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charitableadvisors

Nov 09

Donate Safely This #GivingTuesday

By Sponsor Insight

Best Practices for Charities and Individual Donors

By Cody Lents, Partner and Change Manager at COVI, Inc.

Since it was first founded in 2012, #GivingTuesday has become known as a charitable movement built around a simple idea: Set aside a day that encourages people to do good. Over the past seven years, #Giving Tuesday has transformed into a global day of unity that has inspired hundreds of millions of individuals to give, collaborate and celebrate generosity in their communities.

GivingTuesday’s data reported $1.97 million was raised for reputable charities around the globe in 2019. But could the number have been even higher? A few months prior, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) kicked off “International Charity Fraud Awareness Week,” a coordinated effort to help charities and donors avoid a growing number of scam groups masquerading as charitable organizations. Using tax deduction as bait, fake charities have often lured unsuspecting victims into making ineligible donations.

With the next #GivingTuesday quickly approaching on Dec. 1, 2020, what can you do to ensure your donation ends up in the right hands this holiday season? And, as a charity, how can you ensure prospective donors feel comfortable about allocating funds to your cause?

Best Practices for Individual Donors

  1. Give to established, trusted organizations.
    The easiest way to immediately confirm the legitimacy of a charitable organization is through the IRS’ “Tax Exempt Organization Search”, which allows donors to search for qualified charities in which donations may be tax-deductible. Legitimate charities will provide their Employee Identification Number (EIN) upon request.
  2. Use credit cards or checks.
    If a charity is attempting to solicit a donation through cash, gift cards, virtual currency, or wire transfer, it is most likely a scam. For security and tax record purposes, it is safest to contribute by check or credit card.
  3. Be skeptical of copycats and disaster relief.
    Exercise caution when examining charities with names that are similar to nationally known organizations. Scammers may use names, domains, etc. that sound or look like those of respected, legitimate organizations.

Following natural disasters, it’s common for scammers to impersonate charities to solicit personal financial information from victims and those looking to donate–don’t give out personal financial information, such as Social Security numbers or passwords to anyone who solicits a contribution.

Still unsure? Run the organization’s name through Charity Watch or Charity Navigator to browse reviews, ratings and reports from other donors.

Best Practices for Charities & Nonprofits

  1. Educate your donors.
    Whether on your website, social media or mailings, share information that instills confidence in those who want to contribute to your cause. Use the above best practices for individual donors as a guide.
  2. Implement a payment processor on your site.
    This allows your organization’s website to accept all online payments directly through the website, as opposed to sending donors off-site to a third-party platform. When your donor enters their payment information on your site, their card information is sent through a payment gateway to be validated. If the card’s information is legitimate, the transaction will be processed by your payment provider.

This process provides donors a more streamlined and credible experience and keeps them on your website for longer. Here is a comparison of eight trusted payment processors.

Questions?
If you need assistance vetting a charity or setting up a payment strategy for your nonprofit/charitable organization, you can reach out to COVI at cody@gocovi.com for help. COVI is an Information Technology (IT) service provider specializing in productivity, security, support and strategy services, located in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Nov 02

Decision to leave Fed Funds Rate unchanged until 2023 indicates Fed’s accommodating position for economic recovery

By Sponsor Insight

by Horizon Bank

At its September meeting, the Federal Reserve (Fed) left the Fed Funds Rate unchanged between a range of 0-.25%. More importantly, the Fed indicated its intention to hold the rate there until at least 2023. The Fed stated its expectation to maintain this target range until labor market conditions reached levels consistent with the policymaking committee’s assessments of maximum employment.

In its statement, the Fed also shared its intention to maintain an accommodative stance until the U.S. economy achieves inflation averaging 2% over time and longer-term inflation expectations remain anchored at 2%. The statement reflected the central bank’s new policy framework in which it will allow inflation to overshoot its 2% target after periods of lower inflation. Simply put, the Fed appears positioned to remain extremely accommodative for some time to come.

The Fed’s commitment to obtaining a 2% average inflation rate demonstrated its intent to not enact yield curve control, but instead to continue to foster liquidity where needed. Ultimately, the Fed appears to be signaling that it will allow longer-term yields to rise while holding short-term rates down. This strategy seems necessary to obtain the Fed’s goal of full employment and 2% average inflation. Holding short-term rates low is focused on encouraging full employment while providing room for intermediate and long rates to drift up, which should assist with the goal of achieving higher inflation.

Assuming the Fed is successful, its strategy should result in a widening of the yield curve where investors are paid more yield for taking on longer maturities. One of the goals of such a policy is to encourage financial institutions to make more loans. The idea being that a steeper curve provides more attractive profit margins on the loans. A loan’s rate is typically based on intermediate and long-term interest rates where the money used for the loan typically comes from bank deposits whose rates are typically tied to the shorter end of the yield curve. The difference between what a financial institution pays for deposits and what they charge for a loan is how they make money on lending. As a result, the wider the spread between the two, the more opportunity for profit.

Ultimately, the Fed plans to keep short-term interest rates low while allowing intermediate and long-term rates to drift higher. It appears it is their intention to stick with this strategy unless inflation rises above their 2% average target on a sustainable basis. Inflation, generally speaking, is a function of:

  • Expectations (consumers expect prices to go up or down)
  • Demand (increases drive prices up while decreases drive prices down) and
  • Supply (increases drive prices down while decreases drive prices up). At the present time, none of these factors are indicating that higher inflation is on the horizon.

It is important to note that monetary policy is meant to smooth out economic growth and it is not intended to change an economy’s long-term trend growth rate. Simply put, monetary policy is intended to shift growth around in time. In other words, it is focused on avoiding the high peaks and the low valleys. If growth is slow, monetary policy is implemented to ease or lower interest rates. On the other hand, if growth is moving too quickly, monetary policy is implemented to slow things down by raising interest rates. With that said, inflation or deflation should not be an issue if the central bank gets it right. Dealing with inflation or deflation longer-term typically indicates some sort of monetary policy mistake.

If there is a longer-term inflation story to eventually tell, odds are the Fed remained accommodative too long. There has been significant conversation on this front given the Fed’s extremely accommodative monetary policy. While policy easing has been aggressive, such action seems appropriate in an emergency situation. A pandemic with an associated economic shutdown seems to qualify as an emergency situation. With that said, accommodative policy should always be accompanied by an exit strategy. The risk is that the Fed waits too long and prices overinflate. While at some point, the Fed will be faced with the decision to change policy, we believe, considering the present situation, that point may be several years away. As a result, we expect the Fed to be able to hold course with their present strategy for quite some time to come.

###

Dave Voris is a vice president in the Indianapolis market for Horizon Bank. As a senior treasury management officer, he works closely with middle market, nonprofits and small business companies in a broad span of industries. His 25 years of business experience have included treasury management, merchant services, and international banking including sales management, client service and implementation management, product management and electronic payment operations.

We also provide longer-term loans for asset purchases such as vehicles or equipment.  Visit one of our Commercial Banking Advisors at 317-608-2085 or dvoris@horizonbank.com

Oct 26

Successful Mergers and Partnerships: More than the Numbers

By Sponsor Insight

By Jan Breiner Frazier, Planning Plus, LLC

Throughout our 30-plus year history as consultant professionals, we have worked with the leadership teams and boards of nonprofits as well as owners of for-profits who were engaged in various forms of collaborations — whether for a merger, a formal association or a strategic and documented partnership.

Unfortunately, we are often called in after the due diligence is complete and the merger has started down the road — only to experience a rocky start. The cause? More often than not, the numbers may work but the cultures do not.

During due diligence activities, leaders focus on a number of factual components for creating a “new” organization — including financial statements; current contracts; programs, services and other deliverables; competition; legal constraints; and competencies of the management teams. But all too often, they overlook the cultural issues within each of the entities that can quickly derail any progress.

When merging two or more nonprofit boards, it is critical to understand the operational environments. Are they structured, disciplined, forgiving, siloed, collaborative or innovative? Will the strengths of each organization complement or clash? How will individual company lifestyles mesh?

Perceptions by stakeholders about how or why the discussions took place must also be discerned. Neither organization wants to be viewed as “taken over” because that may be perceived by the community as a sign of weakness. Both organizations generally assure their staffs that the outcomes will be beneficial for everyone involved as they sell the idea to their teams. Yet, those driving the process often discount the emotional toll of going through organizational change as staff members have their own assumptions about their roles — which may change by necessity.

Several years ago, we worked with a merger of two organizations where it all made sense on paper. Both parties agreed the merger would benefit the community and result in a better financial position. There also was consensus on who would serve as the executive director. However, there was still a struggle with the organizations’ boards about equal representation, how to merge the staffs and which organization’s managers would be in charge. Fortunately, the executive director, with whom we had worked before, recognized that the board needed time and assistance in working through those issues. He dedicated time and resources to sponsor several sessions to work through the challenges. The organization continues to thrive today.

In another case, three organizations asked us to help them reach a merger agreement. The potential financial benefit was tremendous, since they no longer would have to support three leases, three executive directors, three IT systems and other overhead costs. But it all fell apart because no one could agree as to who would be in charge, whose name would be on the building, and how it would be communicated to the public.

In today’s uncertain environment, nonprofits may no longer be able to stand alone, particularly as funding becomes more precarious than ever before. As beneficial as mergers and other types of strategic partnerships can be, they are always messy. If you are considering any type of collaboration, here are a few things to consider in your discussions:

  • How do we describe the existing cultures, what are the key differences, and how do we mutually move to the culture dictated by the mission?
  • How do we identify who will be in charge — who is at the top and responsible for the success of the organization?
  • How do stakeholders — external and internal — view the proposed collaboration? How do we get everyone on the same page?

If you are entering the merger waters, we would be more than happy to help!

Jan Breiner Frazier, the managing member of Planning Plus, LLC, has been a consulting professional since 1988. She has designed and facilitated strategic, annual, and operational planning sessions for a multitude of organizations. Her work with non-profit boards and associations has included strategic planning, board development, and committee structure.

Oct 20

How are Nonprofits Evolving in the Midst of a Pandemic?

By Feature

Four local nonprofits share their strategies for staying on mission — in spite of unprecedented challenges

by Shari Finnell, editor, Not-for-Profit News

With Indiana approaching its ninth month of a deadly pandemic and another surge in cases, local nonprofit organizations are continuing to explore what it means to adapt. While many have implemented major changes, including virtual programming, facility modifications and alternative staffing, some are poised to evolve even further to accommodate a greater post-pandemic demand for services — both virtual and in-house.

As three local nonprofit leaders recently shared, nonprofits may need to continue to evolve for the foreseeable future as COVID-19 permanently reshapes how organizations operate.

Medical clinic adapts as more people lose jobs, insurance

Heart and Soul Free Clinic, a nonprofit that provides healthcare to the underserved, never considered shutting its doors as a viable option when COVID-19 reached Indiana in March 2020. The team was concerned that the population they served would be left without alternatives than emergency care. 

“Our biggest concern was the need to stay open,” recalled Lisa Kreag, executive director of the clinic, which is based in Westfield, Ind.. “A lot of the people we see are marginalized, low-income individuals. If our patients aren’t able to get to the doctor here, they don’t have other outlets. And we didn’t think ER was the greatest option because of the potential of exposure. We didn’t understand much about the virus at that time.”

The pandemic’s ultimate impact has yet to be seen, according to Kreag. With more and more people losing their jobs and, as a consequence, their health insurance, the clinic is now serving an increasing number of people. “We;re getting a lot of new patients and our costs are definitely increasing,” said Kreag, noting that the costs for lab work and prescriptions, which are covered by the clinic, are steadily increasing.

Another challenge was ensuring that the clinic had adequate numbers of volunteers to support its mission. Before the pandemic, a significant number of the clinic’s volunteers were retirees — an age group that already had been identified at high risk for developing severe COVID-19 complications. 

However, replenishing the clinic’s volunteer pool did not turn out to be as difficult as anticipated, Kreag said. With many employees and college students facing job furloughs, reduced work hours and suspension of classes, many signed up to help volunteer. The clinic also welcomed new volunteers who signed up after reading about opportunities in the Wellbeing Coalition of Westfield.  

To ensure that it delivered medical services in a safe environment, the clinic temporarily eliminated walk-in services. “We wanted to control who was coming in and who was coming out,” Kreag said. “We don’t want people to walk right into the office.” And, as with most offices, Heart and Soul follows Centers for Disease Control guidelines by taking the temperatures of anyone entering the office and asking them to answer a list of questions to determine if they have COVID-19 symptoms.

While current needs are being met, Kreag also anticipates continued adjustments for the clinic as an increasing number of people experience job losses. Currently, Kreag said, the clinic has been fortunate because those increased costs have been covered by grants.

To accommodate future demands, plans to expand by adding hours, Kreag said. Currently, the clinic has limited hours on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. “We’re flexible and small enough to quickly make changes by expanding hours — not facility space,” she said. 

Nonprofit unexpectedly expands to a statewide model 

Since 1987, the Indiana Youth Group (IYG), has been focused on meeting the needs of LGBTQ youth — many of whom had been kicked out of their homes, struggled with depression and suicidal thoughts, and experienced hunger and homelessness.

And IYG’s headquarters, just south of 38th and Meridian streets in Indianapolis, had been a haven for LGBTQ youth who needed access to a hot meal, laundry facilities, computers and other support services. On any given night, up to 75 youth between the ages of 12 and 20 would visit the four-story building, which includes a commercial kitchen, art space, classrooms, computer rooms, a music room, management offices and hangout spaces, said Chris Paulsen, CEO of IYG.

That all changed in March 2020 as the pandemic upended life for Hoosiers. IYG quickly adapted, implementing a plan to ensure the safety of its volunteers and employees while ensuring that it was delivering on its mission to serve homeless or low-income LGBTQ youth — who were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, Paulsen recalled.

On March 9, the IYG team decided to limit the number of volunteers allowed in the building, and restricted hours. “A lot of our volunteers are older. We just handled it with staff coming in three days a week,” Paulsen said. “By March 12, we went down to basic needs and stopped all in-person services.”

Instead of serving hot meals internally, the team started passing out hot pre-packaged food so that the youth they served could pick up meals. Youth also were allowed to use laundry facilities.

By March 27, the team had further pivoted, offering 19 different programs 36 times a month virtually. Because of the virtual nature of their offerings, IYG started attracting more youth from throughout the state. “We have picked up 127 new youth since the pandemic started,” Paulsen said.

IYG also noticed a troubling trend of homelessness and food insecurity increasing among LGBTQ youth. “The food insecurity has definitely grown since the beginning of the pandemic,” Paulsen said. “A lot of our youth have lost employment because they worked in restaurants or other public-facing jobs.”

Paulsen said homeless shelters generally are not safe for LGBTQ youth. “They avoid the shelters. Some of them couch surf, some trade sex for shelter and some are on the streets,” she said.

In spite of those increasing demands, the IYG building has remained nearly empty for more than six months. “No one has been hanging out in it,” Pauslen said. “It’s frustrating that we haven’t been able to use it.”

However, Paulsen and the IYG team are already making plans to further expand as a result of the pandemic — both virtually and in-house once pandemic restrictions are lifted. With an increasing number of LGBTQ youth engaging with IYG from across the state, the organization is prepared to continue its focus on delivering virtual services.

IYG has invested in new zoom rooms, laptops so that the team can integrate IYG’s in-person services with those engaging virtually. “We want all youth to have the same experience,” Paulsen said. “We applied for a grant to support the expenses. If it doesn’t come through, we’ll raise the money. We have 127 more youth we can’t walk away from.”

Nonprofit seeks ways to highlight its mission in pandemic times

As a nonprofit that focuses on helping women grow professionally, Passing the Torch for Women has expanded to a national model that relies on an extensive network of women mentoring other women.

From a logistical standpoint, pandemic restrictions did little to impact that model since most connections could continue virtually — with volunteers providing mentoring, said Deb Hallberg, CEO of Pass the Torch for Women Foundation. 

Although their staff members decided not to renew their office leases at Industrious, a co-working office complex on Massachusetts Avenue in downtown Indianapolis, they quickly shifted to meeting virtually from their homes. “We gave up our office spaces to streamline our budget, Hallberg said. “I think we are as effective as can be. We present an awesome program that was already virtual with many of our students, who are all over the United States. We’re taking it up a notch higher to create all-virtual programs so that everyone is available to participate.”

In the wake of the pandemic, Passing the Torch for Women created a needs-based fund to help students pay for groceries, utilities, rent and other bills. Many of its students have been furloughed or displaced from jobs, or have had challenges with maintaining their focus on their studies and work because of lack of childcare. “Women tend to have to do it all,” Hallberg said. “Now, as a result of COVID, we’ve lost even more ground.”

The main challenges presented by major events in 2020 — COVID-19 and social injustice protests — were primarily around messaging as a nonprofit, Hallberg said. 

Many nonprofits that did not neatly fall into specific categories directly related to issues such as hunger relief or anti-racism could find it difficult to attract funding in the current climate, Hallberg said. “We were reluctant to make a huge push to ask donors to give more because we knew everyone was going through the experience of downsizing and facing a lot of challenges,” she said. “We felt that it wasn’t appropriate so we streamlined our budget for as long as we could.”

While Passing the Torch for Women helps many minority women, the mission is not directly tied to social justice issues, which further complicates messaging, Hallberg said. “We help marginalized, non-traditional adult female students by helping them earn a wage above the poverty line,” she said. “We provide mentoring, networking and professional development. We are giving women hope, 30 percent of whom are single moms, 80 percent are on government assistance and about 80 percent are black and brown.

“We have our hand out to say, ‘If you will take my hand, I will share my wisdom and knowledge with you and help you cross that next finish line, and the next, and the next … whatever you set out in front of you as your goal,” Hallberg said. 

In spite of that focus, Hallberg said, Passing the Torch for Women’s mission is not directly tied to a demographic. “The focus (from many funding organizations) has been on helping those with a specific mission focused on minorities. It has prohibited us from getting some funding. We need to do a better job of telling our story.”

Hallberg remains hopeful that Passing the Torch for Women will continue its mission. “I know six months from now, and beyond, we’re still going to be here. We’re going to be OK,” she said. 

Oct 05

Don’t have a data partner? You need to get one … now

By Sponsor Insight

by Leslie Wells, Assistant Director of Communications, the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at IUPUI

It’s a data-driven world, and finding a partner to help in the process is critical to a nonprofit’s future, its funders and, most importantly, to those whom the organization serves. Most nonprofits want and need to be able to show promising results to justify their existing efforts and their plans for future expansion. At the same time, staff members at those organizations also want to know that their hard work is making a difference. Having solid, reliable data can help them accomplish both of these goals.

But data can be intimidating, and many groups don’t know where to begin.

“Any nonprofit needs to start with solid questions and ideas about what they’ll do and who they’ll serve,” said Breanca Merritt, director for the Indiana University Public Policy Institute’s Center for Research on Inclusion and Social Policy (CRISP). “Data helps you answer those questions and make informed decisions.”

CRISP recently partnered with the Martin Luther King Community Center in Indianapolis to address community crime prevention, thanks to a grant from the Central Indiana Community Foundation.

After reviewing the research CRISP conducted, leaders at the MLK Center assessed their strategy and shifted their focus to young people. They used the data CRISP collected to secure a grant and create the Best Buy Teen Tech Center. From computers to a recording studio and a 3D printer, the new space gives at-risk preteens and teens the opportunity to explore tech-based interests, careers, and opportunities.

Merritt says the MLK Center project is an example of what embracing data can do for nonprofits — and she has advice for organizations that are just beginning their data journey:

1. Define your vision. Decide who it is you want to serve and how, then think about what data or other resources you already have — or don’t have — to communicate that story.

2. Find a data and research partner. If you’re not a data person, find someone who is. Let them analyze your data before you reach your own conclusions. They can help you translate your big picture goals into something more tangible and measurable.

A good data and research partner organization should:

  • Value your organization’s work
  • Be knowledgeable about what you do
  • Have a heart for your work, but the brain and expertise for the research you need
  • Be adaptive, flexible, and patient

3. Don’t forget funders. Use data to give funders a more comprehensive picture of what you’re doing, why they should invest, and the return on their investment.

4. Review the data often. Ongoing evaluation allows you to make course corrections and stay on track. Merritt recommends reviewing the data at the six-month or one-year mark — and beyond.

“The six-month mark is a very forgiving review time because if something isn’t going according to plan, you have time to fix it,” she said. “But long-term evaluation matters, too. You don’t want to get 10 years into a program and realize you need to make major changes.”

Also, Merritt advised, reviewing data earlier on might be even more useful than waiting until the one-year mark, depending on the length of your program.

The CRISP Clinic
Even with this advice, many organizations often lack the staffing, time, and/or expertise to conduct even small assessments of internal data, client experiences or community engagement.

That’s where Merritt and her team can help. Beginning in spring 2021, the CRISP Clinic will begin accepting new organizations. The clinic will provide low- to no-cost research and evaluation services to help nonprofit organizations in Central Indiana that serve diverse populations and address issues of equity and/or social policy. The hope is to expand the services to other regions.

At the heart of the clinic is a diverse team of service-minded student researchers who can put their critical-thinking and evaluative skills to work for nonprofits in need. The student researchers will be overseen by Roxy Lawrence, a program analyst at CRISP. Initially, the clinic’s projects will likely be relatively small in scope, ranging from support in program development and capacity building, to client participation and engagement. The team will seek to understand how effective programs are, and the level of stakeholder and/or community engagement.

“These students have been instrumental in identifying, interviewing, and surveying the philanthropic organizations from which many local nonprofits receive funding,” Merritt said. “They’ve helped develop an application for organizations, a rubric for scoring those applications, and a schedule for onboarding and managing the clinic’s projects.”

Organizations will be selected based on three primary selection criteria:

Does the organization or program aim to achieve equitable outcomes among participants, service goals, or other aspects of the work?
Does the organization or program address issues of social policy?
Would the organization not be able to obtain these services elsewhere at low or no cost?

The team also will take into consideration other factors, including whether an organization could conduct any research-related activities on its own, the demographics of the clients served, the size and need of any related work, and the organization’s willingness to work with students.

These projects would last no more than three to four months each, from the initial identification and meeting with stakeholders, through development and implementation of research strategy, and the culmination in a final report.

Organizations that are interested in applying for the CRISP Clinic can reach out directly to Lawrence and Merritt at IUCRISP@iu.edu.

Leslie Wells

Oct 05

COVID-19 forces more than 40 percent of Central Indiana nonprofits to reconsider facility needs, and some to implement new delivery models, according to CA survey

By Feature

by Shari Finnell, editor, Not-for-Profit News

After more than seven months of operating under restrictions caused by COVID-19, most nonprofit organizations have made adjustments in programming and/or office operations,  with some permanently changing their service models with the aid of technology, according to an informal survey by Charitable Advisors.

For some, the new normal has revealed inadequacies in employees’ ability to deliver services from home. However, others noted some positive outcomes.

“Now we understand we can work successfully from home,” one survey respondent said. “The silver lining is that we all gained better technological skills. Plus, we adapted by recruiting, training, and working with volunteers all through virtual means — remarkable.” With that significant shift, the survey respondent said that the team plans to reduce its lease footprint in the future.

Another survey respondent questioned the need for a facility if social distancing continued to be a requirement for the foreseeable future. “Our current space is not set up for social distancing,” the respondent said. “Do we need a physical location at all?”

However, a significant number indicated that they will continue to need their facilities to deliver services.

Of 59 nonprofit representatives who responded to the survey, which was conducted in August 2020 …

  • more than 30% said that everyone was working from home;
  • nearly 38% said programs are being delivered virtually;
  • slightly more than 12% said programs have been suspended;
  • more than 44% continue to deliver in-person services;
  • more than 40% reported that they are now reconsidering their facility needs;
  • and more than 50% say they do not anticipate any change in facilities post-COVID.

Numerous organizations also reported that their team has become more innovative about facility usage in an effort to maintain social distancing as outlined under COVID-19 guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For example, a survey respondent reported, employees at their nonprofit work as part of a staggered shift pattern to maintain social distancing in facility environments that do not allow for those regulations to be met at full capacity. “Everyone is working from home but they may come in on designated days to limit the number of people in the office,” the respondent said. Another said that their nonprofit is now open only two days a week instead of five days a week.

Also, a significant number of respondents said they are safely providing in-person services by implementing adaptations and restrictions. Some of the nonprofits that provide essential services, including medical care, haven’t stopped delivering services. However, they are operating under different guidelines.. “We are currently pre-screening patients by phone and scheduling appointments, instead of our walk-in hours,” a respondent said. “We may continue a hybrid version of this protocol in future months.”

Another respondent said their team adapted for social distancing but have no plans to change their use of their facilities in the future. “Our work really requires human interaction. Virtual is a poor substitute.”

Several respondents said the pandemic also initiated their thinking about creating a remote workforce. “We plan to shrink our office footprint, but that was planned for 2021 anyway; not directly because of the pandemic,” a survey respondent said. “In response to the pandemic, we would shrink now if we could without a lease penalty.”

Sep 22

IRS Releases Guidance on Executive Action Deferring Payroll Taxes

By Uncategorized

On August 28, the IRS issued guidance that provides some explanation of how employers can defer withholding and remitting an employee’s share of Social Security tax when wages are below a certain amount. The guidance in Notice 2020-65 was issued to implement President Trump’s executive action signed in early August.

The guidance is brief, and private employers still have questions about whether, and how, to implement the deferral. The President’s action only defers Social Security taxes; it doesn’t forgive them, meaning employees will have to pay the taxes later unless Congress passes a law to eliminate the liability.

Tax deferral background

On August 8, President Trump signed a Presidential Memorandum that permits the deferral of the employee portion of Social Security taxes for certain employees due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The memorandum directed Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to defer withholding, deposit and payment of an eligible employee’s share of Social Security taxes (or the employee’s share of Railroad Retirement taxes) on wages or compensation paid from September 1, 2020, through December 31, 2020. It applies to employees whose wages or compensation, payable during any biweekly pay period, generally are less than $4,000, or the equivalent amount with respect to other pay periods. The determination of applicable wages is made on a pay-period-by-pay-period basis. Amounts can be deferred without penalties, interest or additions to the tax.

Note: Under the CARES Act, employers can already defer paying their portion of Social Security taxes through December 31, 2020. All 2020 deferred amounts are due in two equal installments — one at the end of 2021 and the other at the end of 2022.

New guidance

Issued on August 28, the three-page guidance postpones the withholding and remittance of the employee share of Social Security tax until the period beginning on January 1, 2021, and ending on April 30, 2021. Penalties, interest and additions to tax will begin to accrue on May 1, 2021, for any unpaid taxes. The notice doesn’t stipulate that the deferral is required, suggesting that the deferral may be optional.

The guidance states that “if necessary,” the employer “may make arrangements to collect the total applicable taxes” from an employee. This appears to answer one question that employers have about what happens if an employee leaves a job later this year or before the deferred taxes are due. However, no additional details are given on how an employer should make arrangements to collect unpaid tax.

Pushback from business groups

Before the guidance was issued, several business and payroll groups stated that their members would not implement the deferral. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and more than 30 trade associations sent a letter to members of Congress and the U.S. Department of the Treasury calling the deferral unworkable.

“If this were a suspension of the payroll tax so that employees were not forced to pay it back later, implementation would be less challenging,” the letter states. “But under a simple deferral, employees would be stuck with a large tax bill in 2021. Many of our members consider it unfair to employees to make a decision that would force a big tax bill on them next year… Therefore, many of our members will likely decline to implement deferral, choosing instead to continue to withhold and remit to the government the payroll taxes required by law.”

The National Payroll Reporting Consortium, a payroll services industry association, stated there are “substantial” computer programming changes that are needed to implement the deferral.

“Payroll systems are designed to apply a single Social Security tax rate for the full year, and to all employees equally,” the consortium explained. “Applying a different tax rate for part of the year, beginning in the middle of a quarter, and applying such a change to some employers but not others, and to some employees but not others, is quite complex. Not all employers and payroll systems will be able to make these complex changes by September 1.”

Going forward

There are still unanswered questions about the payroll tax deferral. If you need assistance or have questions about how to proceed at your business, contact Deirdre Bird at dbird@vlcpa.com or Jami Vallandingham at jvallandingham@vlcpa.com. We can help you decide whether to participate and how to go forward.

Sep 21

A Commitment to Caring is Critical to the Community’s Bottom Line

By Sponsor Insight

by Sandy McCarthy, president of retirement services, OneAmerica®

The mention of OneAmerica® in central Indiana may likely spark thoughts about the company’s witty signboard, prominent position in Indianapolis’ downtown skyline, or its title sponsorship of the OneAmerica 500 Festival Mini-Marathon.

While these are important aspects of the OneAmerica corporate identity, they don’t begin to tell the full story of the company’s commitment to the customers and communities it serves.

As the head of Retirement Services at OneAmerica, I often speak on how to develop a secure financial future and how to leverage education as a key to empowerment. Today, I’d like to go a step further and share how these concepts, which are so vital to us in Retirement Services, are also foundational to OneAmerica and its commitment to our city and neighbors in central Indiana – and why, especially during these challenging times, that commitment is more important than ever.

We exist to help others

For more than 140 years, the companies of OneAmerica have operated from the perspective that our business is more than our bottom line. We’re committed to the Americans we serve and the Hoosiers we live and work with, and we believe it’s our privilege and responsibility to better the community we call home. From the top down, our leaders and associates are committed to giving back, and we view these community contributions to be as important as the impact we have on the retirement and financial services industry.

Pathways Junior Fellows Program – Education and opportunity lead to empowerment

In the retirement realm, we understand that education and access to robust tools and resources can enable individuals to take ownership of their financial futures. The same concept applies in our community, where education and opportunity can open doors and help an individual find a promising path that once seemed out of reach.

OneAmerica has brought this idea to life with our Pathways Junior Fellows Program, which provides students from underserved areas in central Indiana with an introductory workplace experience. Partnered with OneAmerica associates who serve as mentors, and in collaboration with other community organizations, the students participate in job shadowing and career exploration, receive soft-skill job training and learn about the financial industry. This paid five-week experience yields meaningful results: these students, who often saw the OneAmerica Tower from their homes but couldn’t picture themselves ever working there, now know they have the skills, experience and connections to pursue future opportunities at OneAmerica or at other companies in our community.

Investing in people has benefits beyond the individual

OneAmerica focuses much of our giving and volunteer efforts on education and workforce development, because we believe that helping individuals grow and advance sets off a positive chain reaction. Empowered individuals create opportunities for themselves and their families, leading to healthier communities and ultimately a stronger, more diverse workforce. The Pathways Junior Fellows program benefits individual students and their families, but it also helps us grow as an employer and gives us a pipeline of future employees who understand our culture, improve our organization’s diversity and make us stronger.

Another component of the Pathways program is geared toward workforce development and putting our associates on the path to sustainable income. Launched in 2018, this initiative was introduced after we reviewed Brookings Institution research about what constitutes good jobs, along with the troubling statistic that only 35% of central Indiana workers without a bachelor’s degree held a good or promising job in 2017. We took immediate action to reverse this trend at OneAmerica, examining and adjusting our positions to ensure every associate has the opportunity to earn a sustainable wage of $18 an hour*, plus strong health and retirement benefits. This investment once again created a ripple effect – impacting our associates, making OneAmerica a better place to work, and enhancing our ability to grow and further contribute to the community.

Diversity and inclusion move us forward

Our Retirement Services philosophy reflects our commitment to support all retirement-plan participants, regardless of where they are on their financial journey. We listen to understand individuals’ unique goals, challenges and viewpoints.

OneAmerica shares this commitment company-wide. We value all people, listen to individual perspectives and believe we are stronger together. Having employees with attributes and backgrounds that reflect our diverse community and the markets we serve is important, and we’ve worked to make our company more reflective. Over the last five years, among our executives, we’ve increased the percentage of people of color by 580% and the percentage of women by 65%. And, we’ve continued to sponsor and support local organizations and events focused on diversity and inclusion – from the Indianapolis Urban League and Indiana Black Expo, to Dress for Success and Integrating Women Leaders, to the 2020 Center for Leadership Development’s 40th Annual Minority Achievers Award & Scholarship Gala, among many others.

We’re also committed to racial equity and continuously moving our community forward on this important issue. We believe meaningful change comes by relying on relationships – seeking genuine feedback and learning together. We’ve instituted listening sessions with our associates, sales professionals and distribution partners, and will use what we learn to inform next steps.

We continue our commitments in challenging times

Despite the challenges of 2020, OneAmerica remains firm in maintaining our community commitments continuing to show up for the customers and neighbors who depend on us. Across the organization, we pride ourselves on being there in times of need and being a source of strength in times of uncertainty.

While this year has changed the way we connect with each other, we value our community engagements more than ever. We’re taking our seventh annual Week of Caring – when our associates volunteer thousands of hours for United Way agencies – and our United Way giving campaign virtual, ensuring that associates still have the opportunity to give back. We honored our commitments to our interns and Pathways students, offering them virtual opportunities to connect and engage. We provided advanced financial support, ahead of our payment deadlines, to vendors and local non-profits, to help with financial challenges. We opened our kitchen and cafeteria to provide Sahm’s and Second Helpings a place to prepare meals for low-income senior citizens. We funded masks and sanitizers for local healthcare workers, and we worked to support e-learning, providing central Indiana students with access to technology and internet services.

Being there for the people who count on us – from retirement plan sponsors, to working Americans seeking financial security, to our central Indiana neighbors – means everything to us. We’re driven and guided by this bigger purpose, and we’re invested in the customers, neighbors and community we serve. Though our deep community involvement isn’t always as front and center as our signboard or our recognizable position in the Indy skyline, it has always been and will continue to be the foundation of the OneAmerica story – through both good and challenging times.

*$18/hour with health and retirement benefits is the sustainable wage threshold for our region, according to the referenced Brookings Institution study.

As president of Retirement Services, Sandy McCarthy leads the OneAmerica® team offering defined contribution and defined benefits services with a strong focus on customized retirement plans through highly personalized administration and recordkeeping services. She brings more than 30 years of industry experience, including key leadership roles at Mercer, ING (now Voya), and CitiStreet.

Sep 21

Local Nonprofit Leaders View Social Justice Protests as Catalyst for Real Change

By Feature

by Shari Finnell, editor, Not-for-Profit News

This article is the first in a series of perspectives on how to achieve racial equity locally, nationally and globally. If you would like to submit your nonprofit’s racial justice initiative for possible publication in Not-for-Profit News, please contact Shari Finnell at shari@charitableadvisors.com.

“What’s next?” That’s the question on the agendas of many nonprofits in the wake of racial justice protests joined by as many as 26 million people throughout America in 2020. Here, the following five Central Indiana leaders give their perspectives on how to address that question as part of efforts to achieve real change in our nation’s renewed quest for racial equity.

  • Alan Bacon, senior director of Social Innovation for United Way of Central Indiana
  • Ebony Chappell, manager of program and communications, Leadership Indianapolis
  • Jill English, director of Child Advocates’ Interrupting Racism for Children
  • Una Osili, associate dean for research and international programs at Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy
  • Lindsey Rabinowitch, director of the Faith & Action Project for Christian Theological Seminary.

Alan Bacon, senior director of Social Innovation for United Way of Central Indiana

“We have a unique opportunity to do something about racial justice.”

With as many as 26 million people joining in Black Lives Matters protests nationwide in 2020, the United States could be poised for real change in achieving racial equity, according to Alan Bacon, senior director of social innovation for United Way of Central Indiana (UWCI).

“This is a large and significant moment for world history,” Bacon said. “We saw the entire world galvanize around the notion of racial equity. A lot of organizations are now asking, ‘What can we do to help?’.”

However, Bacon said, the moment could be lost unless there is an investment in the work required to eliminate systemic racism. “There’s a lot of work to be done to ensure that it’s not just a footnote to the history of 2020,” he said. “We have a unique opportunity to do something about racial justice.”

As organizations and individuals seek to increase awareness and implement policies to promote equity they must first step out of their comfort zones, Bacon said. “We need to challenge ourselves on our biases, and challenge ourselves to support each other,” he said. “There can be a great response when the community comes together.”

While the work will look different for every organization, Bacon said, there must be a challenge to seek innovative solutions — ones to replace those that haven’t worked in the past.

In his role at UWCI, Bacon supports organizations that are implementing new solutions for long-standing social challenges like multi-generational poverty. “Social innovation is about trying to find new innovative strategies, programs and initiatives to deploy in the community to help fight poverty and help residents experience upward mobility,” he said. We’re trying to figure out what are those new approaches to get a different result … social innovation that makes the most change and most impact.”

That approach also includes encouraging thought leadership, bringing groups together to talk about challenges and solutions, and accessing diverse thought in the community, “We look at innovation from a disruptive lens,” Bacon said. “We try to be as audacious as possible, understanding that, to move the needle, you must do things differently. At the same time, the initiative must be sustainable. There is a high-risk, high reward approach to dealing with innovation.”

Like an increasing number of organizations, the UWCI has invested in an alternative grant-making process for its new Social Innovation Fund. Bacon said it allows UWCI to make informed decisions when awarding grants to agencies that are bringing new ideas on how to address poverty.

“Organizations don’t have to be accredited with United Way to participate in the competitive-based process for funding,” Bacon said. “There’s not a large barrier of entry. If you have a 501c3 status, you can participate in the grantmaking for Social Innovation.” As a result, the pool of applicants for the first round of Social Innovation Fund grants had a good amount of diversity, Bacon said.

Of the 14 grants awarded in 2019, seven went to organizations led by people of color and six were awarded to organizations led by women, Bacon said. “We were able to achieve equity by being intentional on the front end,” he said. “We’re finding ways to implement equity in current processes and programming. We have done well in regard to grantmaking for Social Innovation.”

You Yes You! Project, which was among the first grant recipients of the Social Innovation Fund, demonstrates an innovative approach to targeting multi-generational poverty in Central Indiana, Bacon said. The nonprofit focuses on building healthy relationships between incarcerated fathers and their children through programming and education, a two-generation approach designed to break the cycle of poverty in the household.

Education is another critical area for organizations to address when implementing anti-racism policies and programs, Bacon said. It’s important to understand how racism has impacted housing development, food and transportation access, contributing to the issues that many people of color are now facing, he said.

“It’s important to move forward, but it’s also important to look back and understand the history of systemic racism,” Bacon said. “If not, we will eventually become complacent and not get anywhere. We need to inform with intent. This is not just a moment in American history. We need to ask, ‘How do we build a collection of moments to make real change within our country?”

Ebony Chappel, program and communications manager, Leadership Indianapolis

Ebony Chappel of Leadership Indianapolis, recalls watching broadcasts in disbelief as protests for racial equity erupted nationwide in the wake of the death of George Floyd in May. “Initially, I was very emotional by all the things I was seeing on television and right here in my home city,” Chappel said. “The onslaught was so sudden. I went to sleep and when I woke up, it seemed as if the world was on fire.” 

Yet, at the same time, Chappel said, the reality of systemic racism in America diminished some of her surprise. “The embers have been glowing for a long time,” Chappel said. “A deeper part of me wasn’t shocked. This was history taking its course … chicken coming home to roost.”

Referring to an analogy used by author Arundhati Roy to describe the 2020 pandemic, Chappel said mass protests can provide a portal for lasting change. 

“When he referred to the pandemic as a portal, that stuck out to me so much,” Chappel said. “We also can use this time as an opportunity to implement real change with racial equity … as a portal to a different way of being. However, that depends upon our collective ability to shift and do something different.

“If everyone is focused on retaining the status quo, I personally believe it will lead to our ruin,” she said. “If we collectively decide this society is not equitable because so many people are disenfranchised, I believe it will change our world for the better, a world full of possibilities.”

Local nonprofits that are already implementing innovative strategies can serve as models for other organizations seeking direction, Chappel said.

“CICF (Central Indiana Community Foundation) is a good example of an organization doing something differently and not maintaining the status quo,” she said. “It’s well known that it can be very difficult for smaller nonprofits to get grant funding. There’s a lot of bureaucracy and extensive application processes that put certain groups in need at a disadvantage.”

CICF eliminated those barriers to access by disseminating money based on needs, not primarily on an organization’s ability to excel with the grant application process, Chappel said. “Their focus is on redistributing wealth and power, bringing people to the table that hadn’t been there before. As a result, these smaller nonprofits now have a stake in how decisions are being made.”

Similarly Leadership Indianapolis has been shifting its focus to ensure that city leadership is more multicultural, more multigenerational and more collaborative, Chappel said.

As organizations explore ways to increase diversity among their boards and workforce, it’s important to avoid a cursory approach, Chappel added. “You can’t think, If I put a black person on my board, then automatically the problem is solved,” she said. “It takes intentional work, including a focus on choosing people who can advance the vision of the organization because of what they can bring to the table.”

It also is important to tap into the unique strengths of board members instead of expecting them to adjust to fit into the culture of the existing board,” she said. “A new board member should feel comfortable bringing themselves to the table without feeling a need to adjust to fit that mold.” For example, board members should be willing to explore more innovative technology, if younger board members prefer it as a mode of communication.

Lastly, organizations must understand that the work of diversity is not a one-person job, Chappel said. “It demands a collective effort. If you want to make sure your computers are running well, you don’t rely on one person,” she said. “If you want to make sure the building is clean, you don’t leave that responsibility to one single person. The business of diversity belongs to all of us.”

Jill English, director of Child Advocates’ Interrupting Racism for Children

Any work involving dismantling system racism must include a focus on children, as well as the acknowledgement that inequities impact everyone, according to Jill English, director of Child Advocates’ Interrupting Racism for Children (IRFC). 

As part of her role with Child Advocates, English contributes to the organization’s mission to illuminate how systemic racism has become institutionalized in America and how it is passed on from one generation to the next. IRFC hosts a two-day, interactive workshop where individuals and leaders can learn how to confront racism. “We need to address the question, ‘How do we interrupt racism for our children since we haven’t been able to do it for one another?’,” English said.

When implementing policies to address systemic racism, organizations should engage in deep reflection and examination without an environment of shame, English said. 

“We all need to acknowledge that it is embedded in our society. Oftentimes, this work has involved calling people out, shaming them, telling them what they do wrong, what they don’t get, or what they don’t know,” English said. “We need to come from a place of caring. I care more about children than being right. We focus on moving one another to a place where we can actually start interrupting racism and putting the tools we learn in the workshop into effect so we can change the trajectory of where we are today.”

English also said that the IRFC workshop is designed to help attendees understand the scope of racism’s impact on all demographics.

As an example, Child Advocates came to the realization that white children were also at a disadvantage because of racial biases. “If 70 percent of the child population in Marion County is white, for example, and only 46 percent of the children in Child Protective Services are white on any given day, where are all the white children who are being abused and neglected?” English asked. 

“We need to see that we are allowing white children to get hurt or leaving them in dangerous situations for no other reason than that we don’t see it,” she added. “Just as we see abuse and neglect for the same situation in an African-American family, the same thing happens to a white child but we don’t see it because of our implicit biases. ‘White’ hides a lot of things. At the same time, too many African-American children are being removed from their homes. How do we help them?”

“We need to connect to an understanding that racism hurts everyone,” she said. “When it gets better for one population, it gets better for all when it’s done from an equitable lens.”

English said when organizations approach her about how to develop a strategic plan, she often encourages them to reflect on their own goals and mission. “The work of racial equity isn’t meant to be a check in a box … just for you to say it’s something you’ve done. It must be part of a journey,” she said.

She likened it to setting goals for a healthier lifestyle. “You don’t go to a gym, check it off a box and then 10 years later say I’m still working on my health,” English said. “In the same way, you can’t go to a cultural competency workshop and then expect to be done. It is an intentional daily practice similar to health. If you want to be healthy when it comes to racism, you have to figure out your organization’s goal and commit to it daily.”

English also said organizations may need to seek external help to hold them accountable in the work of diversity. “It’s hard to have a DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) within an organization and give them the responsibility to hold their colleagues accountable,” she said.

Ultimately, as part of its mission, Child Advocates is intent on creating a community that allows children to reach their full potential; in an environment where their outcomes are not based on their race, English said. “We want to create a world where that’s no longer on the table.”

Una Osili, associate dean for research and international programs at Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy

The diversity among the millions of people who joined more than 10,600 protests this summer gave Una Osili and her family reason to hope that efforts to eradicate racism in America would be more successful — this time around.

“I’m optimistic,” said Osili, associate dean for research and international programs at Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. “One of the reasons this moment is so different is that it involves such a broad-based group of individuals and organizations. What we saw with these protests and calls for racial justice didn’t involve just one racial group. A lot of different communities were represented as part of a grassroots effort.”

Her parents, who were college students during the social injustice protests of the 1960s, also expressed optimism about the mass demonstrations in 2020. “When they looked at footage around the country and around the world, they noticed that the crowds were so diverse,” said Osili, whose parents currently live in Nigeria. “It was inspiring. The call to action was not just coming from black and brown people. It was coming from people of all races and of all ages.”

Osili said intentional collaboration on a large scale, building upon the progress already made by nonprofit organizations immersed in social justice work, is the next step to real change.

“There was a lot of energy and vision that came from our young people,” Osili said. “It’s up to us to deepen the conversations. The questions now are, ‘How do you sustain and build on that progress for it to be a lasting movement?’ ‘What are our values? What do we stand for?’ All of us own a piece of that to a large extent.”

With such a large opportunity for change, Osili added, all sectors must come together to collaborate — government, education, nonprofit and businesses. “If you think about the scale of the work, no one organization can solve this on its own,” she said. “Collaboration is key, yet we haven’t done so well with that in the past.”

Osili said there have been recent developments in more collaborative approaches, citing the Central Indiana Racial Equity Fund as an example. The fund, a collaboration among Eli Lilly and Company Foundation, Lumina Foundation and Central Indiana Community Foundation, was established to address racial inequities in the criminal justice system. It also received contributions from Anthem Foundation, Buckingham Foundation, Dorsey Foundation, Rick Fuson and Karen Ferguson Fuson, Marianne Glick and Mike Woods, Glick Philanthropies, Herbert Simon Family Foundation, High Alpha, The Indianapolis Foundation, Indianapolis Power & Light Company, Lilly Endowment Inc., and Pacers Foundation.

“When organizations join forces, there can be tremendous gain and benefit,” said Osili, noting that nonprofits, including colleges and universities, can play a critical leadership role because of their previous experience and knowledge base. 

While collaboration is critical, internal work also must be at the forefront of racial equity efforts, Osili said. Organizations can start by conducting an analysis of hiring practices, processes, assets, board composition and endowments from the perspective of inclusion and diversity, she said. 

For example, research from the IU Lilly Family School of Philanthropy shows that   nonprofit boards are less diverse than those of government and corporate boards, Osili said. “Nonprofits are doing well on the gender side; there’s good representation in terms of addressing gender in leadership,” she said. “When you start looking at race and ethnicity, including in areas you would expect more representation like the arts, environment and international, you don’t see good representation.”

Some organizations are addressing minority board representation in several innovative ways, Osili said. Board Connector, an organization based in Chattanooga, Tenn., has developed an app to help nonprofits reach their goals for diversity. 

The Indianapolis Urban League, along with other Urban League chapters, sponsors a young leaders group that can be tapped for board membership, Osili said. “They’re ready to serve and are very knowledgeable,” she added. “Many organizations tend to go to the same people to join their boards. They’re inundated with requests.”

“At the same time, we also need to prepare young emerging leaders so they’re ready to serve,” Osili said. “It’s the responsibility of both the organization and the larger nonprofit infrastructure to provide readiness, to equip them with the tools to be successful.”

Lindsey Rabinowitch, director of the Faith & Action Project for Christian Theological Seminary (CTS)

As an increasing number of organizations lean in to address social justice and inequities, increasing awareness must be at the foundation of their efforts, said Lindsey Rabinowitch, director of the Faith & Action Project for Christian Theological Seminary (CTS).

“Part of the work involved in undoing racism is to make sure we are reading, studying and being aware of all the ways we have privilege, including systemic policies that often hold back minorities,” said Rabinowitch, who regularly reads to stay informed. 

Organizations, whether congregations, businesses or nonprofits, also need to identify their niche as part of the larger work involved in eradicating racial inequities, she said. “Some of the questions can include, ‘How can we make sure everyone has access to quality education?’ ‘What is the situation of our community?” 

While goals may be more clearly identifiable for businesses, such as addressing diversity hiring plans, nonprofits can commit to advocating for equity in numerous areas — from early and convenient voting to education and training for incarcerated populations, affordable childcare and accessible transportation, Rabinowitch said.

Among the critical areas CTS has sought to address through the Faith & Action Project is the disproportionate rate of poverty among Indianapolis residents, including children, when compared with the rest of the nation. According to recent statistics compiled by The Polis Center at IUPUI, one of five people in Central Indiana live under the poverty level. Minorities are among those most negatively impacted, 

Rabinowitch noted.

“CTS always has been a very progressive organization with a mission of shaping individuals for leadership in efforts to mitigate poverty, and ensure equal opportunities and treatment for all people,” Rabinowitch said. “We believe all people deserve affordable quality housing, affordable health care and balanced nutrition that’s accessible. We help families move out of poverty and stand on their own. We want people to have a sense of belonging and the ability to experience upward mobility.”

Rabinowitch also advised organizations to shape their conversations by being more inclusive. “We need to change this narrative on poverty — it’s not ‘us’ vs. ‘them,’” she said. “We need to make sure we see each other. We belong to one another.”

Sep 08

How to Protect Yourself and Your Organization from Fraudulent Attacks

By Sponsor Insight

Malicious cyberattacks cost the U.S. economy as much as $109 billion in 2016, the Council of Economic Advisors reported. Three years later, in 2019, individuals and organizations experienced record losses due to fraud, identity theft and other related complaints, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

During the current global pandemic, fraudulent activity has continued to increase. Today, we have a lot to be overwhelmed by, but knowing how to best protect yourself now can keep you safe for the future.

The following includes important information and tips to minimize your risks of becoming victimized by fraudulent attacks:

Why are fraudulent attempts on the rise? According to the Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. (FIS), criminal activity involving pilfered credit card numbers and phishing attacks has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic — targeting both consumers and banks. Also, with the decline in travel and shopping at brick-and-mortar stores, more and more fraudulent attacks have shifted to the internet.

FIS reported that the dollar volume of attempted fraudulent transactions increased by 35% in April 2020, when compared to April 2019. It also noted that the trend seemed to be continuing.

What does a fraudulent attempt look like? Fraudulent attempts come in many different forms, including emails, robocalls, direct messages, credit card charges, ransomware and wire transfers that may appear legitimate. In many cases, scams will materialize as claims from government entities, financial institutions, or large organizations (like a utility company). The most prevalent methods of cyberattacks include randomly computer-generated card numbers, attempted purchases with card numbers previously stolen, and phishing attacks (emails, phone calls, and direct messages.)

How can you protect yourself and your organization?

  1. Be alert. Keep a close eye on all accounts. Most banks will alert you via call or text, but you know your purchases best. An automated alert could be generated by another fraudster. After email security has met a best practices baseline, employee training and testing is the best way to prevent a breach.
  2. Stay safe. Understand the differences between credit card and debit card use. The government limits your liability on fraudulent credit card purchases to $50. Also, it usually takes much longer to get funds reimbursed with a debit card than a credit card. Lastly, a credit card freeze is much less impactful to a person’s ability to carry on their day-to-day activities than if their bank account is frozen.
  3. Be proactive. Know how to freeze your accounts. Some financial institutions provide online or app-based access to allow you to quickly and easily complete this function. If your bank or credit union doesn’t, call immediately to ask them to freeze your account after you notice any fraudulent charges appearing in your purchase history. You can also limit the number of breach attempts through an investment in enhanced spam filtering services and Advanced Threat Protection safeguards. Enhanced email back-ups also can help prevent major losses.
  4. Know how to handle anything that comes your way. If it looks suspicious, it probably is. Be diligent when it comes to answering robocalls, opening emails, and responding to voicemails. Keep contacts up to date and block unknown callers. Take the time to learn more about how to secure your phone (Apple, iPhone, iOS, and Android). With COVID-19 related scams on the rise, it’s also important to educate yourself, friends, co-workers and relatives with the latest consumer scams reported by the FCC.
  5. Know what to look for when reviewing suspicious or official-looking documents and messages. Beware of the following:
    – Communications with terms like “stimulus check” or “stimulus payment.” The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will use the term “economic impact payment.”
    – Requests to “sign over” a stimulus check
    – Anyone requesting bank information or direct deposit information by way of phone, text, email, social media or other messenger apps
    – Postal mail receipt of a [fake] check with a request to call a number or verify information online to cash it.
    – Malware or virus packages using Covid-19 as an incentive to open them.
    – New Covid-19-related websites; they could be designed to scam or defraud visitors.
    – Work-at-home infrastructure attacks. Ensure your employees have a firewall when using company or personal devices for work-related activities.
  6. Seek expert help. The time to detect vulnerabilities is not after you have been a victim of an attack. At Covi, we help our clients navigate changes in technology, including the latest cyber security measures to protect you and your organization from malicious behavior by hackers.