CLN Fiscal Sponsorship Policies Pad:
Only Do the Highest Priority (as we don't want to overwhelm the current sponsored project with policies and procedures)
Financial Templates
- Each Fiscally Sponsored Project is required to keep up their own Finances & Budget Spreadsheets. This can either be done with volunteers or paying people to help. A Fisically Sponsorsed project is resposnible for their own financal accounting. If your org knows that it will be difficult to get their finances started, updated spreadsheets, or keep up with on-going financial tracking, you should plan on creating a line item in your budget for financial support. The CLN umbrella can help with internal project finances, but will expect componsation beyond the % that has already been allocated. Overall a Sponsored Project is expected to do their best to keep up with their finances, but we understand that it isn't easy to do it perfectly acording to our specific processes, so there will always be mistakes. Most importantly is to keep up with all the legal protocols including submiting a program budget and get it appoved by the board before you start spending money, and keep the board updated with any major changes in the budget. Also your Annual Report will also include basic financial reporting including income and expenditures, and this is essencial for the legal reporting of the Umbrella non-profit.
- Creating Your Finance and Budget Spreadsheets:
- You will need to get your template spreadsheet from the CLN, and use the processes and financial templates so that we can easily integrate all the budgets and finances between all of the variety of projects and programs within the Umbrella non-profit. The process of creating and updating these financial spreadsheets can take months depending on how many transactions you have, so this does not need to happen in a hurry.
- The Google Spreadsheet is accessable online by anyone, and will include the following 6 sub-spreadsheets within the doccument:
- Current Assets & Bank Holdings
- This is a snap shot of all your programs current assets and Cash on hand. This includes bank holdings, as well as cash on hand, or cash at your house. This should be kept updated quarterly,monthly, weekly, even daily, but just do your best to keep it up to date.
- Transactions: Ballance Sheet: Income & Expenditures
- This is a on-going tabulation of income, expenditures, and transfers, including donations, revenue, anytime that you have money comming in, we have to keep it recorded. Income does not include transfers between accounts, and goes in a different column. Expenditures is any output of funds for any purpose. Many times we make multiple different tranaction and ballance spreadsheets for different accounts, or different sub programs. This doesn't have to be your primary ballance sheet, but it will be the primary reporting and publicly accountable spreadsheet for your program by accounting for all transaction, in multiple accounts including cash, checks, and debit cards.
- Budget Current Annual/Program Budget
- Typcally a Program Budget will be created as a Seperate doccument, but should be coppied and pasted into the primary Finances Spreadsheets when completed and approved.
- Temporal Budget
- The temporal budget, although it is a little extra work, is a great system to keep track of your finances in a more reailistic model than a general program/annual budget. The system is very simple, you start with the total money you currently have in the bank, and then budget out the existing and expected expenses into the future.
- People Paid Tallies
- This is an on-going talley of people who have recived funds from your program. It should be broken down by yearly columns. If you don't pay individuals, then you can ignore this and leave it blank.
- Assets
- This is an on-going list of existing assets within the organization and the estimated value if sold on craigslist or eBay for a reasonable amount that would sell sooner than later. The value should be at least $50-$100 before we would go to the effort to sell it. If there are no sellable assets, then you can leave this blank and not worry about it.
Policy Documents / Packet:
- General Description of CLN & UN in relationship to Fiscal Sponsorship
- Basic Info on Fiscal Sponsorship Options & Processes (for new Projects)
- Top Legal Requirements Info Doc (4 pages)
- Budget Approval Process
- Contracts / Grants / Long-Term Agreements
- Grant Reporting
- Personell: 1099's & Employee Taxes
- Anual Reporting
- Other Legal Permits/Filings/Reporting/Licences/Taxes/Insurance/etc...
- Conflicts / Issues / Problems /
- Anything in the "Gray Area"
- Most Important CLN Policies
- Leadership Committees
- Leadership Council Representation
- Financial
- Contracts / Grants / Long-Term Agreements (Document???)
- Leadership Council & CLN Structure
- General Reporting Requirements
- Quarterly Evaluations (1 paragraph)
- Q1: Jan 1st - March 31st
- Q2: April 1st - June 30th
- Q3: July 1st- Sep 30th
- Q4: Oct 1st - Dec 31st
- Annual Reports (1/2 page)
- Fiscal Year Jan 1 - Dec 31 (Dew March 15)
- Grant Reporting
- Personell/Worker/Volunteer Daily/Weekly Time/Sheets
- On-Going Financial Documentation & Filling
- General Financial Documentation & Procedures
- Budget Approval Process
- General Decision Making Processes & Procedures
- Meeting Minutes Template
- Project Representation
- Meeting Processes
- Doccumentation Processes