Tools for completing nonprofit monitoring

Includes more standards to ascertain additional aspects of financial health and overall governance. 

Focuses on standards that are essential to determine financial health for a nonprofit agency. 

This policy helps to identify, prioritize, and support nonprofit contractors who do not meet the City's fiscal and contract performance compliance standards. Updated December 9, 2024. 

This workshop focuses on the foundational components of operational excellence—effective teams, integrated technology systems, and efficient workflow—providing participants with a renewed vision of what it means to operate at the highest levels to achieve program outcomes.

Key concepts include:

• Developing teams to create a collaborative and accountable environment
• Maximizing technology as an organizational-wide strategy
• Creating lean processes to maximize resources
• Ensuring proper controls are in place in financial processes

Financial management involves the allocation of resources, a process often influenced by power and privilege, and one where choices can reinforce structural inequities. This workshop focuses on choice-points for applying more equitable financial management practices, including:

• Inclusive, team-based budgeting and monitoring practices
• Planning practices for more equitable compensation strategies
• Equitable financial management operations and infrastructure

A viable financial management strategy needs to address a vision for the future as well as incorporate an understanding of the past and present financial position of the organization. This workshop will help participants develop a well-designed budget process that facilitates programmatic, strategic, and fiscal discussions among the leadership team, resulting in a mission-driven budget. 

Key concepts include:

• Types of budgets and levels of planning at an organization
• Implementing a comprehensive and inclusive financial planning process
• Identifying, allocating, and building indirect costs into program budgets to understand the real organizational costs

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In these challenging times, it is critical that leaders understand their organization’s financial model including key revenue drivers as well as what it really costs to run a program and use that information to inform long-term financial plans. Sufficient operating reserves, which can take years of thoughtful planning to accumulate, are key to an organization’s ability to manage through uncertainty and risk. In this workshop, we’ll explore how to develop multi-year financial projections with a focus on how to build an effective reserve strategy into those plans. 

Key concepts include:

• Identifying key areas of risk and change
• Setting targets for operating reserves
• Taking the organization’s financial health goals into account when creating long-term plans

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Nonprofits with limited paid staff and/or inherited systems and workflows often struggle to embed strong internal controls in financial management processes. This workshop provides an overview of key components of operational excellence while highlighting opportunities for improved processes and policies which minimize the potential for financial fraud or errors. 

Key focus areas for this workshop will include: 

• Components of operational efficiency
• Developing a culture of collaboration and accountability
• Ensuring proper controls are in place in key financial processes

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Learn what to look for when you're determining if an organization is financially healthy.

Find tools and tricks for helping nonprofits understand budgeting and financial planning.