Why Not-for-Profit Accounting Help?
Not-for-Profit Accounting Help grew out of years of experience working with nonprofit organizations:
- as a board member and finance committee member before I had finished my accounting training;
- as an independent auditor stumbling through the Yellow Book and Circular A-122 and deciphering what the federal government really meant by “accrual accounting”;
- as a GL accountant on part-time contract while my children were small;
- through four years as Director of Finance and Administration at a visionary conservation-oriented organization with ever-changing program activities;
- and through six years as a consultant to educational, community, and environmental organizations.
More than once, a not-for-profit has called me in to take over on the spot just hours after the Finance Director quit without notice, over his head and completely frustrated.
I wouldn’t say I’ve seen every disaster in the book, but I’ve seen enough to know there aren’t enough skilled people to provide the resources not-for-profit finance and accounting professionals need in order to learn how to stay on top of the demands of their jobs and succeed in supporting the organizations they care about.
I went looking for resources I could recommend and found basic bookkeeping books and theoretical, long-winded books by and for CPAs.
I found nothing written for people who are already good bookkeepers but need help with the intricacies of nonprofit accounting and reporting, or with the wide variety of other tasks we are often expected to handle with a smile.
That started my creative juices flowing, designing a way to serve anyone venturing into the nonprofit arena to be the custodian of an organization’s accounting records, assets, and its financial reputation.
Not-for-Profit Accounting Help is the result.
The newsletter strives to keep you informed and up-to-date as well as entertained; the book is your stalwart resource for answering all sorts of common “how do I?” questions.
As far as I have been able to determine, there is no network for us – no organization, no magazine, no central clearing house of information. That means there’s no way for us to use each other’s experience to help each other – yet. That’s ultimately what NFP Accounting Help aims to be: the place for nonprofit accountants to go when they need help.
Nancy Church
Nancy Church has been licensed as a CPA in Oregon since 1987. She performed audit, tax and consulting engagements for a national accounting firm for four years, and then worked for a one-woman accounting firm for three more years.
Since then, she has spent a total of twelve years consulting at not-for-profits in all aspects of accounting and financial management, and four years as the Director of Finance and Administration at a visionary conservation organization with a budget of about $5,000,000.
Prior to entering the accounting field, she spent seven years in Europe, teaching English as a Second Language and traveling all over the continent and as far east and south as Calcutta and Tunisia. She taught ESL in the US for another four years, writing a best-selling textbook published by Cambridge University Press, How to Survive in the USA, with another veteran teacher.
She has raised three children and been an active volunteer in their schools, at KBOO, the community-owned radio station in Portland, and for other local nonprofit organizations. She loves music and dancing, working on her old house, hiking, and thinking about how NFPs can create more effective and efficient accounting.
She is delighted to be making her contribution to saving the world with NFPAccountingHelp!
Nancy lives in Portland, Oregon with two teenage children.
Please feel free to call me at (503) 975-4119 or email me with any questions, suggestions or, for all you ex-English majors like me, typos!