Category

Nonprofit

Jul 23
0

New Features in Microsoft Word Worth Noting

By | E-Learning, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Word, Nonprofit, Technology | No Comments

Ah, Clippy. Remember Clippy? The happy, bouncing paperclip was once the icon of Microsoft Word, that ubiquitous program that transforms how the world works.

With over 1.2 billion users of Microsoft Office – that’s one in seven people worldwide – it pays to note changes to the popular and familiar program. The Journal of Accountancy recently reported many updates to Word, some of which are quite useful for accountants.

You won’t need Clippy to report on these features. We’ll look at them together with the top features presented here.

New Features in Microsoft Word 2016

The following features are available in Microsoft Word 2016 except for the “Draw” updates (the last item which is only available in Office 365). For those considering an upgrade to Word 2016, the new features may offer enough of an incentive for you to choose Word over any other product out there. Hey, with 1.2 billion users, you know it’s compatible with the software used by most of your clients, colleagues, members and donors!

  1. Tell Me: The Tell Me feature or Tell Me What You Want to Do enables you to locate commands or tools without having to hunt through the various ribbons and dropdowns. It eliminates the need to know or guess where tools are – you can access them immediately.
  2. Improved Version History: Microsoft seems to have taken a cue from Google Docs by saving a unique version of each document when you save it to your OneDrive. This enables you to access previous versions to pull into the current version.
  3. Real-time Co Authoring: You no longer must shuffle documents back and forth by email. Instead, collaborate in real time on a Word document. Do this through OneDrive or SharePoint. I It does take the best of Google Docs and brings it into the more robust Microsoft product. Thanks to the cloud, you and others on your team can avoid the nightmare of sending different versions by emailing files and instead, collaborate, review and edit together in real time.
  4. Simple Sharing: A new “Share” button enables you to quickly Share documents using OneDrive or SharePoint so you don’t have to save, export, open your email, upload the document and then save. Just add a colleague’s email and you can share it instantly.
  5. New Draw Tab: The new Draw tab offers more tools than ever before, a great addition to the Microsoft suite of features. The new drawing and inking tools allow you to customize your document markups. You can use your finger on a touchscreen or move inked items like shapes once they are in place. These new features are only available to Office 365 subscribers but are expected to be standard in the next iteration of Word.

If you create a lot of custom reports using Microsoft Word, you’ll like the new Shapes features too. For example, Shapes now comes with preset transparent boxes, so you can place them over background text or images. This makes it easier to use shapes like callouts.

What about Mac users? Microsoft Word may be used on Macs, and some prefer the features in Word to Mac Pages. If you create more detailed and customized reports or use your word processing software to build marketing documents like brochures, you may wish to test Mac Pages or a full-fledged graphic design program that works along with Word. Microsoft Publisher comes as part of some packages of Office; it’s fine for beginners but may not offer enough flexibility for advanced graphic design. It is, however, compatible with Word documents, so if you compose text in Word, it is easier to import it into Publisher than into some other graphic design package.

Upgrading to Word 2016 is easier than ever with cloud-based subscriptions that offer flexible packages for home, student, and office use. And although Clippy may be a thing of the past, the new functions are way more fun than an animated paperclip.

Welter Consulting

Welter Consulting bridges people and technology together for effective solutions for nonprofit organizations. We offer software and services that can help you with your accounting needs. Please contact Welter Consulting at 206-605-3113 for more information.

Jul 16
0

Enterprise Risk Management, a New Frontier for Nonprofits

By | COSO, ERM, Nonprofit | No Comments

How well does your nonprofit measure risk? Risks occur in almost every aspect of business. Managing risk is part of a leader’s job. Enterprise risk management, or ERM for short, offers opportunities to both mitigate and manage risks as well as seize opportunities that present themselves to your organization.

ERM Defined

ERM embraces elements of internal controls, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and strategic planning. It also echoes the marketing SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) by exposing weaknesses and threats and enhancing opportunities and strengths.

ERM evolved as a method to assess risks in a complex business environment. It applies equally as well to nonprofit organizations as it does to for profits, helping senior leaders assess risks and respond appropriately once all of the risk factors and influences are known.

COSO Recommendations

The Committee of Sponsoring Organizations and Treadway Commission (COSO) recently released a new ERM framework. To use it effectively, COSO recommends the following:

  1. Compare your current ERM practices to the five components and 20 principles of the framework, Enterprise Risk Management — Integrating With Strategy and Performance.
  2. Identify opportunities as they pertain to specific principles that might add the most value and might help your organization manage risk better.
  3. Watch out for and identify areas of potential risk. Potential areas of risk are typically new items added to a system, such as new software, new regulations, new programs or other major changes. Anytime there is significant change, there is risk.
  4. Evaluate the alternatives. If you have identified and evaluated alternatives, you can mitigate risk by having a second or third option to turn to in the event that the first is too risky.
  5. Examine the business context of the risk and reward. If the reward outweighs the risk, it may be time to act.
  6. Note connections. Business decisions rarely stand in isolation and are frequently interconnected. Some risks may have a domino effect, imparting additional risks or openings for risk in other areas of the business. Conversely, closing gaps and mitigating risks may have positive impacts. Understanding these impacts is vital for good management.

Frameworks Can Free or Limit

Does the ERM framework feel freeing or limiting? Some leaders claim they can manage just fine without a risk management framework such as ERM while others find it helpful.

Why do some leaders find frameworks stultifying rather than freeing? It may be because they automatically think in terms of such frameworks without consciously applying them to the decision-making process. For example, an experienced nonprofit leader may think ahead to the risks of a potential new software purchase without consciously examining them and applying them in a framework. He may come to a swift decision regarding rewards versus risks without ever saying the words risk management. This may look like instant decision-making to his colleagues, but it’s actually a skill that’s been honed through practice.

Think of an Olympic gymnast; she makes the balance beam look absolutely effortless. Yet it wasn’t always effortless. At some point her career, she had to take the first steps out onto the beam. She made mistakes and she tumbled to the ground. But over time, with continuous effort, practice, coaching and study, she’s mastered a routine that earns a gold medal.

Seasoned CEOs, CFOs, and other top organizational leaders are akin to Olympic athletes. They’ve mastered the craft of decision making and so it looks effortless.

For those who are still learning such craft, studying and practicing decision making frameworks such as ERM can help you become a gold medalist of risk management too.

For more information on the COSO framework, see Enterprise Risk Management: Integrating with Strategy and Performance.

Welter Consulting

Welter Consulting bridges people and technology together for effective solutions for nonprofit organizations. We offer software and services that can help you with your accounting needs. Please contact Welter Consulting at 206-605-3113 for more information.

Jul 09
0

What Distinguishes High Impact Nonprofits? Experts Weigh In

By | Corporate Culture, Nonprofit | No Comments

What distinguishes high impact nonprofits from average ones? The Stanford Leadership Study, spearheaded by researchers Bill Meehan and Kim Jonker, identify seven factors which they call the “engine of impact.”

These seven factors include:

  1. Mission
  2. Strategy
  3. Impact evaluation
  4. Insight and courage
  5. Organization and talent
  6. Funding
  7. Board governance

There is no one critical factor, but rather all seven must work together to propel the nonprofit forward – hence the term “engine of impact.” With a combination of all seven factors working in concert, nonprofits can serve more people and achieve their mission on a grand scale.

Only a Handful Meet the Criteria for High Impact Nonprofits

There’s good news and bad news when it comes to the engine of impact. The bad news is that only about 20% of all nonprofits believe they meet the criteria of a high impact nonprofit. The good news? Among the remaining 80% who fail to meet the criteria of high impact nonprofits, there’s plenty of room for growth, and many are well on their way to achieving it.

One core concept the study posits is  the importance of external audits or evaluations. Among the nonprofits surveyed, only about 40%  utilize external evaluations. .

What Is the Impact Engine?

These seven factors encompass many overarching concepts that set strong nonprofits apart from struggling ones. Mission and vision, for example, provide leadership and guidance not just at the top, but to all who work at the nonprofit. With a strong mission and vision statement, nonprofits can guide, organize, and adjust their work to fulfill the mission and ensure that all work they undertake supports their mission-driven environment.
Funding is another example of a broad concept that has specific, measurable impacts. Funding, talent organization and board governance  comprise the fuel that keeps the engine of impact turning. Without enough fuel, a car sputters and stops. So too, a nonprofit without adequate funding, poor funding management, and poor governance and organization cannot achieve success as a strong nonprofit.

What Are Nonprofits Doing Right?

Among the nonprofits surveyed during the study, several key findings emerged.

  • 56% of the nonprofits in the study had Board Governance in place, with Funding close behind at 52%.
  • 50% of nonprofits had systems in place to evaluate their impact, which is more positive news. Without such an evaluation, it is difficult to assess areas of focus for the future.

Where did nonprofits fall short?

  • Just 35% had a stated strategy in place
  • 18% lacked a clear Mission statement
  • 17% lacked insight and courage, two elements that enabled nonprofits to take a long, hard look at their work, evaluate its success or failures, and make improvements for the future.

How Does Your Organization Measure Up?

Before you decide where your organization fits in this evaluation, the study’s authors have put together a free online quiz to help you assess your nonprofit. Take the quiz, then return to the Welter Consulting website for more information and articles to help you build your nonprofit impact engine.

Take the Next Step with Welter Consulting

After completing the nonprofit impact engine survey, how does your organization measure up?

Most organizations will find one or more areas in which they could improve. That’s nothing to panic about. Instead, it provides ample opportunities for change and growth.

Once you’ve identified key areas with room for improvement, it’s time to get to work. If you’re unsure where to start, contact Welter Consulting. Welter Consulting bridges people and technology together for effective solutions for nonprofit organizations. We offer software and services that can help you with your accounting needs. Please contact Welter Consulting at 206-605-3113 for more information.

Jun 25
0

Managing Millennials: The Myths, the Realities, and Somewhere In Between

By | Accounting, Millennials, Nonprofit, Technology | No Comments

Ah, millennials…you either love them or loathe them. However, you won’t be able to avoid them for long. That’s because millennials, defined roughly as those born between 1977 and 1995, represent the largest demographic ever, even outstripping the famous Baby Boom of the 1960s.

Millennials carry with them a lot of baggage, especially in the realm of workplace myths. For example, some myths that surround millennials are that they’re good with technology, independent, and lazy.

The truth is, of course, that some millennials fall into this categorization and others are defying it. Here are the facts about managing millennials and how older generation X and Y leaders can ensure a happy, productive workplace when managing millennials.

 First Job, New Skills

Although millennials may like to work independently and may work best on their own, they still need coaching. Many millennials skipped over the afterschool jobs that older generations experienced, and they went straight from high school to college and college to careers without having any workplace experience.

Ringing sales at the local department store or slinging burgers at a fast food restaurant may not seem to correlate to working in the accounting department of a nonprofit. However, those minimum wage jobs that many older generation workers experienced as their first jobs taught valuable life skills that millennials never experienced. Showing up on time, learning customer service skills, and learning processes and procedures may not have been part of their life experience.

Do not assume that just because your new junior accountant has a college degree she understands how to work in a group, take direction, or follow procedures. She may need coaching on basic workforce behaviors. Set expectations and provide clear guidelines.

Pairing an experienced worker with your new millennial hires may also help. They may resonate with the partner or buddy system better than formal training programs and get more out of it.

Basic things like: how to dress for a business meeting, how to behave in a corporate setting, and even the importance of returning messages on time may all be new skills for your millennial employees. Take nothing for granted and consider them a clean slate with a lot to learn until they prove otherwise. They aren’t being rude; they just haven’t been taught a lot of the basics that older generations assume were learned along the way.

Millennials Are Loyal

One myth that we’d like to put aside is the myth that millennials are disloyal. The truth is that they can be loyal employees if the organizations they work for treat them right. To a millennial, that means appropriate work-life balance, challenging assignments, and valuing input. Millennials will remain at a nonprofit organization for three years or longer if they find their ideas, opinions, and talents are honored and used appropriately.

Tech-Dependent

Lastly, there’s a myth that millennials are tech-savvy. In actually, they are tech-dependent, and that’s a whole different story. Tech-dependent means they rely upon their devices to the point that they feel they can’t work without them. We may feel we can’t leave the house without our watch; they feel they can’t leave the house without their iPhone.

Millennials may not be technically savvy: Meaning that they may not be able to solve computer problems, understand how to integrate an API into the back end of an accounting program, or any of the myriad other technical problems we encounter in our work days. They do, however, know how to use their devices and rely upon them for many basic things.

Consider this when communicating with millennials. They may turn to their text messages first rather than their office phone lines for messages. They may rely upon instant messages, texts, emojis or other methods of communicating rather than picking up the phone and speaking directly to you. It’s not that they don’t value direct communication. It’s just not their first inclination.

Every generation interacts differently in the workforce. We are all, to some extent, molded and shaped by the life experiences and culture we grew up in. Millennials are no different. Understanding their rationale, knowing where they have knowledge gaps, and meeting them halfway goes a long way towards helping them acclimate into your workforce and becoming productive contributors.

 

Welter Consulting

Welter Consulting bridges people and technology together for effective solutions for nonprofit organizations. We offer software and services that can help you with your accounting needs. Please contact Welter Consulting at 206-605-3113 for more information.