EDUCATION CENTER

Nonprofit budgets are generally in advance of the year they govern and made based on assumptions around major gifts, government contracts, program demand, etc. Nonprofit scenario is not a forecast of what will happen, but a structured way of deciding in advance how your organization would respond if revenue came in lower, costs came in higher, or both occurred at once. This article covers what scenario planning is, how to build scenarios around key revenue lines, and how those scenarios affect your reserve strategy and your IPS.

A soft year can catch an association board off guard as key association revenue streams often look predictable but can weaken together. This article covers how a soft year reaches an association's revenue, how a finance committee can stress-test the budget against it, and how reserves and the Investment Policy Statement should be built so the association can hold steady while it responds.