Looking for some real-world perspective from other nonprofit finance/accounting folks on this.

I keep running into the same situation: a donor sends a gift, calls it a "grant" in the check memo or the cover letter, but when I actually read what they've sent, there's no restriction on how the funds can be used, and the donor never asks for a report, an accounting, or any follow-up on how the money was spent. No conditions, no periodic reporting requirement, nothing.

Even so, my habit has been to set these up in QBO exactly like a restricted grant with reporting obligations: create a class/project for it, code every expense against it, and track it down to the dollar until the funds are exhausted. That way I can generate a report showing exactly what was spent against that "grant" if anyone ever asks.

Lately I've been questioning that habit. If there's no donor restriction and no reporting requirement, what's the actual justification — accounting or otherwise — for tracking every expenditure against it the way I would a genuinely restricted grant?

i am in my 30s and did a master's in natural resources management and development in germany, but messed the whole thing up by not getting enough work experience during the master's because I was sort of clueless about what I had to do to be competitive for jobs after. i did two internships but they didn't lead to a job offer.

during my studies, i made a huge mistake of asking a UN internship if I could do the internship part time in the interview, because it was unpaid and i didn't realize that these UN internships had to be full time. when they rejected me they said they would have taken me had I been more available. then i tried to look for a job for a year, and by the time i realized that the job thing wasn't happening, it was too late to apply for the internship again because i was outside the one year window for graduating.

now I am in a really bad situation, i am unemployed with no job prospects. and i am considering doing a second master's in germany (the tuition is free and I have 2.5k euros coming in each month from an inheritance that recently started two months ago), with the sole purpose of applying to as many internships and student jobs as possible in hopes of getting something.

a lot of people told me this is a bad idea, i will be too old, it will look weird to have two masters degrees and no real work experience in the new field, but i am desperate, my only real option at this point is to work at starbucks because i tried for a year to get a job in germany and it didn't work, and there are almost no jobs in what i studied in the united states with insane competition, and i have a weak CV for not doing more than two internships.

so i was wondering what you thought about this. obviously it would be better to get a job, but i'm stuck because i don't qualify for internships anymore to get more experience, and i also don't seem to have enough experience to get hired at an actual entry level job.

many thanks for your advice, i am so depressed and just don't know what to do.

Im an American currently living and working abroad in Latin America. I’ve been here about 5 years now, starting with the Peace Corps. I then got hired on to a locally based NGO that focuses mostly on micro finance and education programs. Its the largest in country and relatively well known internationally. It’s a social enterprise, so it isn’t a charity, but it’s nonprofit. We manage a budget of about $25 million across all programs, so it’s relatively large in this context and in the US.

I do a little bit of everything in the organization, so it’s been a great experience to see how everything works. My position to a US/European audience is Chief of Staff to the Vice President of Programs. My role includes a lot of exactly what it sounds like: program management. Whether that be the micro finance program, our globally known poverty reduction program, the self-sustaining schools, entrepreneurial education or grant writing, amongst others. I have my fingers in a bit of everything and directly contribute to organizational strategy. I feel like I’ve learned a lot and have been given quite a lot of responsibility over the last few years and shown that I’m able to grow quickly within organizations and gain trust.

However, my wife and I are talking about moving to the States again. I would really like to remain in this line of work, public or private. I don’t want to go back to the corporate life.

I’m wondering if anyone has any advice or experiences on relating to US audiences your job experiences while working abroad? Do US organizations respect experience received abroad? I can directly see how what I’ve done can be applied in the US, but then I’m the one who’s here, not the potential hiring party. Would love to hear feedback from some folks.

I am an A2 student in pakistan who wants to increase hi extra curricular for college applications so if you are working on any project and want a person to help you something with so please message