the second entry and the debits and credits balance, and you blow them to hell.

Not to dissuade you, but a partner org of ours went through a unionization effort which ended in bankruptcy, but to be honest I think if you can't treat your employees decently you shouldn't be in business.

# ¿ Jan 24, 2023 01:47

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Nonprofit & philanthropy thread: doing donos in the parking lot