Jen:  This is the PKF Texas Entrepreneur’s Playbook.  I’m Jen Lemanski, this week’s guest host, and back again with Nicole Riley, one of our Audit Senior Managers on our Not For Profit team.  Welcome back to the Playbook Nicole.

Nicole:  Thanks, glad to be here.

Jen:  Not for profits do fund raising in a whole variety of ways, what are some common issues you see when they do fund raising activities?

Nicole:  One of the most common things is there are some requirements; they call them quid, pro, quo donations or arrangements.  That’s where if you go to a dinner and the ticket is $100 you actually get a dinner in exchange for that ticket, so the organization is required, if the amount paid is more than $75, to tell the donor how much they received back in exchange for that ticket.

Jen:  I think Annjeanette a few episodes ago talked with us about that.

Nicole:  Yeah, there are definitely some requirements about that.  Another thing we see with nonprofits is when they do raffles, those are not donations.

Jen:  Really?

Nicole:  Really.  For the taxpayer themselves it’s not a charitable donation.

Jen:  Oh my gosh, well we need to make sure that some of these boards that I’m on know that.  Is there anything else?

Nicole:  One other thing is in fundraising you see a lot of organizations get free things; either free advertising spots, free flowers.

Jen:  Like some in-kind donations?

Nicole:  Right.  They often forget to track those.  Those are required to be recorded as contributions in expenses in the financial statement.  So it’s important to keep track of what you got and how much it’s worth.

Jen:  So as an auditor when you’re looking at those financial statements are those the types of things that you guys are looking at?

Nicole:  It’s always something that we look at.  It’s an area that because it’s a donation and it’s an expense it’s important to have the financials stated properly, so of course we always look at those lists.

Jen:  Sounds good.  Well we’ll get you back to talk some more about some of the not profit activity that we do.

Nicole:  Thanks.

Jen:  To learn more about how we can help your not for profit visit PKFTexas.com/notforprofit.  This has been another Thought Leader production brought to you by PKF Texas The Entrepreneur’s Playbook.