Not-For-Profit Expertise
Hood & Strong is nationally recognized as a leader in professional services for the not-for-profit sector. Our legacy of working with the nonprofit community goes back to the firm’s founding, representing more than a century of experience working with exempt organizations of all sizes, scopes and missions. We offer a full complement of integrated tax, assurance and accounting services specifically designed to meet the needs of the nonprofit sector.
The professionals in Hood & Strong’s Not-For-Profit Service Group regularly attend and speak at national conferences, sharing ideas, research and solutions on issues and challenges facing the not-for-profit community.
We begin every not-for-profit assignment with a thorough understanding of your organization, your competition, and your operations. Through competitive analysis, benchmarking studies and like-to-like comparisons of your financial history, we bring a fresh, in-depth perspective to help your nonprofit organization build and achieve long-term, sustainable success.
In our client accounting practice, we then focus on what information management needs to effectively run the organization. In addition, we obtain an understanding of funding source reporting requirements. Your not-for-profit client accounting team well understands what is required to successfully undergo an audit, as well as IRS and regulatory reporting needs. We then blend all of these desired outcomes to determine a chart of accounts and cost center structure that will allow us to accomplish all of your required reporting objectives, efficiently and effectively.
Foundations
We take great pride in serving a wide range of significant grant-making organizations, including community foundations, private foundations, operating foundations, and public research foundations. Hood & Strong assurance professionals and tax preparers have significant experience in meeting the special practices and requirements of foundations and are also available year-round to advise as challenges and issues arise.
Higher Education
From drops in enrollment levels to budget cuts, Hood & Strong appreciates the challenges that colleges and universities face. We participate in many higher education and national not-for-profit industry events and stay abreast of current developments through our memberships in NACUBO, WACUBO and ACUA. We also keep our higher ed clients informed through our dedicated newsletters, roundtables and informal client communications.
Private Education Pre K-12
Many private schools face pressures in enrollment, funding and finding adequate faculty. We bring experience in accounting, tax, assurance, regulatory compliance, human resource solutions, risk management and control services to help you address these challenges and position your school for financial success.
Social and Human Services
Education, staffing, rising costs and declining revenues are just some of the issues facing social service providers. We work with and serve on the board of many social service organizations, which allows us to better anticipate your problems and guide you toward your financial goals.
Arts & Culture
We are a team of assurance professionals, tax advisors and financial reporting consultants who understand the unique needs and concerns of arts and cultural organizations. Our experienced partners and managers specialize in working with arts and culture entities of all kinds in helping to identify key opportunities and solve potential problems that may adversely impact your organization.
Employee Benefit Plans
Hood & Strong has extensive experience performing employee benefit plan audits. We understand the myriad regulations that pose unique, high-risk decisions for Plan Sponsors – rules that can affect the future well-being of plan participants. Our early membership in the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants (AICPA) Employee Benefit Plan Audit Quality Center brings national resources to help ensure that our clients are compliant with ERISA reporting requirements, Department of Labor (DOL) rules, and other regulations. We follow a national firm audit methodology, participate in annual trainings regarding the intricacies of requirements for ERISA audits, and take part in regional training sessions with the DOL.
Membership Organizations
We serve a high volume of membership organizations and our staff is deeply knowledgeable of not-for-profit and association issues. Revenue recognition, unrelated business income and membership reporting are just a sampling of the issues that we assist our clients with on a regular basis.