Van Brunt Neighborhood Consortia

in the Van Brunt neighborhood in an effort to save the neighborhood from decay and destruction.

They succeeded, and formed the Van Brunt Neighborhood Consortia (VBNC), a Faith-based

organization founded on the basis of self-sufficiency. Today, 41 years later, VBNC is recognized

and respected for their mission to provide affordable, decent housing for all Van Brunt

neighborhood residents. VBNC founders envisioned a revitalized neighborhood by providing safe

and affordable housing with long term sustainable leadership for the people of the community.

We have recently received a large multi-year grant from the City of Kansas City to increase HIV

prevention and substance abuse services offered through our incarceration re-entry program which

serves about 150 women annually. According to the National Center for Nonprofit Boards, there

are 6 crucial tasks a board should examine when managing agency finances. Of those 6 crucial

tasks, the VBNC Board of Directors identified 3 that VBNC must address to properly manage grant

dollars. Those three are: 1) complying with federal, state and other governmental reporting

requirements, 2) seeing that accurate, timely and meaningful financial statements are prepared and

presented to the board, and 3) helping the board understand the organization's finances. The

VBNC Board of Directors realized this would be a great time to do an organizational assessment to

identify the additional capacity VBNC needs to best manage this new grant and future public sector

funding. To address the 3 crucial tasks the following specific needs were identified: 1) improve the

current accounting system, 2) update fiscal policy, 3) enhance board fiscal accountability, and 4)

staff training on the expanded use of our accounting software. The potential impact includes:

sustainability of recently increased HIV Prevention and substance abuse service, and through

improved fiscal responsibility, increased ability to apply for funding.