Essay About Nonprofit Boards And Crucial Tasks

Van Brunt Neighborhood Consortia
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in the Van Brunt neighborhood in an effort to save the neighborhood from decay and destruction.
They succeeded, and formed the Van Brunt Neighborhood Consortia (VBNC), a Faith-based
organization founded on the basis of self-sufficiency. Today, 41 years later, VBNC is recognized
and respected for their mission to provide affordable, decent housing for all Van Brunt
neighborhood residents. VBNC founders envisioned a revitalized neighborhood by providing safe
and affordable housing with long term sustainable leadership for the people of the community.
We have recently received a large multi-year grant from the City of Kansas City to increase HIV
prevention and substance abuse services offered through our incarceration re-entry program which
serves about 150 women annually. According to the National Center for Nonprofit Boards, there
are 6 crucial tasks a board should examine when managing agency finances. Of those 6 crucial
tasks, the VBNC Board of Directors identified 3 that VBNC must address to properly manage grant
dollars. Those three are: 1) complying with federal, state and other governmental reporting
requirements, 2) seeing that accurate, timely and meaningful financial statements are prepared and
presented to the board, and 3) helping the board understand the organizations finances. The
VBNC Board of Directors realized this would be a great time to do an organizational assessment to
identify the additional capacity VBNC needs to best manage this new grant and future public sector
funding. To address the 3 crucial tasks the following specific needs were identified: 1) improve the
current accounting system, 2) update fiscal policy, 3) enhance board fiscal accountability, and 4)
staff training on the expanded use of our accounting software. The potential impact includes:
sustainability of recently increased HIV Prevention and substance abuse service, and through
improved fiscal responsibility, increased ability to apply for funding.