In October, my colleague, Mike Sorrells, wrote a Nonprofit Standard blog post announcing the AICPA’s plans to launch its new Not-For-Profit Member Section—the Institute’s first section devoted to a specific industry. Earlier this month, I had the privilege of participating in the section’s initial planning meeting as a member of its advisory council. While plans for this nascent initiative are still under development, we’re excited to keep you informed of the AICPA’s new not-for-profit member section’s growing mission and key goals for the months ahead.
As Mike briefly discussed several weeks ago, the overall goal of the section is to serve as a one-stop shop of information and resources for those who work in—and for—the nonprofit sector. The section will strive to be an inclusive community that provides professionals with comprehensive resources related to four key areas: governance, assurance, financial reporting and tax compliance.
The AICPA not-for-profit section has also identified four main objectives to help execute the section’s overall mission:
- Serve as a hub of easily accessible, comprehensive and value-added resources of varied content types that offer an array of information covering the four key areas.
- Support member learning by providing helpful tools, including timely news articles and reports, analyses of recent trends, sample financial statements, tax checklists, FAQ’s, flow charts and whitepapers.
- Keep members informed of important industry-related topics by distributing e-alerts of urgent news, as well as notifications related to guidance updates issued by regulatory agencies that impact the nonprofit sector.
- Promote member engagement and professional development—both online and offline—with live webinars, networking events and other opportunities for member-driven discussions.
By Q2 2015, the AICPA hopes to fully launch the section and open its doors for membership. Eligible members include all AICPA members, affiliate and associate members, and leaders of nonprofit organizations—who can join as non-CPA associate members. Section membership will have benefits and resources similar to existing AICPA sections, along with the addition of tiered membership options catered to members’ specific needs. Lastly, initial plans are underway to develop an AICPA Not-For-Profit certificate program, through which members could earn a specialized AICPA educational certificate after completing 40 hours of online learning related to nonprofit governance, as well as organizational risk, audit, accounting, financial reporting and tax topics.
As 2015 approaches and plans for the new section become implemented, we look forward to seeing how the new AICPA program and its impact on the nonprofit community will take shape. In the meantime, we welcome you to provide questions and feedback in the comments section below, and we’ll continue to keep you up-to-date as we have more news in the weeks and months ahead.
Jeffrey Schragg is partner in the Tax practice at BDO. He can be reached at jschragg@bdo.com.
