Nonprofit News by Soft Trac

We have all heard a horror story (or two) about a nonprofit that became embroiled in a financial scandal. In addition to the public relations nightmare such things engender, organizations caught up in a scandal are forced to turn their attentions toward the crisis and away from the real work they are meant to be doing.
Here are a few simple procedures you can put in place in your fundraising office to help prevent fraud.
The Maryland Association of CPA’s recommends the following simple steps to help prevent fraud.
1. Spread financial duties, such as processing payments, making deposits, reconciling bank statements and handling petty cash out among several people in your department. If possible, you should rotate these duties between people.
2. Make sure that employees take a vacation of at least one week of consecutive days. This may heighten your chances of discovering irregular activities.

http://www.macpa.org/Content/23704.aspx

Tracy Coenen, CPA, recommends some of the following tips on her website:
• Safeguard physical assets, including data and money
• Implement an anonymous reporting mechanism to allow employees to participate in the reporting suspicious activity
• Monitor access to assets and data
www.fraudessentials.com

This article by The Associated Press appeared in the Kennebec Journal June 29, 2011.

AUGUSTA — Gov. Paul LePage says he’ll sign a bill to allow charter schools, putting Maine among the 40 other states that allow them.

The state Senate on Tuesday evening sent the bill to the governor’s desk after voting to give it final approval.

Charter schools were an issue during last fall’s election. Then running as the Republican candidate for governor, LePage made repeated promises to push for charter schools if elected.

The bill he’s signing, LD 1553, would allow no more than 10 public charter schools in the first decade. It would also limit the number of students who can attend them in the first three years to protect smaller non-charter public schools.

Charter schools are voluntary public schools that cannot teach religious practices and cannot discriminate against students or teachers.

Members of Community Action Agencies in Massachusetts and Connecticut attended this years annual conference on Cape Cod to learn about “Helping People in Turbulent Times”.

The 12th annual conference was presented by MASSCAP and CAFCA.

Soft Trac was pleased to be able to help the Community Action agencies in MA and CT by being a sponsor and attending this conference. Soft Trac’s staff shared information with attendees on how they can increase productivity across their communities by using solutions such as Sage Fund Accounting, Sage Fundraising, ETO by Social Solutions, and EZContentManager by ACOM.

It was a pleasure to sponsor and attend West Virginia Community Action Partnership’s 2011 Education Conference in Charleston, WV this week. Soft Trac provided information on Sage Fund Accounting, Sage Fundraising, ETO by Social Solutions, and EZContentManager by ACOM.

The WVCAP’s had the opportunity to learn more about Facing the Changes of Poverty through Community Action at the conference. This conference offered a little bit for everyone from Administration and Finance to Weatherization and Program Development.

Although the flight into the small Yeager airport was interesting, Charleston is a beautiful city that makes you feel like you are visiting a small rural community. The 84 degree weather was also a welcome change.

Susan Saadat, a Soft Trac Senior Consultant, went above and beyond all of our expectations when she forwarded a request from a Fundraising 50 prospect to management while in the labor room on medication to induce labor.

It is not uncommon for Soft Trac’s employees to respond to the needs of a customer or prospect while on personal time, but Senior Consultant, Susan Saadat, took this dedication and passion for the customer to an all-time high.

You see, Susan, had been in the labor room for more than two days when she received an email from a prospect. She quickly forwarded the email to Soft Trac’s management for response. How many women do you know who would take time out between contractions to monitor their work email and respond? Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and now Susan Saadat have changed the world forever.

Kidding aside, we are grateful for the dedication that our staff have for our customers.

We are especially pleased to announce that Sarah Saadat, daughter of Ali and Susan Saadat, was born on Saturday, April 16, 2011, at 9:25 am. “Little Peanut” as Susan lovingly referred to her weighed in at 9 lbs 14 oz. Sarah, Ali and Susan are all doing well. Susan says, “We are totally in love with her and look forward to introducing her to all of you soon.”

Wish you were automatically informed of new release versions of your software? Want to talk with other users? Want to help other users? Sign up for the Sage Nonprofit Community Forums to stay up to date with all things Sage Nonprofit.

1. To sign up, go to Sage Forums

2. Once you have created an account, you will need to visit the ‘My Profile’>’Organization Information’ section to edit your profile. In particular, you will need your organization’s account number, which Soft Trac can provide. Call us at 207.512.2709 or e-mail saadat.susan@softtrac.com to get this information if you don’t already have it.

4. Once you have completed this, go to the tab labeled ‘Community’ and choose the subtab ‘Forums’.

5. Click on the icon for e-mail or RSS Feed next to the forum(s) you are interested in to subscribe to an RSS feed or to have e-mails sent to you directly.

This ensures that you will be kept up to date with information relevant to your software products.
Note that if you are a person who is not likely to voluntarily visit the feed on a regular basis, you might be better off signing up for the e-mail subscription, as the e-mails will come directly to your inbox.

I have resolved myself to the fact that I am no longer cool. When I go out, it’s generally with a husband in tow and 10:00 pm is a late night for us. I no longer care if my hair is in style or my clothes are fashionable. All of this would probably explain why I didn’t jump on the Facebook, Twitter or Linked In bandwagons right away.

Over the past few weeks, however, I have discovered what the fascination is all about. Even as I connect with high school and college friends on Facebook, the application of these readily available social media to fundraising become increasingly obvious. In this age of tightening resources, the use of these media as money saving mechanisms is also blindingly obvious, or at least should be.

On Facebook, for example, an organization can create an event and invite their friends. You can upload videos. Download free applications that will allow you to add items like an auction to your page. You can create a discussion board. Add a map to help people find your organization.

Obviously, a resource like Facebook isn’t intended to ferret out donations of large sums of money from relative strangers. But, if the current economic situation has shown us anything, it should be that relying on the few for large sums of money that can be wiped out by a bad run in the market is a risky strategy. Exploring avenues like Facebook and other social media can lead your organization to create new relationships with donors that may have shallower pockets, but who swim in a deep pool of social media, surrounded by friends, acquaintances, and strangers with money to give.

I know there are relatively few of you out there who are taking advantage of this tool. If you’re one of them, tell us why. If you are using Facebook, tell us how.

Fundraisers using Sage Fundraising 50 sometimes struggle with how to code gifts that come in after the end of the fiscal (or calendar) year properly. I hope we can clear this up here.

Let’s suppose your organization’s fiscal year runs from January to December. We’ll further suppose that your organization runs an annual campaign each year; we’ll call this campaign the 09 Annual Campaign. The 09 Annual Campaign is made up of two solicitations: the 09 Spring Mailing and the 09 Fall Mailing. All set?

Now, let’s suppose that it’s January 3 and two donations arrive on your desk.
Donation A is a check dated December 31 and is in response to the 09 Fall Mailing.
Donation B is a check dated January 1 and is in response to the 09 Fall Mailing.

How should these gifts be coded?
BOTH gifts should be applied to the 09 Fall Mailing (and, consequently, the 09 Annual Campaign). The GIFT DATE for each should be the date on the check. While the tendency is to want to create an “overflow” or “after year end” solicitation, the truth is, there is no need.

The Result
Donation A is properly contained in tax year 2009 and Donation B is properly contained in tax year 2010. BOTH gifts are in response to the 09 Fall Mailing and the 09 Annual Campaign.

How should you report on these?
When the E.D. asks for a report of all donations to the 09 Annual Campaign (or the 09 Fall Mailing solicitation), you can simply use the criteria 09 Annual Campaign (or 09 Fall Mailing solicitation).

When he/she asks for a report of donations to the 09 Annual Campaign (or the 09 Fall Mailing solicitation) for the fiscal year (or another set of dates), you will use the DATE of the gift, along with the campaign and/or solicitation to report.

YES, these numbers will be different, but now you know why and can explain to him or her why this is the case. Part of your responsibility, too, is asking the right questions of the person who is asking you for reports.

If you’re still skeptical about not needing to recode the solicitation, the following situation might help you to understand a bit better. Suppose your organization has undertaken a capital or major gifts campaign. A donor has agreed to make a gift to the 09 Major Gifts campaign. She will pay this donation over five years. Each time a gift comes in, it will be coded to the 09 Major Gifts Ask and the 09 Major Gifts Campaign. This will be true for every pledge payment made over the course of those five years. You wouldn’t recode the gifts to come from a different solicitation each year in this scenario; why would you do it to any other gift?

The training database is now a choice in the drop down menu of databases available when you log in to Sage Fundraising 50, as shown below, rather than being a separate icon and login, as it used to be. The user name and password should be: admin, sagefr50

I ran across an interesting article in The Chronicle of Philanthropy recently (Chronicle of Philanthropy, September 18, 2008, “73% of Older Americans Volunteer, Survey Finds”). Based on the results of a survey, the article said that while 73% of older Americans volunteer, more than 70% of those folks said that they prefer not to do so on a regular schedule.
What is your organization doing to allow volunteers flexibility in when they volunteer? Are you communicating with them in ways that allow them to respond to a need quickly? Are you connected with organizations such as your local United Way or VolunteerMatch.org or Idealist.org to find volunteers?
Tell us how you are offering flexibility to YOUR volunteers in YOUR organization.