In the Final Project for this course, due by Day 7 of Week 10, you have the opportunity to demonstrate your understanding of, and apply and critically evaluate, the major concepts presented in this course.
For the Final Project, you will select a public organization (federal, state, or local) or non-profit organization with which you are familiar. This may be an organization for which you currently work or have worked, know about from others, or have learned about through academic resources and/or the media, as long as it is not a private for-profit organization. With this organization in mind, you will explore the various topics of the course. As you progress through the readings and assignments in the course, think about how these topics relate to finance and budgeting within the organization you selected. The Learning Resources, the Discussions, and the Assignments will assist you in completing each section of the Final Project.
Your Final Project should contain the following sections (the sections can be reordered for appropriate flow):
- Mission and goals of the organization
- Ethical considerations related to finance and budgeting within the organization
- Technological considerations for improving the efficiency or effectiveness of finance and budgeting within the organization
- Applicable laws, regulations, and policies impacting the organization’s financial and budgetary operations
- Evaluation of the organization’s budget process and revenue sources
- Internal factors impacting successful strategic financial planning
- The organization’s usage of cost-benefit analysis
- Overview of the organization’s cash management and investment strategies
- Assessment of the organization’s overall financial condition
Your Final Project must demonstrate both breadth and depth of knowledge and critical thinking appropriate to graduate-level scholarship. It must follow the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association guidelines and be free of typographical, spelling, and grammatical errors. Also, you must use at least six scholarly sources from the library that were published within the past five years to support the paper.
The project should be 14–15 pages in length (double-spaced), not including the title page, the abstract, and references.
Be sure to support your Final Project with specific references to all resources used in its preparation.
The Final Project will be evaluated according to the four indicators in the Final Project Rubric located in the Course Information area of the course navigation menu.
Information on scholarly writing may be found in the APA Publication Manual and at the Walden Writing Center website.
The Final Project is due on Day 7 of Week 10. See the Week 10 Project area for submission details.
