Stored in this Portal

When it comes to finances, homeowners' associations (HOA) operate like any other corporation or business. HOAs have different accounts set up to pay for different things. A checking account to pay for everyday expenses, and separate savings and investment accounts set aside for future repairs and improvements. While appropriately funded spending and savings accounts are crucial to a well-run association, the savings part of the equation can often get ignored. Some studies estimate that nearly 70% of HOAs in the United States are underfunded and lack the proper savings to pay for major projects or repairs.

Dashboards are not meant to be a substitute for all of the information available to boards, but rather are designed as high-level overviews that combine an array of key indicators on a single page or on sets of pages. This allows them to fit naturally in board books as cover sheets that may appear on top of more detailed reports or online as a toplevel link in an increasingly detailed nest of links, thereby permitting the user to drill down to greater levels of detail as needed. Just as with any logistical or navigational tool, dashboards can help the time-constrained board member employ his or her time more efficiently by using highlighted items in the dashboard as prompts to seek more detailed information residing beneath.

COOPERATIVE FINANCING MODELS THAT MAY WORK FOR YOU

USDA’s Rural Housing Service has a loan program in place to provide assistance for rural housing cooperatives. Although the program has been available for many years, it has been used very rarely. This research assessed the reasons for this lack of use. Case studies of four existing cooperative housing projects were conducted, along with a review and critique of the USDA regulations that affect the cooperative housing program.

Establishing a base capital plan requires careful study and analysis, but the effort is rewarded with a responsive, equitable capitalization program. Good financial planning is the key to the successful operation of the plan because each year the cooperative establishes a required level of equity to meet the capital needs of the coming year’s operation. Members are then notified of their required level of investment for the new fiscal period and the method to be used for collecting it.

Since the early 2000s, the software category known as “board portals” – online tools focused on governance work – has grown dramatically. Board portals allow board directors and key staff members to access digital governance documents through mobile devices and securely communicate with one another. Today, the definition of “board portals” is evolving beyond basic online repositories of board documents and data; in fact, organizations have growing needs as both the digital and governance landscapes change rapidly. Board portals have transformed into governance management software platforms that digitize routine governance processes, freeing the board to focus on the organization’s mission.

Many cooperatives today are very large businesses, with mil-lions and even billions of dollars of revenue. Their operations some-times span large multi-State territories and may even involve buy-ing and selling in international markets. Financing modern cooperatives can be a very complex undertaking.

The purpose of a cooperative is to provide a service to its member-users at the lowest possible cost, rather than generate a profit for investors. However, service at cost doesn’t mean the cooperative operates that way on a daily basis. It doesn’t for at least two good reasons: (1) it doesn’t know exactly what its costs are on a daily basis; and (2) as a business in the private enterprise system, the prices it pays

This report is designed to help members understand and analyze their cooperative’s financial statements. The financial statements contained in a cooperative’s annual report are the members’ chief source of financial information about their cooperative

Table of Citations

Cooperative tax rules are a logical combination of the unique attributes of a cooperative and the income tax scheme in the Internal Revenue Code. The single tax principle is applied to earnings from business conducted on a cooperative basis in recognition of the special relationship between the members and their cooperative associations. Cooperatives have been granted a certain degree of flexibility in their financial and tax planning and should exercise their options effectively to maximize benefits for members.

Cooperative tax rules are a logical combination of the unique attributes of a cooperative and the income tax scheme in the Internal Revenue Code. The single tax principle is applied to earnings from business conducted on a cooperative basis in recognition of the unique relationship between the members and their cooperative associations. Cooperatives have been granted a certain degree of flexibility in their financial and tax planning and should exercise their options effectively to maximize benefits for members

The purpose of this publication is to provide a guide for cooperative management teams so that they can do a more effective job of managing equity capital. Regardless of the type of capital program used, there are pointers provided to help achieve and then maintain the type of balance in the equity accounts that allow adherence to cooperative principles. For some cooperatives, achieving this result may seem daunting, but ignoring the problem now will make it even more difficult to address down the road.

This guide has been designed to present the very basics in bookkeeping and cooperative financial statements. The format is designed for those that have limited bookkeeping or accounting experience. It is not meant to be all inclusive, but to provide guidance in developing the cooperative’s record keeping system and understanding financial statements.

A housing co-op is people who together own or control the building(s) in which they live. Instead of buying “real” property, you buy stock, or a membership, in a cooperative corporation. That corporation owns the building, land and any common areas. Think of a housing co-op as three cohesive, integrated segments, each with different functions

CLTs, the stewardship activities and policies of CLTs also contribute to these superior outcomes. Many CLTs oversee loan acquisition, educate and support their homeowners during both the pre-purchase and post-purchase periods, interact and intervene with mortgage lenders, and intervene with homeowners at risk of foreclosure

The Future of Urbanism,’ which explores examples of alternative urbanism that TUA directors, Natalie Allen and Greer O’Donnell researched and experienced during their time in Europe. The following is a shortened section of our report that discusses the alternative housing models that help to diversify the housing ecosystem. At TUA, we are interested in how these models can be implemented in New Zealand to address the urban issues of now and create resilience for the communities that will benefit in the future.

WHY COOPERATIVES SHOULD BE ATTRACTIVE TO DEVELOPERS AND INVESTORS

Cooperatives are business enterprises, not charitable organizations, so they are not the same as non-profits; yet they do not exist to maximize profits, so they are not the same as investor-owned firms. Cooperatives are enterprises that are democratically owned and controlled by the people who benefit from them and are operated collaboratively for the purpose of providing services to these beneficiaries or members.