New York Accounting Firm’s Philanthropic Efforts Make a Difference in Long Island Community
Posted: October 11, 2011 Filed under: Accountants and Volunteer Work, accountants making a difference, Accounting, Accounting Firms, Accounting news, Accounting Professionals | Tags: accountants, accountants and volunteer work, accounting professionals, NYBKW Charitable Foundation Leave a comment »Lots of accounting firms make charitable contributions to help local organizations in their communities, but Nussbaum, Yates, Berg, Klein & Wolpow, LLP (NYBKW) in Melville, N.Y. has taken philanthropy to a whole new level by formalizing its volunteer efforts and founding the NYBKW Charitable Foundation.
NYBKW assists more than a dozen charitable organizations, including Alzheimer’s Foundation of America, the American Cancer Society, Toys for Children, the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Children’s Medical Center and the Great Prostate Cancer Challenge Long Island.
What makes this accounting firm unique is its approach to helping these organizations. Rather than just making a monetary contribution, NYBKW and its employees give their free time and take more of a participatory role.
NYBKW employees don’t just collect coats for the local mission during the winter months; they deliver them to the people who need them. They don’t just donate money to Toys for Children; they wrap the presents and hand them out. They don’t just purchase ice cream for the children’s hospital; employees give up their time and push and ice cream cart from door to door, bringing sick children ice cream treats.
“It becomes easy to just write a check, walk away and feel good about yourself,” said Walter Timoshenko, chief operating officer at NYBKW. “But actually physically wrapping presents and scooping ice cream is a whole different type of service.”
Timoshenko says that the NYBKW Charitable Foundation is a natural extension of the accounting firm’s mission statement, which is to “improve the welfare of men, women, and children, especially on Long Island.”
“People at our firm have always been involved in volunteer efforts, and many of the organizations we choose to become involved with have special meaning to our employees,” he said. “For example, one of our employees and his wife recently lost their infant son to Meconium Aspiration Syndrome, leading us to establish the Jordan Alex Dubrow Fund in his memory, which helped raise funds for the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset.”
And NYBKW employees are just as involved in volunteering as they are in finding worthy causes to support. Different employees will own various events, helping to plan, manage and execute all of the volunteer efforts that are needed to organize and participate in the events.
This is a commitment that everyone supports,” said Timoshenko, “and I think that really says something about our firm and our employees.”
Three Online Collaboration Tools that Making Working Remotely Easier
Posted: October 4, 2011 Filed under: Accounting, Accounting Technology, Online Collaboration Tools, Online Tools, Technology for Accountants | Tags: accounting professionals, online collaboration tools, online tools, technology 2 Comments »If you’ve ever worked on a project remotely or just find it difficult to get your team members together in the same room on the same day, it might be time to consider exploring some online collaboration tools, which are designed it make it easier to share, comment, review and edit project documents and files. Maybe you don’t need an hour-long meeting to discuss something. Maybe you just need five minutes. Sometimes it’s not efficient to hold a meeting when all you need is some quick feedback or to demonstrate how far along you are on a specific project.
We’d like to share three online collaboration tools with you that make the process of working remotely much easier.
Talkwheel is a collaboration platform that allows groups to participate in a visual roundtable. It was created to combat the static nature of current online discussion models, which may work for one-on-one interaction, but are not ideal for group interaction and discussion. Talkwheel is designed to make group conversation and collaboration more efficient by creating a discussion platform that accommodates real-time activity.
It visually maps out discussions and allows groups to interact, share information and edit projects collectively. Its threaded conversation clearly defines specific and separate topics, users and comments, and allows participants to easily create new topics to steer conversations in new directions. It is able to be integrated with any software or networks and is easily customizable.
GroupZap is a platform that provides a virtual online whiteboard that can be easily shared with group members. Users can easily drag and drop images, documents and other files onto the whiteboard space along with editable sticky notes. GroupZap is ideal for the editing process, as early versions of projects can be dragged onto the whiteboard and team members can quickly comment by leaving a note for the creator.
Instead of gathering an entire team around a conference table to review an email ad, for example, the file could be shared via the whiteboard and members can provide feedback or suggest changes and edits. The entire session can be saved as a .pdf for future reference.
Google+ Hangouts is a feature of Google+, which just recently opened up to the public after initially launching by invite only. Essentially, it’s a video chat function which makes group chats easier and more efficient. Google+ users can start a “hangout” and invite team members to participate in a quick video meeting or conference – making it simple for groups working remotely to convene and discuss a project or issue without having to be in the same room at the same time.
In addition to being available online, Google+ Hangouts works with iPhones as well, making it even easier to get group members together for a video chat.
What are some of your favorite online collaboration tools? Have you had any experience with the ones we just mentioned? What do you like or dislike about them?
