Financial Data You Can Trust & Assessing Your Organization’s Financial Health

Are you a financial leader in your organization? Chances are YES!

In 2017 Support Kansas City has explored the topic of Financial Leadership through several Coffee Cup Conversations presentations to our clients. During these sessions we have discussed what it means to be a financial leader and provided tools for leadership and financial development of an organization.

Our leading resource has been Financial Leadership for Nonprofit Executives, Guiding Your Organization to Long-Term Success by Jeanne Bell and Elizabeth Schaffer

In August our topic was:

Getting Financial Data You Can Trust & Assessing Your Organization’s Financial Health

                   If your organization had a dollar for every time you heard this about financial information would your cash flow worries be a thing of the past?:

                  I’d love to see that in a graph! Or I’d love to see that in a dashboard!

The truth is the data has to be clean and it has to be gathered into a format that can be communicated for understanding and assessment. How comfortable are you with your data and your ability to communicate and assess financial data?

Below are bullet points we addressed in our presentation:

Financial Data – TRUST

• Do you take time on a regularly scheduled basis to work on financial deliverables?
• Do you attend trainings and research financial best practices?
• Does your organization have a budget?
• Does your organization include staff in the participation of meeting financial goals?
• Are you duplicating efforts across departments? For example does your database reporting from fund development tie into financial reporting from accounting?

Financial Reporting – COMMUNICATION

You must be able to read and understand your financial reports
• Do you provide the board with the best set of financial reports for providing oversight without them “checking out” because the information is not tailored to their needs?
• Do you provide information regarding Restricted Funds reporting and balances?
• Do you prepare cash projections for your organizations?
• Do you prepare analytical ratios for discussion?

Financial Assessment – CRITICAL THINKING

• What are our immediate financial strengths and vulnerabilities?
• What are our long term financial strengths and vulnerabilities?
• Do our constituents and funders perceive us as efficient and competitive?

The following are excerpts of Tools & Resources provided in the seminar:

Guidestar
Nonprofit Assistance Fund

If you would like to know more about the topic of financial leadership in nonprofits please contact Raisa Akram, Office Coordinator, at raisaa@supportkc.org or 913-831-4752 x 109, and she will be able to connect you.

–Written by Christy Cubbage, Director of Client Accounting