Many ED’s tell me that they are anxious about cash for payroll. If you need to get control of your agency, here’s a couple of starter ideas on cash.
If they make sense, should you give me a call sometime?
Many ED’s tell me that they are anxious about cash for payroll. If you need to get control of your agency, here’s a couple of starter ideas on cash.
If they make sense, should you give me a call sometime?
Social Security and Medicare costs place incredible pressure to shrink community development, education, arts, afterschool, LGBT civil rights, etc. Some of that money flows to states and cities and then to your agency –it’s drying up by 10% right now. I see frantic responses to save great programs that are cash starved,
On Giving Tuesday, I’m offering five NonProfit leadership teams relief from the stress. Apply here. It’s not a miracle but you may get a new direction. I’ll give a two hour coaching session to each team over the holidays. There is no cost at all. Part of the discussion will be planning multiple cash streams to keep your agency stable. I use the proven Four Decisions system (People, Strategy, Execution, Cash).
Apply here. Like the lottery, the only way to win is to try! I hope the best for you.
Remember, things can grow even in deserts.
The free workshop is September 18 and 19th (details below) on Zoom. This is one workshop where you won’t be late because the subway was behind schedule!
The first recession proofing we talk about is loneliness of leaders when facing external problems. Since I lead a nonprofit as well as serve as a coach, I speak about these feelings because loneliness has been a companion several times as a CEO or ED.
Here is a quick video recap and details are below to register with Zoom
Recession Proofing Nonprofits
You are invited to a Zoom meeting on Recession Proofing NonProfits
When: Sep 19, 2019 08:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Click Here to Register in advance for this meeting:
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
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Growing Business in Cambodia
You are invited to a Zoom meeting on Growing Business in Cambodia.
When: Sep 18, 2019 08:00 AM Phnom Penh time.
Click here to register in advance for this meeting:
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Frustrated leaders can turnaround problems when the recession threatens income.
Is your nonprofit about to lose money while you take a few well deserved days off? Can you afford to be home at Christmas?
In 2013, 19,000 children were told to take care of themselves every day of the government shutdown. Headstart had to close until government restarted..
I coach nonprofits to build a secondary source of funding. We live in a time of divided government where one party wants to shrink taxes and government provided services. Many fine organizations do not have the cash reserves to lose $100,000 in a shutdown and never get it back.
If you are in trouble, write to me and I’ll give you some ideas to survive through the President’s funding cutoff.
Photo by Miguel Constantin Montes on Pexels.com
Exactly 10 years ago as I write, I applied for a Vice President position at Edwin Gould. I just checked the cover letter and it was a masterpiece. Of course, one reason that I’m writing this is that I was rejected. No one could have known that Edwin Gould would be acquired by the former Leake and Watts in 2018.
How did an agency started in 1939 have trouble as a going concern with a revenue of about $30 million and fundraising costs of $118,047 at Ciprianis in 2008 when I applied? It’s like the Sears of Foster Care!
What Incidental Factors Don’t Matter in Going Concern Troubles?
Labor Efficiency Ratio – This is the biggest shock to me in the book. I preach labor efficiency with any company that I coach. It saved the nonprofit that I direct. It’s a simple ratio that X dollars of revenue must come into your company for every dollar paid to employees on the front lines. Nonprofits are often sloppy and overstaff programs and the results can drain cash. One of our programs had a labor efficiency ratio of 1.3 For every $1 paid to our program staff, we got $1.30 paid to us by the City. Suddenly, we couldn’t afford classroom supplies! Usually a LER of less than 1.5 is not possible to sustain. For profit business normally has a LER range of 3 -7. That means that for profit companies expect $3-$7 to arrive in sales for every $1 paid in compensation.
Amazingly, Edwin Gould had a LER of 1.77. For a social service agency that needs credentialled staff, I would assume this to be a well managed agency. The supervisors kept labor costs in check but it did not save the company.
Accounts Receivable – Many nonprofits bleed to death while waiting for government to pay. I could see how that would create a going concern issue. The going concern group of nonprofits in this study had about 17% of revenue still unpaid by the government. That is on the low side of normal in this study. Children’s Village has total revenue over $80 million with 24% Accounts Receivable. The highest A/R in the study was 39% of total revenue and that nonprofit continues to placidly sail along.
Assets / Equity – A normally leveraged for profit company should have some debt – generally under 40% of assets. That would give a ratio of 1.67. Most of the nonprofits in the study had an acceptable balance, including those in the Going Concern group. While most nonprofits don’t use assets or equity efficiently, they have so much trouble getting lines of credit and term loans that their fiscal structure remains intact. Edwin Gould and Sheltering Arms (a similar nonprofit) had negative equity. This can happen when an agency is in such dire distress that it records liabilities for the agency in excess of assets. Otherwise the Assets to Equity balance is not a good indicator of Going Concern issues.
# of Payrolls in Cash – Nonprofits are slowly losing their ability to have cash for paychecks. Some of the payrolls are over a month in arrears. I assumed that this would be a big signal of Going Concern. Amazingly, the Going Concern Group members had as much or more cash on hand as anybody else.
The Three Critical Factors of Going Concern
From the 990 alone, Board Leadership appears to have made a Succession error. There was 50% continuity on the Board of 12 persons from 2008 – 2016. However, three managers including Executive Director Audrey Featherstone lead the agency for about 10 years. Revenue increases and the agency survives a crisis in Foster Care in NYC in 2005.
There is a catastrophic loss of income in FY 2014 of $1.7 million as Featherstone leaves the agency. Two or more financial leaders turn over successively. With Featherstone gone, the Equity actually goes under water to negative $1 million in two years.
Kingsbridge is a similar agency in the Bronx with a going concern paragraph in their last published audit. In the case of Kingsbridge, a long term Executive Director appears to have misjudged the rapid changes in the non profit world.
The common thread in narratives of the Going Concern group is poor attention to selection or supervision of the Executive Director to make sure that the Director changes the agency nimbly to adapt to the funding available with a good strategy. Boards generally are too conservative on participating in and requiring reports on strategy. Both for profit and nonprofit agencies go out of business with plenty of assets.
The right director could probably create a strategy to use those resources and network and keep an agency in operation.
Going Concern Group members generally have a persistent deficit over a period of years. Many of the Scaling Group members have occasional deficits which they quickly reverse with a change in strategy. There is simply no way to live with lines of credit, spontaneous financing, and deposits for future services over the longer period. All companies must have a positive net income.
The Going Concern Group members only have government contracts as a source of revenue. The Scaling Up Group members have a 2nd major source of revenue – Charitable gifts (Individual, Foundations and Corporate Gifts), Donor advised funds, or Fee for Service. The unrestricted and surplus funds from these other sources are at least 10% of the net income.
Steven Rathgeb Smith (1993:133) outlines the fickle demands of regime funding. These are the contract funds from government which change as political priorities change and are willing to spend any amount of money to monitor the process. In addition, regime funding is the overwhelming majority of the Accounts Receivable that most agencies struggle to work around.
Edwin Gould, for example, received about $300,000 in fund raisers and contributions in FY 2016. The 1% of the net income that this provided was dwarfed by $550,000 of deficits in the regime funding programs. This is a perfect example of a large effective agency which would be in great operating condition today with $1 million annually in gifts and grants to provide the financing that fills in the gap created by inadequate contracts from government.
Conclusion
10 Nonprofits have just merged in New York City. It’s an industry with too many organizations who believe that regime funding is a Strategic Plan. If a nonprofit is weak in two or more of the critical factors, it’s time for an entire board meeting to occur on partnering, merging, or being acquired. Conversely, an agency with strong critical and incidental factors is in a place to extend it’s work for the public good through an acquisition.