ESA Receives Financial Integrity Award

Lanham, MD; October 5, 2006 – The Entomological Society of America (ESA) is pleased to accept the “2006 Nonprofit Financial Integrity Award” from the Council for Nonprofit Innovation (CNI). The annual award honors one nonprofit organization that has achieved outstanding results through implementing and utilizing auditing and internal controls and using financial management to achieve long-term success, and has gone “above and beyond” the call of duty to provide a guideline for their financial controls to internal and external constituencies.

“The Society is proud to be recognized by CNI,” said ESA’s Executive Director Paula Lettice. “We will continue to use the management tools and financial discipline which brought us this achievement.”

ESA was selected due to dedication and success in revamping its financial management structure and complying with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act as it applies to nonprofits. In 2001, the organization was facing potential bankruptcy, had little credible financial and workload information with which to make decisions, had seen a succession of executive directors in a period of five years, and was facing the impact of looming federal legislation. To remedy these crippling financial issues, the ESA implemented procedures to collect and review program and financial performance data on a regular basis, improved their budget preparation and justification processes, provide more information to internal and external stakeholders, obtained board buy-in for financial change, and documented its internal control procedures.

Better management data allowed ESA to make critical decisions about downsizing and outsourcing. Income levels were sustained while expenditures greatly reduced.

The organization is now completely solvent and is experiencing the fourth straight year of operating budget surpluses and restoration of its financial reserves.

“The ESA is a beacon of what effective internal controls and financial oversight can accomplish for the nonprofit sector,” said Council for Nonprofit Innovation Chairman Carl DeMaio. “Implementation of appropriate financial management systems is essential to boosting the impact and capacity of nonprofits to help them achieve their mission.”

The CNI is a leading non-partisan think tank dedicated to improving enhancing the transparency, accountability and overall performance of organizations in the nonprofit sector. For more information, please visit http://www.cniweb.org [2].

Founded in 1889, ESA is a non-profit organization committed to serving the scientific and professional needs of more than 5,700 entomologists and individuals in related disciplines. ESA's membership includes representatives from educational institutions, government, health agencies, and private industry. For more information, please visit http://www.entsoc.org.

CONTACT: Richard Levine, ESA Society Relations Officer at (301) 731-4535, ext. 3009 or rlevine@entsoc.org [3].