Risk Management for Nonprofits

Our research, based on the first comprehensive financial analysis of New York's nonprofit sector, found that 10% of the city's nonprofits were insolvent and 40% had virtually no cash reserves. Less than 30% were financially strong. If anything, things are getting harder, given market volatility, the move to value-based payments in health care, and increased costs for real estate and labor.Fortunately, we also discovered that nonprofits can take a few concrete steps to reduce their risk of failure and sustain vital programs:Make risk management an explicit responsibility of the audit and/or finance committee.Develop a risk-tolerance statement, indicating the limits for risk-taking and the willingness to trade short-term impact for longer-term sustainability.Keep a running list of major risks and the likelihood and expected loss for each.Put in place plans for how to maintain service in the event of a financial disaster, or even a "living will" that specifies how programs will be transferred to other providers (or wound down in an orderly fashion) in the event that recovery is not possible.Brief trustees regularly about longer-term trends in the operating environment.Periodically explore the potential benefits of various forms of organizational redesign, such as mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, partnerships, outsourcing, managed dissolutions, and divestments.Compare financial performance to peers on an annual basis.Develop explicit targets for operating results (margins, months of cash, etc.) and contingency plans if minimum targets are not met.Redouble efforts to build and safeguard a financial cushion or "rainy-day fund," even if doing so forces consideration of difficult programmatic trade-offs.Doing any of these will depend on a functioning partnership between capable management and a critical mass of experienced, educated and engaged board members. Therefore, organizations serious about risk management must work hard to recruit board members with a wide range of experience. They need to ensure ongoing education for both new and existing board members and to empower high-functioning committees. Many organizations, particularly large and complex ones, would also benefit from having an experienced nonprofit executive on their board

Early formation of massive, compact, spheroidal galaxies with classical profiles by violent disc instability or mergers

We address the formation of massive stellar spheroids between redshifts $z=4$ and 1 using a suite of AMR hydro-cosmological simulations. The spheroids form as bulges, and the spheroid mass growth is partly driven by violent disc instability (VDI) and partly by mergers. A kinematic decomposition to disc and spheroid yields that the mass fraction in the spheroid is between 50\% and 90\% and is roughly constant in time, consistent with a cosmological steady state of VDI discs that are continuously fed from the cosmic web. The density profile of the spheroid is typically "classical", with a Sersic index $n = 4.5\pm 1$, independent of whether it grew by mergers or VDI and independent of the feedback strength. The disc is characterized by $n=1.5\pm 0.5$, and the whole galaxy by $n=3\pm 1$. The high-redshift spheroids are compact due to the dissipative inflow of gas and the high universal density. The stellar surface density within the effective radius of each galaxy as it evolves remains roughly constant in time after its first growth. For galaxies of a fixed stellar mass, the surface density is higher at higher redshifts.Comment: 22 pages, 15 figures, accepted in MNRA

Relaxation dynamics of the toric code in contact with a thermal reservoir: Finite-size scaling in a low temperature regime

We present an analysis of the relaxation dynamics of finite-size topological qubits in contact with a thermal bath. Using a continuous-time Monte Carlo method, we explicitly compute the low-temperature nonequilibrium dynamics of the toric code on finite lattices. In contrast to the size-independent bound predicted for the toric code in the thermodynamic limit, we identify a low-temperature regime on finite lattices below a size-dependent crossover temperature with nontrivial finite-size and temperature scaling of the relaxation time. We demonstrate how this nontrivial finite-size scaling is governed by the scaling of topologically nontrivial two-dimensional classical random walks. The transition out of this low-temperature regime defines a dynamical finite-size crossover temperature that scales inversely with the log of the system size, in agreement with a crossover temperature defined from equilibrium properties. We find that both the finite-size and finite-temperature scaling are stronger in the low-temperature regime than above the crossover temperature. Since this finite-temperature scaling competes with the scaling of the robustness to unitary perturbations, this analysis may elucidate the scaling of memory lifetimes of possible physical realizations of topological qubits.Comment: 14 Pages, 13 figure

Revealing the galaxy-halo connection in IllustrisTNG

We use the IllustrisTNG (TNG) simulations to explore the galaxy-halo connection as inferred from state-of-the-art cosmological, magnetohydrodynamical simulations. With the high mass resolution and large volume achieved by combining the 100 Mpc (TNG100) and 300 Mpc (TNG300) volumes, we establish the mean occupancy of central and satellite galaxies and their dependence on the properties of the dark matter haloes hosting them. We derive best-fitting HOD parameters from TNG100 and TNG300 for target galaxy number densities of $\bar{n}_g = 0.032\,h^3$Mpc$^{-3}$ and $\bar{n}_g = 0.016\,h^3$Mpc$^{-3}$, respectively, corresponding to a minimum galaxy stellar mass of $M_\star\sim1.9\times10^9\,{\rm M}_\odot$ and $M_\star\sim3.5\times10^9\,{\rm M}_\odot$, respectively, in hosts more massive than $10^{11}\,{\rm M}_\odot$. Consistent with previous work, we find that haloes located in dense environments, with low concentrations, later formation times, and high angular momenta are richest in their satellite population. At low mass, highly-concentrated haloes and those located in overdense regions are more likely to contain a central galaxy. The degree of environmental dependence is sensitive to the definition adopted for the physical boundary of the host halo. We examine the extent to which correlations between galaxy occupancy and halo properties are independent and demonstrate that HODs predicted by halo mass and present-day concentration capture the qualitative dependence on the remaining halo properties. At fixed halo mass, concentration is a strong predictor of the stellar mass of the central galaxy, which may play a defining role in the fate of the satellite population. The radial distribution of satellite galaxies, which exhibits a universal form across a wide range of host halo mass, is described accurately by the best-fit NFW density profile of their host haloes.Comment: 20 pages, 13 figures, 1 table, comments welcom

Transient LTRE analysis reveals the demographic and trait-mediated processes that buffer population growth.

Temporal variation in environmental conditions affects population growth directly via its impact on vital rates, and indirectly through induced variation in demographic structure and phenotypic trait distributions. We currently know very little about how these processes jointly mediate population responses to their environment. To address this gap, we develop a general transient life table response experiment (LTRE) which partitions the contributions to population growth arising from variation in (1) survival and reproduction, (2) demographic structure, (3) trait values and (4) climatic drivers. We apply the LTRE to a population of yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventer) to demonstrate the impact of demographic and trait-mediated processes. Our analysis provides a new perspective on demographic buffering, which may be a more subtle phenomena than is currently assumed. The new LTRE framework presents opportunities to improve our understanding of how trait variation influences population dynamics and adaptation in stochastic environments

An Observational Report of Intensive Robotic and Manual Gait Training in Sub-acute Stroke

Background: The use of automated electromechanical devices for gait training in neurological patients is increasing, yet the functional outcomes of well-defined training programs using these devices and the characteristics of patients that would most benefit are seldom reported in the literature. In an observational study of functional outcomes, we aimed to provide a benchmark for expected change in gait function in early stroke patients, from an intensive inpatient rehabilitation program including both robotic and manual gait training. Methods: We followed 103 sub-acute stroke patients who met the clinical inclusion criteria for Body Weight Supported Robotic Gait Training (BWSRGT). Patients completed an intensive 8-week gait-training program comprising robotic gait training (weeks 0-4) followed by manual gait training (weeks 4-8). A change in clinical function was determined by the following assessments taken at 0, 4 and 8 weeks (baseline, mid-point and end-point respectively): Functional Ambulatory Categories (FAC), 10 m Walking Test (10 MWT), and Tinetti Gait and Balance Scales. Results: Over half of the patients made a clinically meaningful improvement on the Tinetti Gait Scale (>3 points) and Tinetti Balance Scale (>5 points), while over 80% of the patients increased at least 1 point on the FAC scale (0-5) and improved walking speed by more than 0.2 m/s. Patients responded positively in gait function regardless of variables gender, age, aetiology (hemorrhagic/ischemic), and affected hemisphere. The most robust and significant change was observed for patients in the FAC categories two and three. The therapy was well tolerated and no patients withdrew for factors related to the type or intensity of training. Conclusions: Eight-weeks of intensive rehabilitation including robotic and manual gait training was well tolerated by early stroke patients, and was associated with significant gains in function. Patients with mid-level gait dysfunction showed the most robust improvement following robotic training