The severity of a fraud incident is usually measured in one way – How much money was lost? When presenting fraud case studies to church groups I have noticed a common reaction: the larger the dollar loss, the louder the gasps from the audience. While it cannot be denied that in some cases the economic […]
Financial “bad behavior” is becoming rampant in the church. You would have to be living in a cave to not recognize this. There is not a week that goes by without another headline appearing that tells the sad story of a “trusted” church employee “gone bad”. The good part of this, if there is a […]
As the story goes, New York Yankee stars Phil Rizzuto and Yogi Berra were on their way to a function in Cooperstown, New York when Rizzuto commented that he thought they were lost. Yogi’s reply? “Yeah, but we’re making great time!” This story reminds me of the way some churches approach fraud prevention. There has […]
What do you think of when you hear names like Enron, WorldCom, and Sarbanes-Oxley? Most of us think of one word: fraud. These two companies who were embroiled in fraudulent scandal and the law passed to “fix the problem” have brought to light the impact fraud has on today’s society. No one knows for sure […]
The first step in fraud prevention is knowing what you are coming up against. In other words, a clear understanding must be gained of what financial fraud is before designing a battle plan to confront it. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) defines occupational fraud as “the use of one’s occupation for personal enrichment […]
Effective fraud prevention starts with a strong foundation. And the cornerstone of this foundation is organization. Churches “lucky” enough to have avoided fraud are not really lucky at all. Luck had nothing to do with it. These churches avoid fraud because they make sure their organizational structure includes four key characteristics: Proper tone at the […]
So you captured God's vision and executed your ministry plans, but now you feel like the chasing dog that caught the car! Lots of new believers, but now dealing with inadequate facilities…small group leaders a little crisp around the edges…budget constraints… Is your vision getting cloudy? We know a solution. Through the leadership of Partners in […]
Our clients keep us on our toes! Because we encourage them to call us when they have a problem and we generally don’t charge for phone calls, we get a steady stream of questions posed to us by our clients and friends. Most of the questions are quite routine, dealing with things common to all […]