INTEGRATING FINANCIAL CONCEPTS OF NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS INTO THE FINANCE CURRICULUM

Although nonprofit organizations are a major sector of economic activity and many of our students will eventually find employment in this area, it tends to be neglected in the finance curriculum. This is all the more unfortunate and surprising given the explicit Christian mission found at most CBFA schools. This paper will identify and discuss the unique problems and differences encountered by nonprofit’s in their finance/treasury departments. Given this background, the paper will then propose how the finance curriculum could be enriched by suggesting specific nonprofit concepts that would be most useful for infusion into finance courses. The argument has been made that economic criteria such as maximizing value or earnings dominate decision making in for-profit organizations. But, such criteria are secondary or nonexistent in nonprofits, especially service based nonprofits whose primary focus is providing aid to the indigent. Here there are competing criteria such as religious values, compassion, community needs and the primacy of the service ethic. Since not-for-profits (N.F.P.’s) technically don’t seek to maximize profit, do these competing criteria significantly alter the related treasury/finance function in these organizations