Articles — ggm Nonprofit Consulting LLC

Talking Finances with Your Board

Talking Finances with Your Board

As the COVID-19 pandemic rapidly remakes our world, nonprofits are grappling with the financial turmoil. Unfortunately, many Boards of Directors are poorly positioned to collaborate with staff leadership in guiding their organizations forward. Often, the only time Boards are accustomed to focusing on the future is when they approve a budget. The rest of the year, they look backwards, receiving financial reports for past periods and comparing them to an ever more dated budget. This reinforce a deep divide between what the Board is paying attention to and what is important. Here’s how you can narrow the gap.

Finance & HR, LeadershipGary Gold-MoritzMay 6, 2020Comment

How Teleworking Can Make You a Better Manager

How Teleworking Can Make You a Better Manager

As a manager, your working relationship with each of your team members strengthen or weaken over time depending on your interactions with each other. Great managers are very deliberate about these interactions, appreciating that their cumulative impact can make the difference between a healthy, effective relationship and a dysfunctional one. The forced teleworking environment may be an opportunity to improve your skills in these interactions—and to become a better manager.

Tricks of the TradeGary Gold-MoritzMay 6, 2020Comment

Thinking about Reopening? Think Small

Thinking about Reopening? Think Small

Most nonprofits did not decide for themselves to shut down, but each will have to choose for itself when and how best to reopen. While this may feel like an enormous decision, it doesn’t have to. The question of whether to reopen can be reduced to a set of much smaller choices, with proportionately smaller risks and uncertainties. Here’s how…

Leadership, Tricks of the TradeGary Gold-MoritzMay 6, 2020Comment

This Isn’t Teleworking

This Isn’t Teleworking

You and your team were not sent home to telework; you were sent home to avoid spreading a virus, to take care of loved ones, to teach children and to physically distance from everyone else in your communities. As a manager, the work that your team is able to accomplish under these circumstances depends primarily on your ability to recognize these challenges and to adapt. Here's what you can do…

Tricks of the Trade, Finance & HRGary Gold-MoritzApril 6, 2020 Comment

Your Financial Readiness for COVID-19

Your Financial Readiness for COVID-19

Your nonprofit is so much more than “just” a business, but it is still a business, with income to collect and bills to pay. Unfortunately, many nonprofits will be at extreme financial risk over the next few months, and most are not prepared to meet the challenge. Here's what you need to do…

Leadership, Finance & HR, ChangeGary Gold-MoritzMarch 31, 2020 Comment

Pandemic Movie Night

Pandemic Movie Night

There has literally never been a better time to grab a bowl of popcorn and stretch out on the coach to watch your favorite organizational crisis-management movies for some ideas and inspirations you can apply to today’s challenges. Since, I suspect most of you lack a favorite in this particular category, I’m happy to recommend mine…

Culture, Recommended ReadingGary Gold-MoritzMarch 31, 2020Comment

Leading Your Nonprofit In a Time of Pandemic

Leading Your Nonprofit In a Time of Pandemic

Your annual plan probably didn’t factor in the likelihood of a global pandemic, did it? And yet, here we are. Here’s how you can successfully lead your organization through these next few months…

LeadershipGary Gold-MoritzMarch 12, 2020Comment

Merit Pay—Just Say No

Merit Pay—Just Say No

Advocates for merit pay believe that both basic fairness and organizational interests require that staff who perform better than their peers should be compensated accordingly. This isn’t crazy. But for most nonprofit organizations, it’s a bad idea.

Finance & HR, CultureGary Gold-MoritzMarch 3, 2020Comment

The Joy of Being Managed Up

The Joy of Being Managed Up

Among other things, being well-managed by your team means that your engagement is treated as valuable; meetings are shorter, rarer and more efficient; and you’re actually able to spend less time managing others and more time on your own work. Here’s how to make that happen. . .

Culture, Tricks of the TradeGary Gold-MoritzMarch 3, 2020Comment

The Dark Side of Win-Win

The Dark Side of Win-Win

The allure of win-win solutions is obvious—decisions that satisfy everyone are better. Until recently, I never questioned the benefits of win-win thinking. I knew it wasn’t always achievable, but I didn’t doubt its desirability. Anand Giridharadas's brilliant book, Winner Takes All, has recently led me to reconsider.

Leadership, ChangeGary Gold-MoritzMarch 3, 2020Comment

Better Financial Decision-Making with a Monthly Cash Flow Projection

Better Financial Decision-Making with a Monthly Cash Flow Projection

Many nonprofit leaders equate financial decision-making with passing an annual budget. The idea is that once the budget is passed, their job is just to implement. Unfortunately, this breaks down when the expectations and assumptions underlying the budget turn out to be inaccurate or incomplete. Ongoing financial choices requires another tool—the Monthly Cash Flow Projection.

Finance & HR, Tricks of the TradeGary Gold-MoritzFebruary 4, 2020Comment

Model Cash Flow Projection (Free Download)

Model Cash Flow Projection (Free Download)

Here are a few of the most important features of the model Monthly Cash Flow Projection.

Finance & HR, Tricks of the TradeGary Gold-MoritzFebruary 4, 2020Comment

Four Types of Restricted Funds

Four Types of Restricted Funds

Many nonprofits rely to a significant extent on contributions or grants intended for specific purposes, known as restricted funds. Nonprofit accounting places great importance on distinguishing between restricted and unrestricted funds to ensure that the donor intent embodied by the restrictions is respected. Whether viewed from a legal, ethical or accounting perspective, this is all well and good.

Finance & HRGary Gold-MoritzFebruary 4, 2020Comment

The First 90-Days: Goal-oriented Onboarding

The First 90-Days: Goal-oriented Onboarding

Being onboarded into a nonprofit isn’t always pleasant. Usually it means a gauntlet of briefings, a pile of forms, a bunch of reading. And lunch.

If the onboarding was unpleasant but useful, then you could consider it a necessary evil. But all too often, it fails the utility test as well. How could providing so much information not be useful? When it’s not in service of accomplishing clear objectives. The path to better onboarding starts by asking what you are hoping for the new employee to accomplish through it.

OnboardingGary Gold-MoritzJanuary 7, 2020Comment

The Transparency Trap

The Transparency Trap

When staff complain about a lack of transparency, nonprofit leaders commonly respond by promising more. This rarely works because the perceived lack of transparency is usually obscuring a more significant problem—a lack of trust. The understandable inclination to increase transparency without confronting the underlying challenge around trust is the essence of the transparency trap.

Culture, LeadershipGary Gold-MoritzJanuary 7, 2020Comment

The Real Value of Your Budget

The Real Value of Your Budget

The annual budget presents a nonprofit’s financial plan for of an uncertain future by setting both limits and goals. The limits in a budget are expressed as authorized expenses. Some budget goals are incorporated into those authorized expenses, either implicitly or explicitly contingent on future events. Other goals show up as income lines as projections of what amounts of revenue are hoped for from different revenue streams. The combination is essential but confusing, which is one reason many nonprofits are not able to maximize the value of their budgets.

Finance & HRGary Gold-MoritzJanuary 6, 2020Comment

January's Recommended Reading

January's Recommended Reading

The annual budget presents a nonprofit’s financial plan for of an uncertain future by setting both limits and goals. The limits in a budget are expressed as authorized expenses. Some budget goals are incorporated into those authorized expenses, either implicitly or explicitly contingent on future events. Other goals show up as income lines as projections of what amounts of revenue are hoped for from different revenue streams. The combination is essential but confusing, which is one reason many nonprofits are not able to maximize the value of their budgets.

Recommended ReadingMaggi BlueJanuary 5, 2020Comment

Making Change: Lessons from Crisis

Making Change: Lessons from Crisis

Whether you’re preparing for an organizational change project, in the midst of one or still recovering from the last attempt, you know how massive a challenge these can be. What you may not realize is that you’re set up to fail. It’s not just you—up to 70% of planned change projects do not meet their objectives.

ChangeGary Gold-MoritzDecember 3, 2019Comment

December To-Do List

December To-Do List

December is a veritable obstacle course for business as usual. The holidays, vacations, school performances, parties and more all make it nearly impossible to stay on schedule and get things done.

So don’t fight it. Lean into the season. Whether you like it or not, things are slowing down, so you might as well like it. The change of pace might do everyone some good. Take advantage of the slower speed to focus on yourself, your team and getting ready for the new year.

Tricks of the TradeGary Gold-MoritzDecember 3, 2019Comment

Year End Bonuses – Are They Right For You?

Year End Bonuses – Are They Right For You?

When times are hard, nonprofit leaders don’t need to think about year-end bonuses. But when you find yourself with positive net income and your staff is asking if they will see a little bit of the upside – you may want to consider bonuses. Here’s how to make a good decision…

Finance & HRGary Gold-MoritzNovember 3, 2019Comment