Financial Management for Public, Health, and Not-for-Profit Organizations

by Steven A. Finkler

Now in its Fifth Edition, Financial Management for Public, Health, and Not-for-Profit Organizations is the leading textbook on financial management in the government, health, and not-for-profit sectors providing a comprehensive yet practical introduction to the financial decision-making and management skills required of students and practitioners in the field.  Assuming readers have no prior training in financial management, authors Steven A. Finkler, Daniel L. Smith, Thad D. Calabrese, and Robert M. Purtell artfully combine the principles and theory and analytics of accounting and finance.  Coverage includes cost analysis, budget preparation, budget and variance analysis, management control, and recording and reporting financial information, with an emphasis on preparing and analyzing financial statements. The authors detail the foundational principles of each of the methods introduced in the book, and through step-by-step equations, figures, and exhibits, they illustrate how to execute financial management in practice.

Genres: Nonfiction, Textbooks, School, Grad School

668 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 31, 2000

Reviews

[Heather Dubarry]

There’s way too many typos and mis-references. I get that this is a dry as bones topic, but make sure your examples and tables say what your text says they’re about.
8th edition!

[John Mihelic · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finkler et al: Financial Management for Public, Health, and Not-for-Profit Organizations

4th Edition


This was the book assigned to me for my class specifically for Nonprofit Financial Management as I pursue my MBA specifically for Nonprofit management.

As textbooks go, it is serviceable. The writing is clean and clear, and is easily understandable for someone that has some background in accounting. I am the Director of Finance at a nonprofit, and I was able to pick up a number of useful things from this, though a lot of it was review.

A couple of things bothered me a bit. There is a chapter about the time value of money (here it is chapter five). The book teaches the student how to approach the problems from a point where the unknowns are plugged into excel. This may just be me being old fashioned, but to me it skipped a step in being overly reliant on technology instead of going back one step and showing the derivation and making the student go through the motions to get an understanding of where excel is coming from. It’s not that it isn’t there - for example the derivation of finding the value of the annuity is footnoted, in small print. Again, a small concern, but one nevertheless.

A second thing is to look at the cost. Due to a mix up with the professor’s syllabus, I had first bought the third edition of this book, before being told that the fourth edition was the only acceptable one. The problem is that at the time, the third edition was less than half the price of the fourth edition. The kicker was I ended up with both of the editions side by side, and looking at the first three chapters I noticed no discernible difference. This may not be true in later chapters as I didn’t make the comparison. If you are assigning the text, have a look at the third edition for the student’s sake.

[Betsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good text book that makes nonprofit financial management understandable to people who will never be accountants but will need to hire them and be able to knowledgeably know what they are talking about.

[amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a textbook on financial management, this was not nearly as dry as I'd expected and very clear.

[Allison]

worthless when u have a teacher like the k-train. wish I hadn't spent the money, but I may hold onto it for future reference.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure I'd say I "liked" it, but it was very helpful. I personally learn best by reading so most people would not find my reviews of textbooks helpful, but this one was decent. I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of the concepts and was able to complete the exercises at the back of the book fairly easily. It hasn't exactly turned me into an accountant, but I feel much more competent looking at financial statements than I was before.

[Rachelle · Rating 1 out of 5]

not terribly helpful for a layman like myself - is confusing or states the obvious