Hi Julie,

  Does the foundation require multiple signatures for checks or does
this single person manage it all? We require two signatures on any
check we write, usually myself (director) and our treasurer. Do they
use Quickbooks or some other software to manage their funds? How else
would the director manage the budget or do fundraising without direct
access to the museum accounts? Do they have a budget?

  Anyway, my suggestion would be to encourage the board member to
relinquish control to the director for obvious management reasons, but
the board should retain control by requiring a dual signature check.
The boardmember may be afraid of security and this arrangement has
provided ample protection for us.

Hope that helps,

Andy Cougill
Grissom Air Museum


On 8/2/06, Julie Holcomb <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I am posting this question for a colleague who is not on the list.
>
> My colleague is the new director of a museum which will be established
> by a private non-profit foundation.  The foundation's checking account
> was opened by and continues to be controlled by a member of the board
> who donated the "seed money" for the foundation.  The foundation's taxes
> are handled by the board member's wife and audits are completed by the
> board member's daughter.  Even though the foundation has now hired an
> executive director, the board member is reluctant to relinquish control
> of the finances.  Currently all invoices, etc. are submitted to the
> board member who cuts the checks.  The board member is interested in
> seeking AAM accreditation at the appropriate time, but does not see any
> need to change current financial procedures until it is time to seek
> that accreditation.  My colleague has searched the AAM web site without
> finding what he needs to convince the board member to relinquish sole
> control of the checkbook.  Suggestions?  Resources?  Policy statements?
> Please send your responses to me and I'll forward them to my colleague.
> Thanks in advance.
> Julie
>
> --
> Julie Holcomb, MLIS, CA
> Director of the Pearce Collections Museum/
> Navarro College Archivist
> Pearce Collections at Navarro College
> 3100 W. Collin St.
> Corsicana, Texas 75110
>
> Phone: (903) 875-7438 ~ Fax: (903) 875-7593
> E-mail: [log in to unmask]
>
> Internet: http://www.pearcecollections.us
>
> "Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly found, given, and transmitted from the past.  The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living."
> Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
>
> "History does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past.  On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do."
> James Baldwin
>
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