Dollars & Sense: Revitalizing Nonprofit Finance

Decoding into the world of nonprofit finances with expert Sean Hale! Discover essential strategies for financial resilience and the pitfalls of the overhead myth, as Sean unpacks decades of wisdom. Plus, learn how embracing financial literacy can empower your organization's success. Tune in for revelations that can reshape your nonprofit's fiscal approach.

Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of the Scaling Impact Podcast.

• Overcoming the overhead myth
• Importance of financial literacy
• Embracing strategic investments
• Nonprofit audit preparation tips
• Recognizing the value of tech upgrades

Resources:

• Nonprofit CFOs
• DevNoodle
• Podcast Chef
• NxtStep

Connect with Sean Hale:

• LinkedIn

Connecting with our hosts:

• Josh Hoffman - LinkedIn
• Alex Garashchenko - LinkedIn
• Sean Boyce:
  • LinkedIn
  • Email

Quotables:

• 39:29 - They're absolutely gonna be looking out for the organization's best health as if they were the full-time CFO, right? And so if they see that something's not quite right, at minimum they're gonna raise it with the executive director, right? Like I'm concerned that you have a lot of turnover, and I see that you're paying well under market rates. You know, should we have a conversation about that? Or I'm concerned that you're, we have kind of all of saying, you know, I looked at inventory, and the computers that you're using are all like five and six years old. Can we have a conversation about that? Or, I see that your basic back-office accounting-type processes haven't been documented. This is a real risk and a vulnerability for the organization because you have just one person that knows how to run payroll.
• 42:42 - I would add is financial literacy for every leader in the organization is really important. There are myths around that. There are myths that like, oh, I'm no good at math and I'm no good with numbers, and they've always bothered me, and besides our CPA has that or whatever. And that's baloney. And your organization, if you are a leader, you're setting yourself up for risk and possibly a world of hurt if you are not engaged at a certain level with the finances.
• 25:47 - Certainly, one challenge that I see over and over again is when organizations have bought into the overhead myth. The overhead myth is a zombie idea that the less, if an organization spend, the less an organization spends on administration, the more impactful it must be and vice versa. And nothing could be further from the truth. And in actuality, the more you cut your back office expenses, the more likely that organization's gonna have really poor health overall and to have low impact.
• 27:52 - One thing I've found and you know, over and over again is that there's this penny wise pound foolish mentality in too many organizations. And so the more nonprofits that learn that, you know, sometimes you have to spend money to save money is such a valuable lesson that I wish more would come around on that. Sometimes yes, it might feel extravagant and crazy to go and spend 700 bucks to get a new laptop for any of your staff who feel like they need a new computer. But you know what? That investment is probably gonna pay for itself pretty quickly in terms of higher productivity and also improved morale.
• 32:17 - The organizations that they saw come out of the recession the strongest were the ones that took a different approach that instead they made some strategic cuts, right? They, and so just surgically kind of looking at what's gonna be most mission oriented, what's gonna be, what are, what's giving us the best ROI, we're gonna protect the things that are most mission oriented, most ROI, but we're gonna strategically cut some of these other areas.