CHECKS AND BALANCES
By Keith Sessions, AMA Chief Financial Officer | keithsessions@hotmail.com
This year seems to have gone by far more quickly than 2020 or 2021. Events seem to have been well attended, even with higher gas prices and inflation. I am sure that many people were simply ready to get out and back to normal.
This is also the time of year when many clubs hold elections. I want to thank everyone who has stepped up to volunteer for a leadership position in a club. It is often a thankless job. If your club does not have term limits, I would encourage you to consider putting these in place. New people in club positions bring new ideas and allow organizations to grow.
In a previous volunteer role, I worked with the United Way on program oversight. I had a lot of exposure to many nonprofit organizations. There was a clear difference between the ones that kept their boards fresh and those that had legacy board members.
As elections are held and board members change, it is important to review your club’s financial security. This is the time to update the authorized signers on your bank accounts. I have seen cases where the authorized signers were several years out of date. There should be checks and balances for who can withdraw funds. It should never be only one person.
It is important to review the fund disbursement policy. Scams are abundant. Not a week goes by that I do not receive an email from “Rich Hanson” requesting funds sent urgently to some “vendor.” Needless to say, these scams do not work because of our policies on fund disbursements. I cannot disclose the exact policy, but I will share that the most important step is a verbal authorization to a trusted phone number. Do not trust a text message or an email.
Now is the time to change your passwords. Password security has become a huge risk. I will share an example from one of my favorite podcasts, “Darknet Diaries.” In 2012, LinkedIn had a data breach. Usernames and passwords were stolen and sold on the dark web. Several years later, the data was basically available for free.
A group of ethical hackers took this information and tried to see what they could find about famous people. The condensed version is that they found Donald Trump’s LinkedIn username and password. Because he used the same password across platforms and never changed it, they were able to gain access in 2016 to his Twitter account. Do you remember when, during the 2016 election, Trump’s Twitter account went down for a few days? This was why.
The point of this story is not to point out one person’s mistake but to emphasize that it is a common practice to use the same password over and over again. How many of you utilize the same password on multiple platforms? When was the last time you changed it? This information is stolen and sold on the dark web every minute of every day.
The only way to protect yourself is to utilize a strong password protocol. There are several password managers out there that can help with the process. If you would like to hear the whole story, listen to episodes 86 and 87 from the “Darknet Diaries” podcast. Oh, by the way, Trump’s password is/was “yourefired.”
By the time you read this, I hope to be at Nall in the Fall at the Triple Tree Aerodrome in Woodruff, South Carolina, September 30 to October 8, 2022. I look forward to seeing you there.
Fly safely and have fun.
