From Problem to Plan

IntroductionThe posting, and the method

The Sanar Institute in Newark is hiring an Operations Specialist, reporting to the Co-Chief Executive Officer, at $60,000 a year, with applications due 10 November 2026 and a start date of 4 January 2027.

The posting divides the role into People Administration (30%), Bookkeeping and Finance Responsibilities (40%), Office Management and Program Support (20%) and executive administrative support. It adds a stipend for Spanish, Portuguese or Haitian Creole; the details line puts it at $1,500 for Spanish speakers. The largest share is finance: “Prepare financial statements and reporting monthly, federal/state grant financial reports and drawdowns.” And it asks for someone who can “see the ‘big picture’ of organizational operations to identify opportunities.”

This chapter does that from the outside, with the only books an outsider can read: the Institute’s own Forms 990 for 2021, 2022 and 2024, which also carry 2023 in their prior-year columns. It has five steps, one per section: the questions raised, the analysis behind them, the recommendations, the actions that carry them out, and the follow-through that shows whether they worked.

Section 1 · 2021 to 2024Questions raised

An organization that grew, turned to government grants, and professionalized its books, leaving five questions on the page.

Revenue was $954,698 in 2021 and $1,127,926 in 2024. Government grants, reported on line 1e of the revenue statement, were $562,538 in 2021, $492,281 in 2022 and $840,082 in 2024. The rest of revenue is other contributions and fees for trainings, which were $215,511 in 2023 and $169,744 in 2024. The returns report no fundraising expense in any of the three years.

Sources: Forms 990 for 2021, 2022 and 2024, Part I lines 5, 12, 15 and 18; Part VIII line 1e; Part X lines 1, 2 and 4; Part XII lines 1 and 2b. The 2023 row comes from the prior-year and beginning-of-year columns of the 2024 return; the 2023 return itself was not read, so its grant, staff and audit cells are blank. Percentages are the author’s arithmetic.

The books themselves changed. The 2021 return was prepared on a cash basis, and its statements were not audited. From 2022 the returns are on an accrual basis, and an independent accountant audited the statements. Accrual accounting records money earned under a grant but not yet received as it is earned; the 2021 cash-basis return still reports $78,598 of receivables, but they were compiled differently, so 2021 is not strictly comparable with the later years. For the longer view, ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer, a secondary extraction of the same IRS data, puts revenue at $192,735 in 2015, the first year after exemption, and $1,275,645 in 2025, about 6.6 times as much. Those two figures were not checked against returns.

The five questions

• Receivables are growing faster than revenue. They rose from 8.2 to 18.0 percent of the year’s revenue.
• The cash buffer is thin, and once ran low. Between 1.5 and 3.9 months of expenses at year end.
• The expense page shows almost no administration. 2.2 percent management and general, with zero on payroll taxes, accounting, IT and occupancy.
• The federal share cannot be seen. $840,082 of government grants, no split by source, and “No” on the single-audit question.
• Revenue is concentrated. Government grants rose from 58.9 to 74.5 percent of revenue while training fees fell.

Section 2 · What the numbers meanAnalysis

Each question, measured, with what the return can and cannot say about it.

1. Receivables grew faster than revenue

Receivables at year end went from $78,598 at the end of 2021 to $202,662 at the end of 2024, 2.58 times as much, while annual revenue grew 1.18 times. As a share of the year’s revenue they rose every year: 8.2, 13.3, 16.6 and 18.0 percent. The 2021 starting point is the cash-basis return; from 2022, the first accrual year, the rise is from 13.3 to 18.0 percent of revenue, or 49 to 66 days. For an organization paid largely by government grants, much of which reimburse costs after they are incurred, receivables are mostly money the Institute has spent and is waiting to draw down. The return does not say which grants they are, or how old.

2. Cash covered about three months, and once about a month and a half

Cash and savings covered 3.9 months of that year’s expenses at the end of 2021, 3.6 at the end of 2022 and 3.1 at the end of 2024. At the end of 2023, after a year in which expenses exceeded revenue, they covered 1.5. At the end of 2024 the balance sheet also shows $118,000 of deferred revenue, money received before it was earned, which props up that year’s cash. Receivables and cash move against each other: every dollar waiting to be drawn down is a dollar not in the bank when payroll is due.

3. The expense page shows almost no overhead

The 2024 statement of functional expenses puts $1,031,935 of $1,054,626 in program services, 97.8 percent, and $22,691 in management and general, 2.2 percent, with nothing in fundraising. Salaries, officers’ pay and benefits are $888,773, which agrees with Part I line 15.

The return reports zero on four lines an outsider would expect to see filled: payroll taxes (line 10), accounting (line 11c), information technology (line 14) and occupancy (line 16). The posting itself names rent, technology support, audits and payroll among the role’s duties, so these costs exist; they are recorded on other lines. Payroll taxes, for example, may sit inside the employee-benefits line if they are billed through the professional employer organization the posting names. That is a question about classification, not an error, and nothing here shows that any figure is wrong.

4. The federal share and the audit question

The 2022 and 2024 returns say the statements were audited, and that no committee oversees the audit (line 2c). All three returns answer “No” to line 3a: whether a federal award required a single audit under the Uniform Guidance. The federal threshold for that audit is $750,000 of federal awards spent in a fiscal year beginning before 1 October 2024, and $1,000,000 for fiscal years beginning on or after that date. The Institute’s 2024 fiscal year began on 1 January 2024, so the $750,000 threshold applied, and 2024 government grants were $840,082. The return does not split those grants into federal, state and local money, and only federal spending counts. The Office for Victims of Crime lists two awards to the Institute: $600,000 in fiscal year 2021 and $800,000 in fiscal year 2024, each spent over several years. Whether 2024 federal spending reached the threshold cannot be read from the return. This is a question, not a finding.

5. Concentration

Government grants rose from 58.9 to 74.5 percent of revenue, while training fees fell from $215,511 in 2023 to $169,744 in 2024, and to $153,439 in 2025 by ProPublica’s secondary figures. Training is the Institute’s earned income, and the only revenue line that does not depend on a grant cycle.

Section 3 · From analysis to recommendationsRecommendations

The author’s proposals, not the Institute’s plans; each answers one question and sits with a duty the posting already names.

Whether to grow training income, request indirect costs in future budgets, or form an audit committee is the Co-CEOs’ decision. The role’s part is to put the figures in front of them every month.

Section 4 · The first ninety daysActions

Read the books first, then make the cycle regular, then answer the open questions.

Days 1 to 30: see the books as they are

• List every open award with its funder, its period, how it is drawn down and how often, and the reports it requires.
• Run a receivables aging in QuickBooks Online, by award, and reconcile it to the drawdown records.
• Map the QuickBooks chart of accounts to the Form 990 expense lines and to each award’s budget categories, so rent, technology, payroll taxes and audit fees can each be found in one place.

Days 31 to 60: make the cycle regular

• Keep a drawdown calendar, and draw each award down on its schedule, not when cash is short.
• Reconcile grant payroll to Kronos every pay period, so the hours charged to each award match the timesheets behind them.
• Add three lines to the monthly financial statements: receivables by age, months of cash on hand, and federal spending to date against the $1,000,000 single-audit threshold that applies from the 2025 fiscal year.

Days 61 to 90: answer the open questions

• With the auditor, prepare a schedule of federal awards spent in the year, including any federal money passed through the State, so the line 3a answer rests on a figure.
• Propose to the Co-CEOs a written method for allocating shared costs (rent, technology, payroll taxes, audit) between programs and administration, so the next return and the next grant budgets show what administration actually costs.
• Keep the Salesforce records that grant reports draw on complete each month, so reports are compiled from records rather than rebuilt at the deadline.

Section 5 · Measures and reviewsFollow-through

Each action has a measure, a starting point from the returns, and a date to look at it again.

Three of the six starting points cannot be read from outside; the first month of the actions is what sets them. A measure that does not move is a finding too: if receivables stay near 66 days with drawdowns on schedule, the cause is the funders’ payment cycle, not the Institute’s process, and the answer is a larger cash buffer rather than faster billing.

The opportunity, in dollars

As an illustration only: if receivables at the end of 2024 had been the same share of revenue as at the end of 2021, they would have been about $93 thousand instead of $202,662. The difference, about $110 thousand, is 1.2 months of 2024 expenses in the bank rather than waiting on a funder. That is the author’s arithmetic on two year-end snapshots, not a forecast; some of the difference may be timing that no process would change. The second opportunity has no figure yet: a cost allocation that shows administration as it is gives the Co-CEOs a basis for deciding what indirect costs to request in future budgets.

LimitsWhat this does not show

• How much of the government money is federal, and how much federal money the Institute spent in any year. The schedule of federal awards would show it, and was not read.
• Which grants the receivables belong to, and how old they are. The return gives one total at one date.
• The audited financial statements and Schedule O, which may explain the classifications and the line 3a answers. Neither was read.
• The 2023 return and the 2025 return. 2023 comes from the 2024 return’s prior-year columns; 2025 figures are ProPublica’s secondary extraction.
• Anything after 31 December 2024 in the Institute’s own filings.
• That the author has run federal grant drawdowns. The application does not claim it.

UpdatesWhat changed after the first version