This page is full of tools and information that I developed and give away, and some secondary references that I
think are terrific.  You are free to download and use my materials at your own risk.  I will keep making additions to this
page, and continue to adapt these materials, which are often speaking outlines, as stand-alone curricula.
Budget Model

Fully working budget
model; ready-to-use,
adaptable; free of charge
This is a multiple cost-center budget model Excel template, set up for five programs and two
supporting functions with full staff-effort-based allocation of shared costs and complete trail back to
line item definitions.  Note the use of the Names tab - color coding indicates what is an input; if a field
is filled in with black type it is probably driven by the centralized names tab.  This allows the user to
rapidly rename cost centers and line items as is useful.  The Model attached has sample data in it,
including a Notes tab through which a budget manager keeps track of changes between iterations of
the budget.
There is also a matching written Cost Allocation Policy
When Worlds Collide:
GAAP v. TAX

Will a purist view of
GAAP get you in TAX
trouble?  
Attached is the outline of the latest version of a presentation I have been making on issues in GAAP v.
Tax, a current passion of mine.  Many groups are advised by someone strong in GAAP (Generally
Accepted Accounting Principles - the rules CPAs use in audits), or strong in Tax law, and unaware of
the strategic issues from the other side.  This outline hits major controversies and common errors I
see, and contains cites to technical GAAP and TAX sources to illuminate some of these issues.  I
presented this most recent version at the May 2006 OSCPA Statewide Not-for-Profit Conference in
Portland; very similar versions at the AICPA and the Northern California CalCPA lunch groupo.  You
can download the slideshow, or an outline version that has more text and some source documents
attached.  
Public Charity Status
and the
Public Support Tests

The reasoning
Math overview
Planning alternatives
This is an outline for a presentation "Public Support Tests:  Context and Calculation"  that I made to
the local nonprofit interest group of the California Society of CPAs.  It covers the difference between
private foundation and public charity status (and thus the reasons for seeking and maintaining the
more favorable public charity status).  It focuses on the details of calculating the percentage of public
support under each test:  509(a)(1) and (2).  There is also some discussion of tax planning
alternatives if faced with failure under both tests.
Charity Lobbying:
Advanced Strategies

under the 501(h) Election
Internal Revenue Code Section 501(h) defines expenditure limits for eligible public charities that elect
to be governed by Section 501(h) rather than the default test ("insubstantial part"), which is much less
objective.  This presentation  (BIG file 1.7MB) summarizes calculation steps and suggests a number of
advanced strategies as a way to make 501(h) come alive, since in my experience practitioners learn
the rules, but remain gun-shy about how to implement them.  For charities that lobby, experts are
nearly unanimous that 501(h) is the way to go; in fact, experts are puzzled as to why so few charities
have elected 501(h).  
Unrelated
Business
Income

Background article on
commerciality & tax
exempt status
This is an article I wrote as a chapter in Andy Robinson's book Selling Social Change (Without Selling
Out), entitled:  Unrelated Business Income and the Tax Implications of Earned Income.  This was my
final draft before the book editors worked it over.  Andy was so kind in asking me to do it for him!  He
is a development person allowing a tax person to write technical stuff that's a little pessimistic, (which
means he's a responsible development person and you should hire him.)  And not least, he got me
listed with my first and only ISBN number!   
This article is my best effort to describe the history of the commerciality principle for tax-exempts, and
the rules about, and exceptions from, taxable unrelated business income.  Social Venture people
seem to all recommend earned income strategies to my charity clients.  I believe earned income is a
good "leg" on the diversified "stool" of a group's income planning, but tax law for charities places
more value on contributed income than earned income.  I also believe our groups do not have the
management horsepower, generally speaking, to run a business as well as their main enterprise.
Spotting Problems in
Ethical Grey Areas

& What to do?
I constructed a training piece with Julie Floch, a Manhattan CPA, principal at Eisner LLP, that tries to
provoke thought about identifying and stopping the kind of unethical practices that may not break any
law or regulation, but if written up in a newspaper by a skeptical reporter, would be a tremendous
embarrassment to the target nonprofit, and further weaken our sector.

Our thesis is that the bad actors who've been caught, sometimes had genuinely and completely lost
sight of how things would look under the harsh glare of public attention.  Had they lost their moral
compass?  Some threads seem to emerge as we explore this area:  founder's syndrome and other
cases where the boss just cannot tell himself or herself apart from the charity or entity and cases
where the CEO feels under class pressure to "keep up with" the often-wealthier donors and board
members.  One great example was the recent American University scandal that is still playing out.  
Another way these ethical grey areas set themselves apart in my mind arises from Gerald "Gerry"
Zack's recent book Fraud & Abuse in Nonprofit Organizations.  Zack differentiates three types of
cases:  insider perpetrator on the organization, outside perpetrator on the organization, and the
organization as perpetrator on the public interest.  I think the grey areas we're trying to highlight are
often at the intersection of Zack's first and third types, which is precisely what makes them so
dangerous in the press.

The idea is that we finance staffers, auditors, board members, too often "go along to get along" and if
there's something we have to do or approve in our work that makes us feel a little "icky," by golly NOW
is the time to bring it up internally and get it dealt with, even if that's awkward.  The Sector is under
pressure.  

This is the slideshow, and the supplemental materials (some clippings and one study).
Accounting for
Donated
Property or Services
The rules about accounting for donated property and services are clear, but many groups and
professionals are confused, or find it too difficult to do the necessary work.  Some gifts are reportable
on GAAP financial statements but not on Form 990.  These two files are an explanatory memo and a
table showing the differences.  Gifts In Kind a/k/a Donated Property, Services & Facilities:  memo, and
3x3 table.
An Optimistic View of
New Regulation:
Tom Silk on California's
Nonprofit Integrity Act
In this article, Rational Exuberance:  An Exploration of the Adaptation by California's Charitable Sector
to Changing Governance Standards, leading tax and corporate attorney Tom Silk writes thoughtfully
and optimistically about charity adaptations to public calls for improved accountability and
transparency.  Subtitled "Notes from the Field" it is a remarkably clear and pleasing take on the
current situation with not only California legislation, but proposals from the staffs of the Senate
Finance Committee and the Joint Committee on Taxation (both Federal) and the first round of
response from the Independent Sector led "Panel on the Nonprofit Sector."
Action Organizations:  
the historical view
When is strong
advocacy still charitably
educational?
I prepared a 45 page package (MEDIUM file size 687K) of source documents with an explanatory table of
contents, working backwards from the Tax Regs through the interesting courts that led to the
definition that  “An organization may be educational even though it advocates a particular position or
viewpoint so long as it presents a sufficiently full and fair exposition of the pertinent facts as to permit
an individual or the public to form an independent opinion or conclusion.  On the other hand, an
organization is not educational if its principal function is the mere presentation of unsupported
opinion.”  It's more interesting than you think:  you can read the appellate courts slap down the nazis
and support the lesbians!  (Literally.)

You can also download the IRS CPE Text (legal briefing for auditors on the issue) on the subject.
Materials & Downloads
Understanding and
Reporting
Relationships among
Directors, Officers, Key
Employees and Highly
Comped employees and
service providers, AND
any compensation
from "related"
organizations on the
2006 Form 990, Lines
75b and 75c

Questions about Lines
75b and 75c clarified
Some brief respite, hopefully not fleeting.  
Background:  Form 990 for 2005 was essentially unrealistic in its demands.  For example, if I sit on a
board of a charity, but draw not one red cent in compensation or even reimbursements, just because
I am the sole proprietor of a business - my consulting - that charity was theoretically supposed to
report both my social security number AND my compensation on Form 990 for 2005.  Otherwise
known as "former board member."  So nobody in the country much complied.  
Then for 2006 it wasn't really fixed, except that after the instructions were published, IRS decided to
roll out a fix to the instructions, in the form of a Q&A that they posted on their website, which has the
full legal impact of instructions, but they did not commit, in a recent online public forum, to fixing the
instructions in 2007 since they're so busy working on the entirely new revision (more on that later) of
the Form 990, which has been released.
Meantime, I have written a common-language translator of Lines 75b & 75c, synthesizing the
Instructions and the Q&A into a memorandum, and even wrote a suggested survey to send to
directors, officers, key employees, and highly compensated employees and contractors reported on
Schedule A Page 1 (there really is no other way to answer the question other than to ask.  I am
especially proud that one of the boards I am on, Rockwood Leadership Program, actually
implemented the survey and I received my copy last week.  Kudos to Mike & Andre et al!
                                                                          ------
In case you're incredulously scratching your head and thinking "this can't possibly apply to my poor
little community-based nonprofit" well I can tell you that it most certainly does.  There is a list of
persons:  directors, officers & key employees, as well as any highly compensated person who ends
up on page 1of Schedule A, top 5 over $50K: 1) Employees  (counting all pay and benefits) 2)
Professional Services providers, and 3) Other Services providers (e.g. parking lot maintenance firm).   
Note that this is NOT the same as the 1099 definition so that corporations are reported here, not just
1099 definition of non-corporate entiities plus law firms of any stripe (love that implicit IRS comment
on the ethics of officers of the court).  Anyway, so you build that list, and 75b wants to know about any
family or business relationships between them, and 75c wants to know about any compensation they
receive from any related organizations.  The Q&A fix really helped zero in on potential abuse, but the
reason I say 'respite, hopefully not fleeting' is that I'm told by my braver colleagues that the entirely
new revised 990 goes back to the bad definitions of 2005.