Conference visionary or conference victim?
On April 19th, the Nonprofits Assistance Fund and the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits hosted the inaugural Finance and Sustainability Conference for an impressive group of over 400 attendees. Even before the conference, there was an energetic buzz among nonprofit finance types about a conference specifically tailored to our field, our vocation, and for some, our passion. But as a career-long nonprofit employee, a nonprofit CFO for over 17 years, I looked forward to the conference with a mix of emotions – enthusiasm on one hand and skepticism on the other.
I joined Nonprofits Assistance Fund last fall. Admittedly, I am still giddy with the excitement of working with such a fantastic organization. I joined the staff after I had been a loyal and enthusiastic consumer of the training and technical assistance resources that NAF offers. After I attended two financial management workshops, I requested follow up one-on-one technical assistance to discuss revenue drivers and dashboard reports. The personalized help I received was a great inspiration and confidence boost. I came away with a clear vision for how to integrate financial drivers with program outcomes, and how to better condense financial reports to be of maximum use to our board.
Now that I work with NAF, I remain one of our most fervent promoters. But I continue to wonder how to best help nonprofit executives, staff, and board members translate the knowledge from NAF’s many resources (including the recent conference) into practical gain. From my previous experience, I know that there are lurking practical challenges that come with each breakthrough in understanding. How do financial leaders transform our latest insights gained from an inspirational conference, a training session, a consultation, or a recently-read article into a tangible benefit for our organizations?
Too often, nonprofit leaders leave some of our best insights in the theoretical dust bin. We nod our heads during conference breakout sessions, have animated discussions in the hallways between sessions, and fire off enthusiastic emails to colleagues after the conference ends. But soon after, we come face to face with urgent demands, short-sighted “budget priorities”, and never ending reporting deadlines. We also lose momentum before we can transfer our enthusiasm to executives and board members. Why, we wonder, don’t program managers and finance committee members want to stop for a long talk about the latest thoughts on nonprofit financial sustainability? Most often we lose our commitment to change when confronted by the pace of our jobs. Our newly gained vision for integrating financial acumen with mission success is scrapped before it is even tested.
It might be easy to resign ourselves and believe that there is no hope of introducing new financial strategies into a seemingly immovable organizational culture. We convince ourselves that our emerging nonprofit is too small and green to adopt sophisticated nonprofit financial reporting systems or that the idea of building multiple reserves is the luxury of a few, rare, well-heeled nonprofits. But these are the attitudes of victims, not visionaries. Instead of shrinking from the challenge, we could rise to the occasion. Wouldn’t you rather be seen as a wild-eyed revolutionary than a grousing bean counter?
I realize today that our responsibility as nonprofit financial leaders is to push our organization’s executives, staff, and boards, and the nonprofit sector to understand that any debate that refers to mission and money as two distinct topics must be called out as naïve and misguided. Having strong financial and organizational infrastructure that support program planning and strategic vision must be championed as a basic program activity – a responsibility, a necessity. We must join in the calls for donors and government agencies to abandon the dangerous and short-sighted focus on overhead percentages and an unproductive bias for narrow funding restrictions. There is nothing auxiliary about having sufficient accounting systems and competently-trained personnel to manage an organization’s finances. There is nothing discretionary about investing in board training and development of financial expertise. As nonprofit financial leaders, we have to be the first to give up these attitudes ourselves.
The Finance and Sustainability Conference put in front of us cutting edge information and ahead-of-the-trend perspectives on financial strategy, sustainability, and infrastructure. But did we simply meet as isolated and pigeon-holed finance geeks? Or will we transform this into an energizing event from which to launch our version of a revolution? I trust that you found an outlet for the creative and transformative ideas you gained at the conference. I hope that my initial skepticism is unwarranted – that many of us will put into action what we have learned.
Two weeks have passed, what are your next steps toward financial sustainability? Please share your stories in the comments below.
