| I work to integrate financial accounting and tax reporting. My overarching passion is to make financial information accessible to nonprofit managers, boards and advisors. I received my B.A. from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio in 1977, and my M.B.A. from the University of Portland in 1984. From 1987 to 1992, I directed the Financial Management Training Program of The Youth Project, a grant making public charity working nationally to support grassroots community organizations. Through this program, I provided technical assistance and advice on financial management and tax compliance issues to over one hundred very small, grassroots, community organizing and issue advocacy organizations nationally. From 1990 to 1995, I was CFO of the Association for Portland Progress, then a sophisticated business league with an affiliated public charity operating on a combined six million dollar budget to preserve the successful dynamics of downtown Portland, Oregon. From 1996 to 2004, I worked as a nonprofit specialist (senior paralegal) for Silk, Adler & Colvin, a premier San Francisco law firm providing tax and corporate counsel to a wide variety of nonprofit organizations. Continuously since 1984, I have maintained a private practice providing advice and training to nonprofits (and a few small businesses) on financial and tax compliance issues. I make a specialty of training. In addition to training nonprofit staff and boards, I have been honored to present professional (CPE) seminars for CPA associations nationally, and in northern California and Oregon, as well as for nonprofit management support organizations in Portland and San Francisco, and the Foundation Center Library in San Francisco, and the private seminar firm Lorman Educational Services. While at Silk, Adler & Colvin, I taught an extension course in Nonprofit Management for California State University Hayward. |
| I have presented for the annual AICPA Not-for-Profit Industry Conference held in Washington DC in June six consecutive years, and am in my sixth year on the planning committee (for June 2008), which is a tremendous honor and from which I have learned incredible amounts of information. I presented for, and was on the planning committee for, the annual AICPA Not for Profit Financial Executive Forum held in November in San Francisco in November 2004 and participated in two panels in 2006; I will co-present a session on the management and organizational practicalities, as well as the recordkeeping and reporting issues of tandem organizations ((c)(3)/(c)(4,56)) at the 2007 conference in November. I have also twice presented professional seminars for the San Francisco Chapter of the Not-for-Profit Interest Group of the California Society of CPAs, three times for the annual statewide Oregon Society of CPAs Not-for-Profit Conference, and in December 2005 for the New York State Society of CPAs' annual Exempt Organizations Conference. My CPA Society seminar topics have covered a range of public policy advocacy issues, public charity status and the public support tests, grey areas in ethics, and GAAP vs. Tax issues in nonprofit accounting. My favorite compliment on an evaluation form is "I expected to be bored and I wasn't." In 1990 (revised in 1992) I wrote and self-published Managing for Change: A Common Sense Guide to Evaluating Financial Management Health for Grassroots Organizations, and I wrote a chapter entitled “Navigating The Tax Implications of Earned Income” in Andy Robinson’s Selling Social Change (Without Selling Out), Jossey Bass, 2002. An earlier draft of that chapter is on the Downloads page of this site. For more details, you may want to see my c.v. and/or a summary list of my consulting engagements (which shows all my clients, location, type of organization, and what I do/did for them). I have also compiled a list of my formal presentations, not including presentations tailored for a single organization or network. |
| Who am I? |
| If you've been reading this site already, you can tell I'm both a geek and opinionated. My passion is for organizations working in the areas of social and economic justice and personal and environmental sustainability. I definitely have a point of view, and am deeply concerned about maintaining and increasing the effectiveness of the groups I support. Their voices are vital in our future. I do this work because I care about it. My emphasis was on training and capacity building and plain language explanations for managers, directors and officers. Tax, compliance and accounting topics intimidate many people. Valuable information can be obscure. This weakens our sector. I want to make it accessible. I handled engagements ranging from one hour to a half-year.
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| BIO |
| I am currently Director of Client Services, for Leventhal Kline Management, Inc. "LKM" is a professional 'philanthropic advisory services firm.' We out-source a range of services for family foundations and progressive public charities. My role is financial management. The firm's website is www.philanthropicadvisor.com. This site is me personally, and 100% my "voice," and they kindly have not asked me to muzzle my opinions...however, you should still blame me, not LKM, for anything here you disagree with. I will also continue to do a few projects outside the firm, especially when they fit outside the firm's strategic growth plans. |
| SERVICES & EXPERTISE |