October 28, 2021 · Written By Andy Kegley

Ten years ago, HOPE had the not-so-crazy idea that a proposal for grant funding from the local Wythe-Bland Foundation to build capacity for its stakeholder non-profits through a bookkeeping program would be a win-win-win proposition. It’s been good for the partner non-profits and their volunteer board members and officers participating in this, good for WBF in lifting the participants boats so-to-speak with strong, accurate and timely financial statements, and good for HOPE in having some of its bookkeeping expenses covered. It’s also proven to be good for the agencies in being able to grow their balance sheets and missions.

Little did we know that what began with just five partners (Wythe County Public School Foundation for Excellence, Wytheville Training School and Cultural Center, One-on-One Literacy, and the Benevolent Medication Program, as well as HOPE) back in 2011-12 would grow into a project, still graciously supported by WBF as well as the Truist Foundation, which supports 13 different agencies and over $7 million in combined revenues. Other important metrics include a total of 4,155 checks prepared last fiscal year, 1,900 total deposits, and payroll for 25 employees at 7 of the 13 partners.

Holding down the books for all these years is HOPE’s deputy director, Jodie Huff, who manages to juggle all the financials and nuances of 13 different boards, staff and/or volunteers, and all those 4,155 checks, not to mention five different audits. HOPE just sat through our own single audit last week, meaning a more intense scrutiny of federal programs given our huge influx of federal funding in the last fiscal year. We are in the hunt for a part-time bookkeeping/clerical assistant to support this work—please contact us if you know someone!

 

With support from Wythe-Bland Foundation, HOPE, Inc. provides accounting services to 13 agencies with $7 million in combined revenues.

Holding down the books for all these years is HOPE’s deputy director, Jodie Huff, who juggles financials for 13 different boards, processes 4,155 checks annually, and prepares for five audits.

In the middle years of this last decade, we added in a voluntary board training using the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance certification checklist. As board membership changes, new volunteers may not be fully aware of the governance and stewardship responsibilities of running a non-profit business. And we like to highlight that board members’ names are listed on the annual tax return (depending on the type of 990 return based on the size of the organization’s annual revenues) to the IRS along with their certification that they fulfill certain governance tasks. These include statements such as an annual evaluation of the executive and review of compensation, annual disclosure of conflict of interests, recording of minutes, and public access of the annual tax return. We’ve gotten away from this training but feel like it is important enough that HOPE will restart it for any of our partners if requested. Tightening up some of the financial controls we witness is critical to the viability of this project and the funding that makes it possible.

HOPE just recently attained a Gold Seal certification level at www.GuideStar.org, where any potential funder or donor can go to review certain governance metrics as well as annual IRS 990 tax returns for any non-profit in the country. If you haven’t tooled around this website, it can be very informative.

Here’s a list of our current bookkeeping partners:

  • Bland Co. Public School Foundation for QUILL

  • Brock Hughes Medical Center

  • Downtown Wytheville, Inc.

  • Edith Bolling Wilson Museum Foundation

  • Friends of the Fort Chiswell Library

  • HOPE

  • Millwald Theatre (graduated!)

  • One-on-One Literacy Program

  • Open Door Café

  • SWVA Crossroads Coalition

  • WCPS Foundation for Excellence

  • Wythe Co. Ministerial Association

  • Wytheville Training School Cultural Center

  • WyvaCon