Seven Sins (and more) of Board Members

I found this list of Seven Deadly Sins of Board Members over at the Drive by Consulting blog. Many homeschool organizations have great boards filled with generous, helpful members. But sometimes we can fall into bad habits.

Give this list to your board members as you launch a new year as a gentle reminder that the mission of your group should be first in their minds.

Seven Deadly Sins of Board Members

1. Gossip
2. Breach of confidentiality
3. Lone Ranger trusteeship (a leader thinking he/she can do it alone)
4. Micro-management
5. Unwillingness to ask hard questions and make difficult decisions
6. Representation of special interests
7. Self-dealing

Seven More Dangerous Sins of Board Members

1. Pontification (arrogance)
2. Always seeking the dark side
3. Irregular attendance
4. Thinking they run the organization
5. Neglecting to support the CEO (or director)
   
6. Focus on the present rather than the future
7. Failing to listen

Any of these true of your board?

Carol

Using Facebook for your homeschool group?

Some homeschool leaders over at the Facebook group I am a Homeschool Group Leader were discussing using Facebook as a way to communicate with their members:

Does anyone use Facebook to connect your group members? Do you have a FB group or just a page? What are the pros/cons of each? So many people are on FB now, but is there any benefit to using FB when we already have a Yahoo Group and a website?

We do NOT have a Facebook page for our group. I have not pushed the issue since most of the other board members are very concerned about privacy and have told me that they hate Facebook. However, I do create events for some of our functions that are open to the public, invite people, and ask them to pass the word along. Every time i do this I usually have a couple of people come because they heard about it on Facebook.-Lori C.

We actually started a high school student council FB page. It is ‘secret’ from everyone except members. Parents and students can join the group. Right now, it’s not hugely active, because not everyone is on FB and there is some disagreement about this being a good way to communicate. We do also send out emails and post on our website forums all the student council info as well.-Abby

I set up a FB group for our group and that was the worse thing I could have done. None of the ladies knew each other before I created the group. They used FB to friend each other and then started meeting behind my back which ultimately lead to the all of them teaming up against me to start their own group.  I guess it just depends on the type of people you are dealing with.-Amy

We set up a FB group last year and it has been very effective. Pretty much use it to post events. I like how the events give reminders. We are not a really large group about 25 to 30 families. We also have a yahoo group for those very few that aren’t on FB and are in the process of getting a web page designed. If you are concerned about privacy you can make it a secret group where no one sees it that is not approved in the group. We only allow parents in the group to post on the board.- Jan

We use both a website and FB page. we are able to get in contact with all our members (support group members and co-op members) by both methods. we share are “public” events on FB for all members and then our co-op group activities are posted on the website. it is a lot easier to share links etc on FB. Most of our members are on FB.-Leslie

We got a page last year for our group. Its private, and we screen everyone who wants to join. You would have to know somebody in our group and they can verify and tell us about you. Last year when it was brought up a few people did not like the idea. It was made and most everyone loves it since we can add pictures and other things to it. I feel that it has brought the group closer together instead of just emails thru yahoo. More personable.-Melissa

An alternative to a full audit

A homeschool leader in North Carolina recently wrote to me looking for help with doing an audit:

We offer boys and girls soccer, basketball, baseball, softball, volleyball, and cheerleading. In January we received our 501c3 status as a non-profit group. It is time for our annual audit, but I am not sure which way to go now and who to get to do the audit.

This group had bylaws that required their financial statements to be audited by qualified individuals.

For small nonprofits (revenues less than $25,000 per year), audits are rarely needed and are frequently too expensive and time consuming. Most nonprofit audits cost at least $3,000. Instead of an audit, I recommended changes to their bylaws and some practices and policies to help them be fiscally responsible, but not over burdened.

Some of my suggestions were:

• Separation of duties
• Monthly bank reconciliation
• Regular financial reporting to the board
• Create and monitor a budget

These practices do not replace the role of an full audit, but they help provide accountability.

Finally, I recommended they consider performing an internal audit occasionally. An internal audit can be preformed by volunteers from your organization. Here are a few websites that offer more information.

The following website explains internal audits for small churches and nonprofits:

http://www.freechurchaccounting.com/churchaudit.html

It also contains a checklist for conducting an internal audit

http://www.freechurchaccounting.com/support-files/internalauditchecklistguidelines.pdf

Does your group have good financial policies and practices? You can start with my article, Best Financial Practices for Homeschool Groups. It is available when you sign up for my newsletter here.

Also my ebook Money Management for Homeschool Organizations has advice and tips for properly handling the finances in your homeschool group. Ebook price $10
Read more here.

Here’s to keeping your homeschool group strong!

Carol Topp, CPA

Helpful links

Have you stopped by my LINKS page lately?

I have upgraded it and added a few more helpful books, links  and resources for leaders.

Did you know about the blog for homeschool leaders (besides my own blog)?

or how about an on-line support group for homeschool leaders? One exists. The link is on my LINKS page here.

Need some legal help? Go to my LINKS page and find a link to Homeschool Legal Advantage and then read the article about how they helped one group deal with a difficult situation with the IRS.

If you come across any helpful links for homeschool leaders, let me know and I’ll add them.

Carol Topp, CPA

Paying teachers in a homeschool co-op is a sticky situation!

Amy asks a common question: paying teachers at a homeschool co-op

For the past several years, our group has spent more (thousands more) than we have charged our members. We’re not technically “in the red” because of more prosperous years in the past. The reason   we are spending so much money is that over 90% of our income goes to paying our parent-teachers ($15-$20/hour)! The rest of the money goes toward classroom supplies. I am sure that most parents are unaware of how the finances of this group are managed.

Have you heard of groups paying their teacher/parents? What do I need to understand about the various homeschool support and cooperative group structures that I don’t currently comprehend?  Help!
-Amy

Amy,

Your situation sounds very familiar to me. I too was treasurer of my 40 family co-op and found that 75% of our budget was going to pay 4 paid teachers. The other 20 teachers were volunteer parents, myself included. Not all the families were using a paid teacher, but all were chipping in to pay for them. We also were finding that people were offering to teach because they thought they could get paid. We were losing our cooperative spirit. I knew something needed to change.

About the same time I was helping another homeschool group with some independent contractor/employee issues with the IRS. I wrote about it on my blog. You can read about it here:

Is your homeschool group’s hired teacher really an employee?

Update on Independent Contractors.

We decided to follow IRS guidelines and have the parents pay the teachers directly, like you would pay a piano teacher. The co-op was no longer paying the teachers.

I did some number crunching and found that we could lower our co-op fee from $150/family/semester to $75/family/semester. In addition we offered a $50 discount for teaching a class.

What happened was amazing! Wonderful, talented homeschooling mothers volunteered to teach a class! We had more volunteers than we could accommodate. REALLY! If a mother volunteers to teach a class she only pays $25/semester for her family to attend 3 hours of classes at our co-op. If her child attends one of our paid classes (there are only 3, guitar, art and Spanish) then she pays the teacher directly. For example, I pay $65/semester for my daughter to take an art class. I think the teacher is worth it.

This got us out of the sticky employee/IC situation with the IRS. I’m writing fewer checks. It made my job as treasurer a lot easier and no 1099MISC forms at the end of the year. No one complained. The spirit of cooperation has returned. YEAH!  I’ll also add that we let the volunteers decide what they wish to teach. If we cannot find a Spanish volunteer, no Spanish class is offered. If enough parents want Spanish we may see if a teacher can come to the co-op. We give her a room and she collects her fees from the parents directly.

I wrote an ebook Paying Workers in a Homeschool Organization. For only $3.00, I think you’ll find it very helpful. Order here

The issue of paying teachers as employees is too important to ignore.

Your group may have to consider some big changes.

Good Luck!!

Carol Topp, CPA