Category: Nonprofit
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Second Thursday Blues
All of us are limited, I suppose, to being in one place at a time. The number of important organization board meetings and other community events held on the second Thursday of the month is overwhelming for me. I am most often forced to say “As much as I support your organization as a top-level priority,…
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IRS catches nonprofit accounting cover-up
This week the Washington Post reported that Donald Trump was fined $2,500 by the IRS for filing a false report to the IRS about the activities of his nonprofit foundation. Nonprofit organizations are not supposed to give money to political campaigns. He did, and then covered up the political donation by reporting it to the…
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Free technology tools for nonprofit organizations
Both Google and Microsoft offer free services to nonprofit organizations. I often suggest that organizations that pay for these services might free up some cash to redeploy to other productive use (not surprisingly including the nonprofit advisory services that I partner with). Google explains its nonprofit services in this video. Services include: AdGrants – Drive…
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So you’ve been asked to be a board member
So you’ve been asked to serve on the board of a nonprofit organization. What do you need to know? You want to learn enough about the organization to do a good job as a director. You should also understand that there is potential legal liability for serving as a board member. Since nonprofit organizations do not…
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Nonprofits and small businesses lack security measures
I started the week by reviewing IRS’s publication about guarding taxpayer data. The publication is meant for tax firms but the concepts apply to all organizations that handle sensitive data. Last week I reviewed an accounting firm’s operations and, for the second time this year, declined to work with a service provider solely on the…
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Crowdfunding article bibliography
Are you a small business owner thinking about crowdfunding? Crowdfunding issues have become an increasingly frequent part of my day-to-day discussions with small businesses – both for profit and nonprofit – and the investors who finance them. Many of my recent blog posts reflect this trend. Most of these blog posts focus on very basic concepts of…
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Web promotion and crowdfunding for nonprofit organizations
If you are involved with leadership of a nonprofit organization then you are likely to be aware of the effort and expense to boost the online presence and branding of your organization online. It’s all the rage today. These efforts usually revolve around bolstering the organization’s web site and then outreach through social media. The real questions…
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Tax planning tip for nonprofits with unrelated income
Here is an interesting and simple tax planning tip where a nonprofit company has so much unrelated business or investment income that it threatens the entity’s nonprofit status. Just form a one member subchapter S corporation owned by the nonprofit and the income flows through to the Form 990 but does not threaten nonprofit status.
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Small payments by nonprofit LLC for summer events
Community organizations often sponsor seasonal events that require the use of short term labor. When volunteer labor is not available, there may be tax implications of paid services. Even though the dollar amount per worker is small, the total cost can be a significant portion of the organization’s overall budget. A single-member LLC is managed…
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Tax deduction for contributed time or services
I’ve often had the opportunity to work as the volunteer accountant, trustee or adviser for some great charitable organizations. In the course of this work, I meet plenty of other like-minded generous people. One amazingly common misperception that many of these people share is a misunderstanding of the tax treatment of donated time or services.…