Perspectives on nonprofit finance, governance, and running a back office well, drawn from the work itself.
Most nonprofits know they need to track expenses by program. Fewer understand that payroll allocation is where that tracking holds up or falls apart.
Expanding into a new state feels like a programmatic decision. The compliance obligations it creates are anything but simple — and most organizations discover them after the fact.
The award letter says you got the grant. Your financials may tell a different story — at least for now.
Nonprofit boards throw the word "generative" around without always knowing what it means. Here's what it actually looks like in practice.
The 990 is the most widely read public document about your organization. Most nonprofits treat it as a compliance obligation. The ones that manage it well treat it as a communications tool.
For too many nonprofit leaders, "overhead" is a dirty word. The organizations that suffer most are the ones that accepted that framing without question.
Most nonprofit finance teams treat the annual audit as a season, not a system. The scramble is avoidable — but only if the work happens year-round.
The finance infrastructure that works at year one rarely works at year seven. Most organizations recognize the gap only after it's started to cost them.
Most nonprofit audit committees exist on paper. The ones that actually work share a few structural features that are easy to replicate — if you know what to look for.