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Week 2 - Discussion 1

Steps to an Operating Budget

Considering the Five Step Guide to Budgeting (Links to an external site.) , identify two (2) steps you think will be most difficult for you. Which of these steps do you think will be the easiest for you, and why or how?

Your initial post should be at least 300 words credibly supported by one briefly cited current scholarly source no more than 7 years old. It is fine to just use the Five Step Guide to Budgeting (Links to an external site.) .

Resources

Readings

1. Textbook: Dropkin, M., Halpin, J., & LaTouche, B. (2007). The budget-building book for nonprofits (2nd ed.). Jossey-Bass. Chapter 7: Start with the Budget-Building Checklist Chapter 8: Designing your Budgeting Policies and Procedures Chapter 9: Creating your Budgeting Calendar Chapter 10: Orienting Program and Department Managers and Staff to Budgeting Chapter 11: Contents of the Annual Budget Preparation Package Chapter 12: Developing Organization-Wide Operating Budgets Chapter 13: Developing Operating Budgets for Individual Programs, Units, or Activities 2. Article: Calley, N. (2009). Comprehensive program development in mental health counseling: Design, implementation, and evaluation. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 31(1), 9-21. 3. Websites: American Counseling Association, (n.d.). 2014 ACA Code of Ethics Resources. American Counseling Association. Retrieved from https://www.counseling.org/knowledge-center/ethics/code-of-ethics-resources (Links to an external site.) American Psychological Association. (2017). Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct: Including 2010 and 2016 Amendments. American Psychological Association. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/ethics/code2002.html (Links to an external site.) 4. Videos: financevideos, [financevideos]. (2008, October 2). What is the income statement? [Video File]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/tDc3KulcE9Q (Links to an external site.)

Week 2 - Discussion 2

Income and Revenue Projections

Part of the budget justification process involves the ability to project income or revenue. This information comes from the projected clientele by payer source. Explain why this aspect is so important in the development of an operating budget. Your initial post should be at least 300 words.

Resources

Readings

Week 2 Instructor Guidance

"Life’s most urgent question is: What are you doing for others?" – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Week 2 Overview

Greetings folks! Congratulations on completing the first week of the course. I hope you found the readings useful as you delve into the area of financial management. For many of us in the human services, budgeting is not our favorite activity. After all, most of us began careers in the nonprofit sector in order to help others via direct service or program planning. However, as I hope you can see, financial management is a crucial part of the job for nonprofit administrators.

During Week 2, you will continue to be exposed to budgeting concepts that will assist you become adept at creating sound financial plans. Again, I hope you find your readings, our discussions, and the assignments interesting and thought provoking!

Step-by-Step Budgeting Guidelines

In your readings this week, Dropkin, Halpin, and LaTouche (2007) provide a framework for creating a budget. The authors provide answers to questions such as:

1.) What policies and procedures are necessary for ideal budgeting practices?

2.) What steps are important when creating a budgeting calendar?

3.) Who and what are involved in budget team meetings?

4.) What should be included in the annual budget package?

5.) What steps are necessary for preparing for the annual budgeting process?

6.) What steps are necessary for creating the annual budget?

Worksheet 9.1, in my opinion, is one of the most useful documents in your textbook. This worksheet continues the “hands-on” approach I mentioned last week that will be a theme throughout the course. I’ve used Worksheet 9.1 myself to create a budgeting calendar. My best advice regarding how to use the worksheet is to save it on your computer. This allows you to add tasks as needed and then easily arrange them by date using the cut and paste option in your Word program. Also, the worksheet easily translates into a “working document” that multiple staff can use during planning meetings in order to determine roles and responsibilities, set due dates, and develop incremental steps in the budgeting process. The final draft, then, can be designed from the edited working draft created during the planning session, and –PRESTO- your budgeting calendar has been made!

Chapter 12 in your readings presents 10 steps to creating, implementing, and managing an annual organization-wide operating budget. Please pay particular attention to this chapter because your first discussion question requires you to consider which two steps will be the easiest for you and which two steps will be the hardest. Here’s your chance to imagine what it will be like when you’re a nonprofit administrator!

You have one article to read this week regarding program development. Calley (2009) provides a comprehensive framework for developing programs in the human services. Twelve steps are detailed in the article. Design, implementation, and evaluation are the major components of Calley’s framework. I encourage you to save this article in your growing collection of resources. The framework is an easy to understand, step-by-step guide that I found to be both practical and useful. Hopefully, you will as well!

You have one short video to view this week. This video provides introductory level information about income statements. This is a dreadfully technical video, but the information discussed is very useful. You also have two websites to examine this week. Both provide information regarding ethics and professional conduct- one from the American Counseling Association and one from the American Psychological Association. Of all the resources on these websites, I found the information below to be the most useful. The link details a decision-making model that can be used by anyone in the human services to ensure that ethical decisions are made.

· A Practitioner's Guide to Ethical Decision Making (Links to an external site.)

Because I believe ethics to be a very important topic in the nonprofit sector, I wanted to provide an additional link for your review. I would ask that you read and save the article below. It describes how to prevent unethical behavior in nonprofit organizations. As future administrators, I trust that you find the topic of ethical practices to be as important as I do!

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED559285.pdf (Links to an external site.)

References

Boucher, T. & Hudspeth, S. (2008). Ethics and the Nonprofit. Commonfund Institute. Retrieved from http://www.commonfund.org/InvestorResources/Publications/White%20Papers/Ethics%20and%20the%20Nonprofit.pdf

Calley, N. (2009). Comprehensive program development in mental health counseling: Design, implementation, and evaluation. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 31(1), 9-21.

Dropkin, M., Halpin, J., & LaTouche, B. (2007). The budget-building book for nonprofits (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Forester-Miller, H., & Davis, T. (1996). A Practitioner's Guide to Ethical Decision Making. American Counseling Association. Retrieved from http://www.counseling.org/Resources/CodeOfEthics/TP/Home/CT2.aspx