Budgeting and Financial Management for Nonprofit Organizations: Using Money to Drive Mission Success

In the nonprofit sector, money drives mission. Well-managed budgets and investments can spur long-term growth and achievement, while financial mismanagement can damage or destroy an organization. Lynne A. Weikart, Greg G. Chen, and Ed Sermier—in their exciting new text geared wholly to nonprofits—provide the financial tools nonprofit managers need to thrive in pursuit of mission success.

Given the wide array of nonprofit managers' backgrounds and a common fear of "the financials," the authors explain financial concepts without leaning unnecessarily on intimidating jargon. The result is a practical, accessible resource the prepares the next generation of nonprofit managers in financial planning and analysis as well as conventional and entrepreneurial financial management.

Grounded in real-world cases and offering plenty of opportunity for application and practice, Budgeting and Financial Management for Nonprofit Organizations helps readers develop a stable fiscal foundation and sound financial strategies for their organizations to prosper in times of economic expansion and contraction.

Lynne A. Weikart was associate professor at Baruch College School of Public Affairs, City University of New York, until her retirement. She is currently a practitioner in residence at James Madison University, where she teaches budgeting and financial management. Before her academic career, she held several high-level government positions, including budget director of the Division of Special Education in New York City (NYC) public schools and executive deputy commissioner of the New York State Division of Human Rights. For several years, she also served as the executive director of a nonprofit, City Project, a progressive fiscal think tank focused on reforming NYC’s resource allocation patterns. Weikart’s current research focuses on resource allocation in urban areas as well as on urban finance, and she has published many articles on these subjects. She is author of Follow the Money: Who Controls New York City Mayors? (2009) and the coauthor with Greg Chen of Budgeting and Financial Management for Nonprofits (2012). The latter was CQ Press. She won the Luther Gulick Award for Outstanding Academic from the New York Metropolitan Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration in 2001.

Greg G. Chen is associate professor at Baruch College School of Public Affairs, City University of New York. He was a manager of the budgeting and financial reporting department in the Ministry of Finance, and budget manager and senior policy adviser for the Premier’s Office of British Columbia, Canada, before taking his professorship in the United States. He had previously been an associate dean in the College of WISCO in China. Professor Chen conducts research and publishes papers in the areas of budgeting and financial management for nonprofit organizations and governments, program evaluation and cost-benefit analysis of diverse public programs, and comparisons of the health care systems and finance in Canada, the United States, and China.

Ed Sermier is an adjunct professor at both Baruch College School of Public Affairs, City University of New York and at the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University, where he teaches a courses in nonprofit finance, management, and leadership. He is also an independent consultant specializing in nonprofit financial planning and management. Over the course of his career, Sermier has held positions at many non¬profit organizations, including as director of national customized services for the Nonprofit Finance Fund, vice president, chief administrative officer, and director of program evaluation at Carnegie Corporation of New York, chief finan¬cial officer of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, and director of special edu¬cation as well as budget director for the New York City Board of Education. He developed the Financial Toolkit for Nonprofit Executives and Board Members, which provides a means to make financial data understandable to an organization’s decision makers. He holds an MBA from Columbia University.