CFO Strategies for Scaling Non-Profits

HOW CAN A FINANCE TEAM HELP A NON-PROFIT WHILE THEY ARE SCALING?

The Ask a CFO series is a Q & A with CFO James Vanreusel.  James answers questions ranging from  corporate finance,  FP&A, Investor Relations, Professional Development, Business Growth, Fundraising, M& A, and more.

There’s a reason large, successful companies maintain a full C-suite and Board of Directors. The varying perspectives and areas of expertise contributed by experienced individuals are invaluable to strategic decision making.   Interim CFOs temporarily fill the gap in the executive team so that growing and scaling non profits can unleash the strengths of executive partnerships.  With structured leadership from a CFO and a full finance team, non-profits will gain a complete understanding of their financial position in turn gain confidence in their long term strategy.   Scaling a company like a Non-Profit takes lots of work, you need to have everything working very smoothly. Tracking expenses is key, which is not always easy, and will take time to set up.

You will end up talking to a lot of committees which can be complex, from finance committees, to audit committees, and sometimes even the compensation committees, all reporting to the board.  As you scale, it becomes increasingly important to start doing more and more in house, so hiring an accountant and an analyst, and eventually a full time CFO, when you see government adoption of country replication when the amount of work from other countries exceeds the amount of hours an outsourced CFO has to work.