Category: Meetings

Over the past several years, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) has issued multiple landmark accounting standards impacting not-for-profit entities, including the following revenue recognition standards:

• ASC 606, Revenue from Contracts with Customers (Topic 606) (originally issued as ASU 2014-09)
• ASU 2018-08, Not-for-Profit Entities (Topic 958), Clarifying the Scope and the Accounting Guidance for Contributions Received and Contributions Made

ASC 606 provides a new framework for revenue recognition for both for-profit and not-for-profits entities. However, not-for-profit entities will need to assess their revenue streams to determine whether their revenue from grants, contracts, and contributions is qualified as an exchange transaction, or whether the revenue is a non-exchange transaction and therefore outside of the scope of ASC 606.  ASU 2018-08 clarifies the determination of  such transactions.  During this interactive session, participants will discuss how to evaluate their revenue streams in accordance with the standards, with consideration given to how these standards will impact their revenue recognition policies and financial statement disclosures.

Presenters from CliftonLarsonAllen, LLC:

• Jennifer Olivier, CPA:  Jen has over 12 years of experience providing auditing, accounting, consulting, and tax services to nonprofit organizations including, healthcare, social service organizations, associations, health and human services, and foundations. Jen also has extensive experience in single audit and yellow book compliance.
• Melissa Murphy, CPA: Melissa has over four years of experience auditing, accounting and consulting with an emphasis on nonprofit organizations, including those with Single Audit and Yellow Book compliance requirements. She has worked with many nonprofit organizations including human service organizations, healthcare, community based and associations. Melissa also has a strong background in 990 preparation and compliance.

Dealing with Difficult People

Whether at home or work, from time to time someone we find difficult crosses our path.  Attend this seminar to learn how to artfully manage this person, the situation and your own emotional response.  Specifically, strategies for condescension, complaining and caustic behavior will be covered.

 

Leading this discussion will be Cally Ritter, the principal of Positive Ripple Training and Development.  Her goal when working with an employee group is to inspire them to make shifts in their thinking and behavior for greater work/life effectiveness. She is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker with her BA from Bucknell University and her Masters in Social Work from the University of Pittsburgh.  She has worked more than 25 years as a facilitator, coach, speaker, and Director of Training.  Cally has consulted with and trained for the Red Sox, Reebok, Tufts University, Wellesley College, Beth Israel Deaconess Hospitals, the Massachusetts State Government, The Girl Scouts, The Girl Scouts and countless more.

Among small to medium-sized nonprofits, traditional pension plans are rare. Typically, an organization’s retirement plan enables employee contributions and some form of employer match. Beyond that, plans vary widely. Do some retirement plans tend to result in more savings for highly compensated employees, and less for everyone else? Are there things we can do to help ensure all our employees will be well-prepared for retirement, regardless of income? What are some practical ways to encourage greater equity in our retirement benefits?

Leading this discussion will be Aviva Sapers, President and CEO of Sapers & Wallack, Inc.  She is a licensed Insurance Advisor, and has expertise in executive benefits, estate liquidity planning and long term care. She will be joined by Scott Tuxbury, VP for Retirement and Wealth Management at Sapers & Wallack, an expert in qualified retirement plans.

In the old days, orientation meant “Fill out these forms, pretend you’ve read the employee manual, and get to work.”  Nowadays, on-boarding means thinking about welcoming a new staff member as a process, not a one-day event.  We will discuss the 4 C’s of on-boarding (compliance, clarification, culture and connection) and invite all of you to share your own successful techniques.

Gordon Gottlieb is a human resources at TDC and works exclusively with small and medium sized nonprofit organizations in Southern New England.

Has your board been talking about risks? The conversations about risks and ERM (enterprise risk management) have been continuing. No matter where you are on the ERM journey this session will help you learn about the process to identify, prioritize, and remediate the major strategic risks your organization is facing.

Our approach helps your organization not only respond appropriately to risks from increasing complexity, financial assistance programs, information technology – but also to explore possibilities and see opportunities it can’t afford to miss.

ERM, like continual improvement, is an ongoing process. We welcome you to join us for this one hour session for Board Members, Presidents, Executive Directors, and Financial Executives of non-profit organizations and educational institutions!

Christine DiMenna and Marcus Harwood from the firm blumshapiro, a local CPA and consulting firm, gave a presentation on Enterprise Risk Management. (ERM) As a principal in blumshapiro’ s Accounting and Auditing department and a part of the firm’s non-profit group, Christine DiMenna provides audit and risk assessment services to colleges, universities, independent schools and healthcare organizations. Marcus Harwood is a partner and industry leader of Blum’s Educational Institutions Group, has extensive experience serving educational institutions. He interacts with school business managers, audit committees and boards of trustees and is responsible for audit planning, fieldwork and supervising staff.

Has your board been talking about risks? ERM, like continual improvement, is an ongoing process. No matter where you are on the ERM journey, it is important to learn about the process to identify, prioritize, and remediate the major strategic risks your organization is facing. You need to adopt an approach that helps your organization not only respond appropriately to risks from increasing complexity, financial assistance programs, information technology – but also to explore possibilities and see opportunities it can’t afford to miss.

Enterprise Risk Management is a strategic tool that assists agency management and boards evaluate risks that might impact the organization’s long term strategic success and helps to identify, assess, and prepare for issues that my interfere with tan agency’s overall operations.  ERM is not just about what “can go bad,” it is about what prevents your agency from getting where it needs to go.  It is inextricably linked to your strategic plan and mission.  Any ERM plan needs to be a team project including management and the Board.  It is not a stand-alone process.

Blumshapiro has broken down the ERM process into four phases.  Steps one and two go hand in hand.  Phase 1 is identify members of the ERM committee and to document the ERM process and approach.  Phase 2 is to identify risk and to prioritize them.  Members of the ERM committee (risk owners) should conduct risk interviews with management, the Board, and key staff personnel.  The committee should send out a memo with the questions ahead of time and indicate that participation is expected.  Some sample questions can include the following. What are some of the major agency risks? What work issues keep you up at night?  What stands in the way of you doing your job? The interviewer should ask for information about the participant’s department and view of the agency as a whole.  You should encourage participants to open up- comments will not be attributed to names.  Next the ERM committee should meet to consolidate the identified risk into one list and then vet the list with management and the board.  The next step is to prioritize the risks on the list, through some sort of vote or survey tool.  It is important to share feedback with those who participated in the process.  The top ten risks should be ranked on the final list and then plotted on a heat map.  An executive summary should be prepared.

Phase three is to develop risk mitigation work plans Identify which risks to work on first and then assign a person in charge of that plan.  Come up with a mitigation plan and then test it to assess to see if it covers everything involved.  The final phase is risk monitoring and tracking.  You need to establish an ongoing system to monitor the work plan due dates, to monitor risks, and to review results.  Risk mitigation plans can expose previously unidentified risks and/or opportunities in such areas as information technology, human resources, and data and analytics.

To summarize ERM, the following steps should be part of the process.

• Demonstrate the benefit of ERM
• Define risks
• Establish ownership
• Determine the appropriate approach
• Identify and quantify risks
• Prioritize risks
• Develop mitigation plans
• Implement mitigation work plans
• Report back on risks
• Maintain the ERM process

ERM NFP Seminar Presentation – 2019