Tag Archives: Nonprofit
Microsoft Enhances Nonprofit Accelerator with Latest Release
Microsoft Enhances Their Nonprofit Accelerator in 3 Key Areas with Latest Release: Case Management, Program Design and Operations Toolkit
Microsoft and AKA are united in their mission to to overcome their unique challenges. AKA is making an impact through their partnership with group on various projects to deliver technology solutions to help non-profits with their unique requirements, which often includes providing services and aid to specific missions under a tight budget and tough conditions.
Nonprofit Accelerator: Microsoft’s Technology Solution for Non-Profits
The Microsoft Nonprofit Accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics 365 was officially launched at the NetHope Global Summit in 2018. The Nonprofit Accelerator is a uniform platform that supports core non-profit organization processes including fundraising, tracking and managing constituents and volunteers, executing and gauging the success of programs, and more by connecting, embedding or extending Microsoft Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform. The Nonprofit Accelerator also delivers powerful data insights by eliminating large data silos and ultimately enables non-profits of any size to achieve a higher level of mission success than previously possible.
So, how does the Nonprofit Accelerator work? Built on the , the open-source data schema contains a suite of connectors, sample apps and templates specifically for non-profit organizations. Thanks to the Nonprofit Accelerator, non-profits are able to spend more of their budget on supporting mission critical efforts and spend less on development.
New Enhancements to the Nonprofit Accelerator
AKA is thrilled about (in June of 2020), featuring :
- Operations Toolkit – Delivers an award and project management solution for small non-profits to lower costs and generate a higher level of trust with their funders. Important features include the ability to manage important records and details about non-profit workers (including time allocation), vendors, awards and more. The new Operations Toolkit also enables non-profits to start and manage financials for projects and other indirect costs.
- Program Design and Project Management – This new feature enables non-profits to deliver successful programs by tracking budgets, objectives, indicators and results through creating and tracking a theory of change. The theory of change considers decisions, observations, deliverables, risks and assumptions associated with a given program.
- Case Management – Case managers can now enter, track and manage throughout every stage of a case. Program goals and indicators are tracked and evaluated more effectively based on indicator values tied to work items and needs and types of clients and cases.
and offers so much more beyond these three new enhancements.
If your non-profit organization is searching for a better technology solution, look no further. AKA has extensive experience working with non-profits, like LifeWorks, and their unique budgets and operational requirements. Watch the video below to learn more about how AKA leveraged Microsoft technology to provide unlimited possibilities for LifeWorks, then to learn how we can help your non-profit organization implement a technology solution that will meet your goals.
ABOUT AKA ENTERPRISE SOLUTIONS
specializes in making it easier to do business, simplifying processes and reducing risks. With agility, expertise, and original industry solutions, we embrace projects other technology firms avoid—regardless of their complexity. As a true strategic partner, we help organizations slay the dragons that are keeping them from innovating their way to greatness. Call us at 212-502-3900!
Article by: Bryn Forrest | 212-502-3900
As Director, Government, Not for Profit, Media Industries, and Existing Customer Marketing for AKA, Bryn has more than 26 years of experience in marketing management, 17 of those with AKA. Under her leadership, AKA has been recognized by Microsoft for excellence in marketing.
Nonprofit Lender Sees Spike in Demand, a Different Future
.jpg "Nonprofit Lender Sees Spike in Demand, a Different Future")
Nonprofit Lender Sees Spike in Demand, a Different Future
Posted by Barney Beal, Content Director
For KIVA, the international nonprofit providing no interest loans and other financial resources to underserved communities, the impact and reach of the coronavirus was quickly evident.
Already, demand for loans has spiked tenfold in just the U.S. As the effects of the pandemic reach the other 80 countries in which the nonprofit operates—places where there is less infrastructure to handle the fallout—management expects even more demand.
In the U.S,. KIVA provides loans of up to $ 15,000 to businesses that typically can’t access capital using traditional methods. Historically, that’s meant a lot of services businesses like restaurants, one of the sectors hit hardest by the coronavirus fallout. So far, the organization has been able to keep up with that demand, avoiding layoffs and with the lenders support rising to the demand.
Yet, with rising demand and a halt in hiring, KIVA knows it will need help as well.
“We’re right there with a lot of other nonprofits that are very much in need in a time of crisis,” Diane Pham, strategic partnerships manager for KIVA, told NetSuite’s Kendall Fisher in the following video interview.
Pham goes on to explain how the current environment has forced the organization to look more closely at its business processes, lean on its crisis planning and plan for a much different future for the organization as a whole and the nonprofit sector.
Watch a video to learn more about KIVA and its microlending programs.
by NetSuite filed under
A Grieving Mother Turns Her Pain Into a World-Changing Nonprofit
By Morgan St. Clair, Social Impact Communications Manager
Losing a child can, for some, bring a lifetime of mourning. Simply doing the little things to get through each day—preparing meals, paying bills, even watching TV—becomes an enormous accomplishment.
But the murder of Robby Poblete, who was gunned down at an intersection in Vallejo, Calif., in 2014, brought more than grief to Poblete’s mother, Pati Navalta. It brought a deep desire to change things.
Navalta, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist, opted to turn the loss of her son into a positive contribution. The result was The Robby Poblete Foundation, a nonprofit that buys back firearms and turns them into artwork, delivering a powerful message about the triumph of beauty over pain, and one that’s building steam.
Over the past five years, the foundation’s mission — which beyond the gun buyback and art programs, includes vocational training aimed at helping young men transition into gainful employment — has impacted communities all over California, spread to Augusta, Ga., and has attracted the attention of the United Nations. In addition to the gun buyback and It’s impossible to compute how many lives the nonprofit has saved by getting guns off the streets, but there’s clearly no end to the desire to save lives.
Navalta knew that in order for the foundation to achieve its potential, it would have to get more sophisticated with its operations. As it grew, adding partnerships with more law enforcement agencies, arts organizations and schools, managing operations on Excel and Google Docs wasn’t sustainable.
Wanted: More Formal System
“We were growing to the point where it wasn’t efficient for us to work in all these systems,” said Navalta. “Plus, we were getting lots of grants and we needed a more formalized system for processing them.”
Navalta wanted the foundation to be able to track its budget in real time so that it could provide detailed reports to donors. She also wanted to be able to manage its programs separately, tracking partners and beneficiaries in each program individually.
Her staff started recommending solutions, but there was really only one choice as far as Navalta was concerned: NetSuite, where she had once been an employee following her son’s death. Shortly after leaving her job there in 2018, Navalta and the foundation selected NetSuite and spent five months deploying it, going live in January 2019.
From the word go, NetSuite has been transformational for the nonprofit. It’s able to collaborate with law enforcement to track the types of firearms it buys back; provide detailed data about the use of donated funds; track scholarship applicants until they’re placed in a job or apprenticeship.
Not that it was always obvious how to accomplish these things. The foundation leaned on NetSuite’s Social Impact team — not only to receive discounted software, but to get 1:1 support from the Suite Capacity team on transferring their data into NetSuite most effectively. The Suite Capacity team helps our NetSuite nonprofit customers with training and resources on how to best use the system to drive greater impact.
“We loved that we were able to tell them our very specific needs, and they were able to hone in and give us a workaround or tailor things to our specific needs,” said Navalta.
Growing Into NetSuite
Those needs have evolved. For instance, the foundation launched with one large unrestricted grant, but now it’s receiving a lot of smaller, restricted grants, which require total transparency into how those funds are used.
NetSuite also has helped in other fundamental ways: Whereas foundation employees used to rifle through piles of business cards looking for someone’s contact information, all of that is now entered immediately into NetSuite, enabling staff to quickly look up donors, partners and beneficiaries in an instant.
Having a system of record also has enabled one employee, whose job previously was simply to organize information, to shift to more valuable activities, such as recruiting applicants or speaking at high schools.
Naturally, Navalta has additional plans for NetSuite. For instance, she’d like to get her staff more training on the software, once the foundation determines what exactly it wants to be able to accomplish with the software.
But perhaps more immediate is the need to expand the foundation’s horizons. With Navalta getting calls from communities in other states, and the United Nations interested in the program, The Robby Poblete Foundation’s world is going to get bigger, and NetSuite figures prominently as the nonprofit contends with its growing footprint.
“How are we going to manage these requests from around the world? I think that will become more apparent,” said Navalta. “I definitely want to keep growing with NetSuite.”
by NetSuite filed under
Coat Giveaway Becomes a Powerhouse Nonprofit Making Life Better for Thousands of Economically Disadvantaged Students
.jpg "Coat Giveaway Becomes a Powerhouse Nonprofit Making Life Better for Thousands of Economically Disadvantaged Students")
Posted by Morgan St. Clair, Social Impact Communications Manager
Clearly, Rose Hanley was onto something when, after handing out coats at an inner city elementary school in St. Louis, Mo., in 2001, she decided she’d found her mission.
In fact, she’d found even more than that: She’d discovered the seed for a trailblazing nonprofit, The Little Bit Foundation, that would grow to provide support in the form of everything from clothing and dental hygiene kits to books, STEM curriculum and career discovery for thousands of economically disadvantaged students.
But as the foundation gradually expanded its reach over its first 15 years, complexity caught up with it. With only QuickBooks to run an operation that was supplying students at more than 20 St. Louis schools, things grew chaotic.
Despite having $ 250,000 worth of inventory consisting of 400 different SKUs, the nonprofit had no inventory management capabilities, and orders were being managed by hand. The result was a lot of inaccuracy.
“We’d run out of stuff and for us that’s an issue,” said Tim Hydar, director of distribution. “We don’t want to tell a student we’re going to have a coat and then next week, when we come, we don’t have that coat.”
Add with managing more than 100 volunteers, it was clear the foundation needed a more sophisticated technology platform, one that would allow it to scale the operation by providing abundant access to data and powerful reporting capabilities.
Eventually, The Little Bit Foundation chose to deploy NetSuite after engaging with the Oracle NetSuite Social Impact team. During the fall of 2016, the foundation managed the implementation itself, although it has turned to the Suite Pro Bono and Suite Capacity teams for help solving specific problems.
Opening the Floodgates
The move to NetSuite has opened things up in a big way. In the three years since, the foundation has expanded to 42 schools, now counts 250 weekly volunteers, and is able to seamlessly process 250 orders each day. Hydar believes the nonprofit could handle 1,000 daily orders.
Operationally, the foundation is able to ensure that schools are more prepared than ever by verifying every item on every order, and providing school administrators with lists of what to expect for each student.
To accommodate the scale NetSuite helps make possible, the foundation moved out of the 3,500-square-foot donated space it occupied and into a 33,000-square-foot building it purchased. That has enabled it to expand its inventory to more than $ 1 million worth of goods representing 900 SKUs. And those goods are more varied than ever. The foundation has added a junior category for girls, and begun distributing dental and feminine hygiene kits.
The larger facility has also made it possible to create pick aisles, which has helped shrink order assembly from an average of eight minutes per order to just two minutes. Meanwhile, the foundation received two donated handheld scanners from the Schnuck’s grocery chain, and it’s deploying NetSuite’s Warehouse Management System Lite, which will enable it to take full advantage of those scanners for more efficiency.
The foundation also has been able to easily support two different distribution models. For short-term needs, the foundation establishes a stocked boutique at each of its partner schools, which students can visit if they need clothes that day, whether it’s because their clothes are tattered or they have an accident at school. For meeting longer-term needs, the foundation places orders for new items that are delivered the following week by volunteers.
The foundation’s expanded reporting capabilities are enabling it to provide schools with detailed summaries of its activities. It tracks all programming, distribution of goods, and the growing list of services it delivers, which now includes medical screenings, eye exams, and hygiene instruction. (The foundation even places washers and dryers in each school so that students and parents can do laundry free of charge, using donated detergent, which is also tracked.)
The foundation also has begun establishing mentorship programs, such as the one it’s formed with Riverview Gardens School District in which it tracks each student’s history, year by year, and provides guidance to help high school students transition into the world.
“That is just an example of how a district said, ‘Here’s an issue of ours. Our students aren’t ready. When they graduate, they don’t know what to do next,’” said Hydar. “And so we came up with a program.”
The foundation also uses NetSuite to perform voluntary audits, which it uses to demonstrate its financial and operational health to potential partners and donors.
Diving Deeper
Next summer, the nonprofit plans to revisit its CRM situation. It currently uses an application called DonorPerfect to manage information on donors and donated items, but it’s not integrated with NetSuite. Hydar said the plan may be to engineer a full integration, or simply standardize on NetSuite CRM.
In the meantime, as The Little Bit Foundation expands its NetSuite use, it constantly discovers opportunities to realize additional benefits. And while it managed the initial deployment itself, Hydar said the help the foundation has received from NetSuite and one of its partners Allied Cloud Solutions, has been invaluable as it seeks to add advanced modules and create complex reports.
“We’re able to ask NetSuite Pro Bono team and the Suite Capacity people, ‘Hey, this is a specific donor we need to report for. These are the criteria we need. Can you help us create this?’ And by the end of the Pro Bono project, we have that,” said Hydar.
“Without the partnership that NetSuite has given us, we would not have had all the success we’ve had.”
by NetSuite filed under
Non-Profit Uses Microsoft Azure to Advocate for Education Funding
The Commit Partnership Utilizes Microsoft Azure to Advocate for $ 6.5 Billion in Funding
Earlier this year, AKA Enterprise Solutions worked with , a Texas non-profit focused on education, to help them gain better insight into their data.
Since its inception, The Commit Partnership had managed to accumulate over 20 terabytes of data related to educational funding, student performance, and more. With so much data to account for, the organization was struggling with how to compile, analyze, and gain actionable insights from their data in order to make better and more strategic decisions.
Particularly when it comes to resource management and funding, The Commit Partnership relies on data insights to advise the schools they work with. The ability to report on prior successes is also heavily data dependent. Without this reporting in place, it’s difficult to secure critical funding from various partners.
At AKA Enterprise Solutions, we teamed up with Microsoft, DataKind, and Strive Together to develop a streamlined, easily accessible cloud platform for The Commit Partnership. By combining predictive analytics with the power of machine learning, the platform enables The Commit Partnership to run models against their vast data sets, offering new insight into their data.
The Commit Partnership Featured in a Microsoft Customer Story
AKA is thrilled that The Commit Partnership was recently featured in a which highlights the non-profit’s use of Azure.
Is your organization looking to improve how you manage your data?
ABOUT AKA ENTERPRISE SOLUTIONS
AKA specializes in making it easier to do business, simplifying processes and reducing risks. With agility, expertise, and original industry solutions, we embrace projects other technology firms avoid—regardless of their complexity. As a true strategic partner, we help organizations slay the dragons that are keeping them from innovating their way to greatness. Call us at 212-502-3900!
MANA Nutrition: Applying For-Profit Accounting Principles at a Nonprofit
Posted by Barney Beal, Content Director and Kendall Fisher, Executive Producer and Host of The NetSuite Podcast
With a background in finance at a technology solutions company, a document publishing and delivery organization and an accounting firm for midmarket companies, Chris Whitfield joined the nonprofit organization MANA Nutrition as CFO with a strong background in for-profit accounting principles.
That background has proven valuable in the nonprofit world as well, Whitfield relayed during a session at SuiteWorld19.
“Both for-profits and nonprofits are mission-based, the missions just tend to be a little different,” he said.
For example, MANA Nutrition has structured its organization more like that of a for-profit even while it maintains a strict mission-based focus. The Charlotte, N.C.-based nonprofit manufactures nutrient-rich milk suspended in peanut butter, a ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) used to treat severe acute malnutrition, producing about 500,000 meals per day. As a manufacturer, it may seem to have more in common with for profits than nonprofits focused on services or curing diseases, but that’s not really the case, according to Whitfield.
“MANA is a mission-based organization,” he said. “Our mission is to save kids’ lives and have a meaningful impact on reducing the lives lost from severe and acute malnutrition.”
But for-profits and nonprofits have a lot more in common than one might assume, Whitfield assured the audience. Both have a mission, it’s just that for-profits’ mission is profit. Both have a similar organizational structure: an executive director and organizational leadership in the case of nonprofits and CEOs and senior leadership in the case of for-profits. And, both largely operate under the same GAAP principles, aside from a few exceptions, and work under the same fundamentals of accounting and internal controls.
“For-profit stakeholders are investors, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m a big believer in capitalism,” Whitfield said. “Nonprofits tend to be service focused. At MANA we have a view that our shareholders, who receive our dividends, are the kids we serve. We like to think of ourselves as having capital. We have benefactors who say, ‘I’m ready to invest in your business.’ Their return is not a financial return, it’s the dividends we give to kids.”
Those similarities, among others, offer finance professionals in nonprofits an opportunity to apply more for-profit principles to their organizations. For example, where a for-profit might focus on reducing costs to improve margins, MANA has reduced the cost of a case of RUTF from $ 60 when it first started to $ 38, allowing it to sell to aid organizations in greater volume at a lower price, increasing its impact.
Financial Statements
There are similarities in financial statements, according to Whitfield. One might be a statement of financial position (nonprofit) and another might be a balance sheet (for profit), but they’re essentially both balance sheets. While nonprofits consider their net financial position to be a derivative of total assets minus liabilities, for-profits view the balance sheet are the cornerstone of internal control wherein total assets must equal total liabilities plus equity (that is, net assets).
“I think it’s an important and subtle difference, but nonprofits should take a look at what their equity position is,” he said.
Nonprofits can take a lead from for-profits when it comes to reporting on financials. Typically, nonprofits are focused on reporting to external constituents, whether it’s a board or donors or maybe outside agencies or creditors.
“Creditors, while they want to see external audited reports, are just as interested in internal reports that measure the success of your organization,” Whitfield said. “At MANA, we don’t report a statement of activities, we report a balance statement and income statement, but also a monthly analysis, KPIs in production, etc. That’s been valuable with creditors.”
Revenue Recognition, Subscription Models and Promises to Give
Nonprofits can also benefit from following the for-profit world when it comes to revenue recognition and subscription models. All over the for-profit world businesses are adding subscription models whether it be ongoing maintenance contracts or meal delivery kits. For nonprofits, pledges, or promises to give, can be treated similarly. Typically, a nonprofit will book the pledge as a receivable with installments paid against it. That needn’t be the case for internal reporting.
“When I have unconditional promises to give that extend over one year, I approach it like a subscription model,” he said. “We record it as a pledge receivable but instead of income we take deferred revenue and recognize it when conditions of the pledge are met, whether that condition is event-based or time-based.”
Whitfield added, “however, we of course have to restate pledges to meet the requirements of GAAP for external reporting in our audited financial statements.”
Whitfield concluded by summarizing, “Nonprofit organizations typically have a very different mission-based focus from for-profit companies, but many underlying financial management considerations are the same. The financial function in nonprofits must be focused on meeting the reporting requirements of its internal constituents, on establishing and maintaining strong systems of internal control, and on maintaining a healthy organization that has the financial fortitude to carry out its mission.”
Nonprofit Focused on Building a More Humane and Restorative Justice System
Posted by Morgan St. Clair, Social Impact Communications Manager
A research and innovation center with a purpose, Impact Justice is focused on building a humane and restorative system of justice in the United States.
The American criminal justice system holds almost 2.3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 109 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities and other facilities nationwide. On any given day, nearly 60,000 youth under age 18 are incarcerated in juvenile jails and prisons in the United States.
Not all of these individuals are treated fairly or humanely, and Impact Justice is on a mission to change that. Founded in 2015, the Oakland, Calif.-based nonprofit focuses on imagining, innovating and accepting absolutely nothing about the status quo of the nation’s current justice system.
“Our current justice system destroys lives, futures and families on a huge scale — especially among communities of color,” the organization states. “We work in partnership at the local, state, and national levels to pioneer, develop, and scale solutions that can reverse this destructive trend, end abusive policies like putting youth on sex offender registries, and promote restorative justice.”
It’s urgent work in a nation that comprises 5% of the planet’s population, but almost 25% of its total prison population. According to the Sentencing Project, the current pace of progress in reducing mass incarceration is so slow that it would take 75 years to cut the prison population in half at this rate.
Research and Innovation
Partnering with state and local government, law enforcement, victim groups and advocates across the country, Impact Justice focuses on research and innovation in three key areas: Preventing more youth and adults from becoming involved in the justice system; improving conditions that ensure humanity and hope for those currently incarcerated; and helping formerly incarcerated people successfully rejoin their communities.
According to Kate Feeney, Associate Director of Finance, one of the organization’s cornerstone efforts is its Restorative Justice Project, which manages diversion for youth. “Instead of a young person who has committed harm going through the juvenile justice system,” Feeney explained, “he or she passes through a diversion program and doesn’t receive charges or enter the system.”
The youth who engage with its Restorative Justice offering are 44% less likely to recidivate than those who have gone through the traditional justice channels. The group has also recorded 95-99% victim satisfaction rates as a result of its work. For its work on improving the quality of incarceration, Impact Justice helps ensure that currently incarcerated individuals are treated humanely.
“We work with the Department of Justice in that area with a focus on sexual safety in confinement,” Feeney said.
The group also helps formerly incarcerated individuals reenter society via a pilot program whereby they reside in the homes of community members.
“That work involves a community reinvestment fund, so we provide pay to those individuals who are hosting the formerly-incarcerated individuals,” Feeney said, “and serve both the community and the individuals who are reentering society.”
These and other initiatives are all supported by a research team that conducts analyses and evaluation on the programs’ success rates.
“The fact that we do a lot of our research and data collection in-house drives some of the uniqueness of our organization,” Feeney added.
Overcoming Challenges
With about 60 employees and a current budget of $ 11 million a year (up from $ 1.5 million in 2015), Impact Justice has encountered numerous roadblocks since opening its doors four years ago. According to Feeney, fundraising and financing are persistent challenges.
“It’s always difficult to fundraise for the less ‘hands-on’ type of work that we do here,” she said. “For example, how do you pay for your payroll services, quality financial support, or accounting systems? Fundraising for those expenses—which are necessary for creating a sustainable organization—is always difficult.”
Like many organizations right now, Impact Justice is operating in a tight labor market where finding the right people to run and support its mission isn’t easy.
“We’re fortunate in that we have a great leadership team that’s focused on implementing processes as quickly and early as possible so that we can focus on the good work that we’re doing,” Feeney said.
Streamlining Business Processes
To help streamline its operations, the organization recently replaced its project management system with a NetSuite ERP that now manages its financial, accounts payable, forecasting, project management/tracking and reporting. Feeney said NetSuite allows Impact Justice to run an $ 11 million budget with just three financial staff members.
“I think we would have had to incur an extraordinary amount of expense that otherwise would’ve benefited the organization and fiscal support had we not implemented this system,” she said.
Impact Justice has also taken advantage of the Oracle NetSuite Social Impact Suite Pro Bono program, participating in two Buildathon 4Good events and virtual pro bono where the company was matched with NetSuite employees who helped automate critical business processes. The organization was able to have some of their challenges answered by skilled employees, which in turn made for more effective operations.
More Growth Ahead
Currently implementing a solution that will consolidate payroll, benefits and timekeeping all onto a single platform, Impact Justice is successfully leveraging technology to help it work more efficiently with fewer human and monetary resources.
“Using some of these tangible technologies helps us save time that we can then spend on more intentional growth for the organization,” Feeney said.
That growth includes a new building in Oakland that will not only house Impact Justice’s headquarters, but also various other nonprofit groups in a co-working environment.
Feeney expects more positive momentum ahead for Impact Justice, which will grow both in terms of expanded program offerings and further geographic reach.
“We’re always applying for new opportunities and looking to expand our outreach,” she said. “We have a couple of exciting things in our pipeline right now, from simply growing our existing programs to adding new initiatives to our mission.”
More from Kate Feeney:
“Impact Justice has also had the chance to participate in two buildathons as well as the quarterly pro bono program. These have been terrific resources for our team to engage with Netsuite staff to customize the product for our specific use. It was great to take a day out of our office to learn how to dive in to the back end of the system and create custom workflows, address problem areas, and collaborate across industries to innovate solutions to our financial functions”
by NetSuite filed under
MANA Nutrition: Applying For-Profit Accounting Principles at a Nonprofit
Posted by Barney Beal, Content Director
With a background in finance at a technology solutions company, a document publishing and delivery organization and an accounting firm for midmarket companies, Chris Whitfield joined the nonprofit organization MANA Nutrition as CFO with a strong background in for-profit accounting principles.
That background has proven valuable in the nonprofit world as well, Whitfield relayed during a session at SuiteWorld19.
“Both for-profits and nonprofits are mission-based, the missions just tend to be a little different,” he said.
For example, MANA Nutrition has structured its organization more like that of a for-profit even while it maintains a strict mission-based focus. The Charlotte, N.C.-based nonprofit manufactures nutrient-rich milk suspended in peanut butter, a ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) used to treat severe acute malnutrition, producing about 500,000 meals per day. As a manufacturer, it may seem to have more in common with for profits than nonprofits focused on services or curing diseases, but that’s not really the case, according to Whitfield.
“MANA is a mission-based organization,” he said. “Our mission is to save kids’ lives and have a meaningful impact on reducing the lives lost from severe and acute malnutrition.”
But for-profits and nonprofits have a lot more in common than one might assume, Whitfield assured the audience. Both have a mission, it’s just that for-profits’ mission is profit. Both have a similar organizational structure: an executive director and organizational leadership in the case of nonprofits and CEOs and senior leadership in the case of for-profits. And, both largely operate under the same GAAP principles, aside from a few exceptions, and work under the same fundamentals of accounting and internal controls.
“For-profit stakeholders are investors, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m a big believer in capitalism,” Whitfield said. “Nonprofits tend to be service focused. At MANA we have a view that our shareholders, who receive our dividends, are the kids we serve. We like to think of ourselves as having capital. We have benefactors who say, ‘I’m ready to invest in your business.’ Their return is not a financial return, it’s the dividends we give to kids.”
Those similarities, among others, offer finance professionals in nonprofits an opportunity to apply more for-profit principles to their organizations. For example, where a for-profit might focus on reducing costs to improve margins, MANA has reduced the cost of a case of RUTF from $ 60 when it first started to $ 38, allowing it to sell to aid organizations in greater volume at a lower price, increasing its impact.
Financial Statements
There are similarities in financial statements, according to Whitfield. One might be a statement of financial position (nonprofit) and another might be a balance sheet (for profit), but they’re essentially both balance sheets. While nonprofits consider their net financial position to be a derivative of total assets minus liabilities, for-profits view the balance sheet are the cornerstone of internal control wherein total assets must equal total liabilities plus equity (that is, net assets).
“I think it’s an important and subtle difference, but nonprofits should take a look at what their equity position is,” he said.
Nonprofits can take a lead from for-profits when it comes to reporting on financials. Typically, nonprofits are focused on reporting to external constituents, whether it’s a board or donors or maybe outside agencies or creditors.
“Creditors, while they want to see external audited reports, are just as interested in internal reports that measure the success of your organization,” Whitfield said. “At MANA, we don’t report a statement of activities, we report a balance statement and income statement, but also a monthly analysis, KPIs in production, etc. That’s been valuable with creditors.”
Revenue Recognition, Subscription Models and Promises to Give
Nonprofits can also benefit from following the for-profit world when it comes to revenue recognition and subscription models. All over the for-profit world businesses are adding subscription models whether it be ongoing maintenance contracts or meal delivery kits. For nonprofits, pledges, or promises to give, can be treated similarly. Typically, a nonprofit will book the pledge as a receivable with installments paid against it. That needn’t be the case for internal reporting.
“When I have unconditional promises to give that extend over one year, I approach it like a subscription model,” he said. “We record it as a pledge receivable but instead of income we take deferred revenue and recognize it when conditions of the pledge are met, whether that condition is event-based or time-based.”
Whitfield added, “however, we of course have to restate pledges to meet the requirements of GAAP for external reporting in our audited financial statements.”
Whitfield concluded by summarizing, “Nonprofit organizations typically have a very different mission-based focus from for-profit companies, but many underlying financial management considerations are the same. The financial function in nonprofits must be focused on meeting the reporting requirements of its internal constituents, on establishing and maintaining strong systems of internal control, and on maintaining a healthy organization that has the financial fortitude to carry out its mission.”
by NetSuite filed under
5 Reasons AKA is Excited About the Dynamics 365 Nonprofit Accelerator
The Microsoft Dynamics 365 Nonprofit Accelerator: 5 Reasons We’re Excited
Over the years, AKA Enterprise Solutions has worked alongside many amazing nonprofit organizations. We love the opportunity to help our nonprofit partners achieve their goals through new and proven technologies. That said, we often find that nonprofit organizations are forced to operate on limited budgets, making it difficult for them to access the technology they need. At the same time, though, we know that the right technology can help these organizations save money in the long run. One of our primary goals is to help nonprofit organizations tap into the tech solutions they need while staying within budgetary limits.
Microsoft’s Tech for Social Impact Group aims to do the same: offer affordable, practical solutions for nonprofits. With this in mind, Microsoft launched the , a suite of solutions designed with fundraising and operations in mind. At the March 2019 , we had the opportunity to learn more about some of the newest features in the latest version of the Accelerator — and we’re excited!
AKA Enterprise Solutions: Part of “a Growing Partner Ecosystem”
Thanks to the incorporation and expansion of the Common Data Model (CDM) as part of the Accelerator, many capabilities are now built into Dynamics 365 CRM without any need for customization. Microsoft has also delivered easier interoperability with the help of mapping templates, making it possible for Microsoft partners to map their own data schemas to the CDM. AKA is a proud member of this growing partner ecosystem, and we’re committed to aligning this new standard with customer success via the Accelerator and CDM.
5 Reasons We’re Excited About the Dynamics 365 Nonprofit Accelerator
In the nonprofit world, trust is essential. That’s why Microsoft has designed the Dynamics 365 Nonprofit Accelerator with a focus on transparency: it’s easy to see how funds are being spent and where they’re having the greatest impact. With this in mind, :
1. Assigning Funds to Specific Activities and Outcomes
The latest version of the Accelerator connects Program Delivery Frameworks and Budgets with Fundraising Designations, allowing organizations to tie various awards and donation funds to specific outcomes and activities.
2. Linking Program Delivery and Beneficiaries
Thanks to a new link between the Constituent, Indicator Value, and Delivery Framework, it’s now possible for nonprofits to track how a program impacts specific beneficiaries.
3. Organizing Volunteers
Volunteers are essential to the success of any nonprofit. With the Accelerator, it’s now easier than ever to manage volunteers effectively. By leveraging the power of Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation, organizations can capture volunteer skills and preferences, certifications, availability, current assignments, and more.
4. Membership Management
With the Accelerator’s new membership management features, nonprofits can set up membership programs and keep track of members throughout their lifecycle — all via a single contact record. It’s also possible to use this record across multiple roles within the organization.
5. Best Practices
The latest version of the Accelerator includes expanded guides, purpose-built nonprofit data schemas, sample applications, templates, and more: all optimized to allow for interoperability.
Ready to learn more about the Accelerator? To get started, Want to put the Accelerator to work for your nonprofit organization? to discuss how the latest technology for nonprofits can improve your organization. Check out the video below to find out why nonprofits like Lifeworks have opted to partner with AKA for their technology needs.
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AKA specializes in making it easier to do business, simplifying processes and reducing risks. With agility, expertise, and original industry solutions, we embrace projects other technology firms avoid—regardless of their complexity. As a true strategic partner, we help organizations slay the dragons that are keeping them from innovating their way to greatness. Call us at 212-502-3900!
More Good Together: NetSuite Joins NetHope’s Center for the Digital Nonprofit
Posted by Morgan Carey, Nonprofit Industry Marketing Lead
Technology has become a primary ingredient for social change in nonprofits, whether it’s enabling fundraising through channels like social media or forming a strong operational and financial backbone. It’s in that spirit that NetSuite continues to seek opportunities to enable growth among nonprofit organizations, including recently expanding its Social Impact program.
Even more recently, NetSuite signed on as a Founding Member of NetHope’s Center for the Digital Nonprofit (CDN). NetHope is a consortium of 57 leading global NGOs (non-governmental organizations) working in more than 180 countries, representing over $ 23B in annual international aid. The group’s mission: to change the world through the power of technology.
Photo Credit: NetHope
As a Founding Member, NetSuite will help develop the framework behind mobilizing this mission in addition to providing ongoing guidance, consulting and solution building for the member organizations.
The CDN, the organization’s newest initiative, is designed to use collaboration as a catalyst. Beyond working closely with NetHope and its member base, NetSuite will be collaborating with #ImpactCloud partners, including Okta, Microsoft, Blackbaud, Box and Avanade, all of whom have also signed on as Founding Members. By banding together with other tech leaders, NetSuite can scale impact and achieve more good together.
The announcement was made at NetHope’s Global Summit in Dublin on November 5, where NetSuite spent a week with the NGO community discussing what digital transformation means in nonprofits and how the sector can reach its highest potential through technology. In tandem with its Global Summit, the CDN also released its latest research report: the Digital Nonprofit Skills Assessment. The report aims to help nonprofits benchmark themselves within their sector and across several crucial factors.
NetSuite is confident that by working with NetHope’s Center for the Digital Nonprofit, it can help propel humanitarian, conservation and relief efforts and play a part in fostering a better world through collaboration.
by NetSuite filed under