Latest / The Nonprofit Podcast / Ep 124| 3 Financial Foundations for Success: Reporting, Accounting, Budgeting

Transcript

Ep 124| 3 Financial Foundations for Success: Reporting, Accounting, Budgeting · The Nonprofit Podcast

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: The Nonprofit Podcast, powered by DonorBox.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: Struggling to juggle financial and compliance tasks for your nonprofit?
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: Are you feeling overwhelmed by all of these responsibilities?
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_02: Well, hello everyone, and welcome to the Nonprofit Podcast.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Britton, nonprofit strategist here at DonorBox, and we are here each week with practical actions you can use today to increase donations and take your nonprofit to the next level tomorrow.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_02: Get ready, everyone.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: Today we are diving into strategies to help you manage your organization's finances, streamline reporting, and maximize your community impact.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: We have a real powerhouse today.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: Joining us today is none other than Jermine Guillaume, the CEO and Brooklyn-based entrepreneur and accountant of Visionary Accounting Group.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: She is an esteemed professor at We Are Good.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I will tell you all, she is one of the top voices educating nonprofits on financial literacy across social media.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: Jermin has served as an internal auditor at one of Toronto's prestigious top five banks as a certified anti-money laundering specialist.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: And she has spent four years at Ernst ⁇ Young, where her focus was on financial audits for hedge funds and private equity firms.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: That is not all.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: We all know we're real people, right?
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: When she's not working and just really busy being a working mom, Jermin also has a secret talent.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_02: Is everyone ready for this?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_02: She is a backup singer for an American Idol winner.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: Talk about a powerhouse.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: Jermine, my friend, it's an absolute honor to have you here today joining me for the first time ever.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the show.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I just want to say it's actually, I'm up to three now, three kids.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I did sing backup for two of the American Idols.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, wow, you really did your homework.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: You are very welcome.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I've been following, following you, Jermin.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I will say, as a former nonprofit leader, let's be real, right?
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like financial management, if you're a nonprofit leader, we just want to run for the hills whenever this topic comes up, right?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: We really want to be focusing on mission-driven work.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: And you're completely just like flipping the script.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: You're making this topic energizing and getting rid of a lot of that imposter syndrome that exists with financial management.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: I know you kind of took this accidental leap, right?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_02: From like leaving the corporate hustle to jumping full on and serving nonprofits.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: Tell me how the heck did you get here?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: Because we also know, Jermin, this is nonprofit work, it's another type of hustle, right?
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: Very yeah, it might be very different than the corporate world, but it is hard.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so can you tell a little bit about how did you fall into this?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then also why are you what keeps you here?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, wow, how did I get here?
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: So honestly, kind of like you mentioned, like I really spent the bulk of my career in public accounting.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: And um, when I got pregnant with my daughter, I was like, wow, this might not be sustainable.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so, as I'm sure you know, once you go on maternity leave and you're spending time with your baby, a lot of times it's really hard to return back to work.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had decided then that I was just gonna take a beep, you know, stay home a little bit longer, figure out what my next moves are.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: And an opportunity dropped in my lap um months later to be an interim controller at a nonprofit here in the Bronx.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: And um they had just lost their CFO and the controller left shortly after.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And as you can imagine, the house was honestly on fire.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, it wasn't a full-time gig and you didn't have to be in office.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, sure, why not?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, the rest was history.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: I walked in that door, that was the first nonprofit I ever worked for, and I've been working with nonprofits ever since.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: I love it.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I think, I think it's remarkable.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: I read that you reclaimed$2.8 million in receivables for nonprofits through workflow automations and accounting systems.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I know I have a question to ask about the strategies, how you did this, but I think in terms of framing up the conversation here, let's talk about why financial transparency even matters, right?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like we know in theory, as nonprofit leaders, it's part of the deal, it's part of the package.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_02: But then, Jeremy, and and you're probably in some of the same social media spaces that we're we're in.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: You have anonymous leaders posting these whore stories, right?
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: They're like real nightmares about financial mismanagement gone wrong.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like they jump into these new roles as executive directors, they're gung ho to make a difference.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: 10 months in, they get a hold of those financial statements and they're like, What is going on?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's it's it's like a complete nightmare.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: And not saying that this happens all the time, but my question for you is why is financial transparency more critical now than than ever?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: Why does it even matter?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, for one, like you mentioned, I know it was just an example, but it is very common, like you mentioned, you get this new executive director there, and then you you said 10 months later.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's actually common.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: These leaders, they get into these roles and they are not receiving actual timely financials for months.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: When I worked at the first nonprofit I went to, one of the, I'll never forget one of the things he said to me, he's like, Yeah, I haven't seen financials in months.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what our numbers are like.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, to me, that is an immediate red flag.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: And why financial transparency is more important now than it's ever been is because of the climate that we're in.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, when a lot of people hear nonprofit, you know, donate, give your money to, the first thing people start to think of, am I gonna get scammed?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Or if I give you my money, are you actually going to do with it what you say?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so when an organization is transparent, it helps give give comfort to those who are giving funds to the organization, that the organization is actually stewarding the fund properly, that you are doing what you said you would do.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I know that if I give you my check for$10,000, that$10,000 is going to go to said scholarship or to said food bank and that it won't be, you know, embezzled or some some kind of scam, right?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you are aloof, when you're hiding, when things are not as clear, sometimes there may not be any impropriety, but it gives the illusion that there is, that you're hiding things.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so it is best to have clean books, to be looking at things timely and to be super transparent because it leaves less questions, it leaves less ambiguity.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: And therefore, there's this trust that you build up with your donors and your grantors and the people that are supporting your organization.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: And but if we arm ourselves as leaders from the get-go, right?
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: As soon as we jump into the role with these systems in place early on, not saying that these challenges will arise, but it's having that infrastructure from the get-go that'll give us a confidence should should these nightmares happen, right?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: And so with that lead up, I want to talk about that incredible achievement of claiming 2.8 million.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I want to kind of reduce that down to the practical, the concrete advice.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: So, what are three actionable steps that nonprofits with or without a chief financial person, right, can take today to avoid financial mismanagement?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: The first thing you can do is migrate to cloud accounting.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: One, it helps you to begin that process of streamlining your accounting function.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the first thing that you want to do.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: The second thing that you want to do is implement a timely month and close.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'll never forget I was told, like, you know, profits don't close the books monthly.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, what?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: If something is going on, if things are looking, you know, crazy, like how will you know if you're only closing your books at the end of the year?
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: So you want to implement a timely monthly close.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then with that, you want to make sure that you're not just closing the books, but that there is then a said review of those books.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I would say that would be the third piece.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that review should not only be by the executive director, but my hope is that you have an active board.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you do, you know, you might have a treasurer or someone on that finance committee that can also lend a second set of eyes to indicate if there are any red flags, or sometimes there's green flags.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's a surplus, right?
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, okay, we have this extra money.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Will we invest it?
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, will we put it in a reserve?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: What will we do with it?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: But you want to make sure that you have a process for one closing the books, but then also reviewing those books so that that can lend itself to making better decisions for the organization.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely love that.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think I can think back to a time as an ED, also as the development director, scaling a startup, the board and I, we were big on let's keep costs down.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so we reached out to a pro bono bookkeeper.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: And while we appreciated her so much, I will tell you that as our nonprofit grew, it became a headache because the bookkeeper was struggling to keep up with reconciling the books.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: There were mistakes made.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: We had to submit city, state, federal quarterly tax returns.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: And what ended up happening, Jermin, is I spent countless hours on the phone with the IRS on hold trying to get these penalties waived.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I will tell you, it was a tough lesson that it's not always viable to do it the free pro bono way, right?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: What are your thoughts there?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think when you're talking about creating these the right systems, do you think that's part of it?
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: Investing your capital early on in the right people?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: So there are workarounds, right?
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so if we want to use this example, because we're talking about financial management, sometimes that investment doesn't come in as for the cost of people, right?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I always say that typically you have three things people, process, technology.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I spoke about earlier, like investing in cloud accounting software.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Once you do that, the the doors open as to other things that you have options to use.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so if we want to use your example, um, you may not have a CFO or sometimes you may not even have a bookkeeper.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: But if you were, for example, using Gusto, which is a cloud payroll tool, right?
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of these tools now do these things for you.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: So when my clients come in and you know they're a new organization or they're just getting set up, you know, via the cloud, it's like, okay, we're gonna have your cloud accounting tool.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: It integrates with this payroll system.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then this payroll tool does all of those registering in the different states for us, right?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: It does the sending out the W-2s, it does the sending out the payroll tax return.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to start thinking about what are some ways to work around it.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: So it may not even be a person, but if you invest in the right tool or the right process, you can still get the same outcome without it being this, you know, laborious thing that you have to take on, or where someone on the team is taking it on, but it's not even their area of expertise.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: Bought on.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: And another thing I wanted to crank up, Jeremy, when it comes to bookkeepers, okay, let's just say startup nonprofit.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: I brought in my first round of capital.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: I am so excited to hire my first bookkeeper.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: Bookkeepers, it's a saturated market, right?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: We we see them everywhere on LinkedIn.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: Can you just name, just call out a few things in terms of character, in terms of skill set that we really should be looking for when we're hiring our first bookkeeper?
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, for one, you shouldn't be hiring a bookkeeper that does not have nonprofit experience.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so what I will say is that while the market is saturated, I find that it's even less for those who have the expertise that you're going to be looking for.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so you don't want to use, in this case, a general bookkeeper because the type of accounting that you need from a nonprofit space is very different than what we would do for like a small business or for-profit.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so you want to be very mindful.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, one, you want to make sure that they are a nonprofit bookkeeper or a nonprofit accountant.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: The second thing that you want to think about is do they have experience with the tools that you use or with your type of organization?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so a really good example is that the type of accounting that is required for an organization that is heavily grant funded by like the say the government, is the type of accounting that's required there is very different than another organization that may get all of their donations through individual donors.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so you want to spend some time interviewing, asking questions about their experience because you want to make sure that it actually aligns with the type of accounting that you're going to need.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then lastly, I would just inquire about the type of services that they're going to be providing for you because I find that when people hear bookkeep or accountant, a lot of people, their mind automatically goes to like taxes.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: And one, the the field of accounting is very vast, right?
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of things that that could mean.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so you want to be very clear on the scope of work and the type of work that they're going to be doing for you.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, at Visionary, we are an accounting firm, but we do not do taxes, right?
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: We are very specific and particular about the type of accounting work that we do for nonprofits.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you're looking for tax work, right, then we're misaligned.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to make sure that you're asking questions and being very specific to what you need done for your organization.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I hear all of this.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I think even with a bookkeeper knowing how to set up the chart of accounts, right?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: So that all of the financials, when it comes to filing, filing that electronic annual 990, all of the financials seamlessly they flow into the buckets, right?
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: Programs, administrative, fundraising.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: And that's such a basic thing with chart of accounts, which I wanted to talk about the role of the boards.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: There's so much focus on staff.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: But, you know, from what I remember, we would show up at these board meetings.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: Executive director might be throwing down the financial statements on the 11th hour.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_02: Board members are like, what the heck am I looking at?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they're just staring blindly at it.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: And and so, in terms of these reports, what if we were to start somewhere, what financial reports should the ED be sharing with the boards in advance?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: And also, how can we kind of demystify, decode what it's just seems like a foreign language?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: And he well, for one, I always like to say that you don't want to just, you know, pull the generic financial statements from your accounting tool and just share them.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because typically someone is gonna look at them and say, like, what is this?
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so I like to say you want to create some specific reports, we typically call the management reports that highlight what's important to your board, right?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so some of the things we think about is not just looking at the PL, but we might want to look at the um the PL by your funding sources, right?
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: So who's giving you money this year or for whatever you know period you might be reporting and what has that money been spent on, right?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you want to look at budget to actuals for the organization.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then you might even want to drill down by the grants, right?
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because some grants give you money and then they're very specific as to what you can spend that money on.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so if there's a gap, that lets the board know, okay, you know, there's a$50,000 gap between what's covered by grants and what's not.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so that tells us that, you know, we have to somehow come up with this$50,000 unrestricted to cover our costs, right?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: And another uh another uh report that you might want to look at is your cash flow, right?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: We typically put together like a 13-week like rolling cash flow report so that you can see what's coming down the line.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, are we anticipating any kind of deficit or maybe even a surplus?
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: And what are we going to do, you know, if it is a deficit or if if it is a surplus, you know, do we have plans for investing or how do we have plans to plug the gap?
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so those are three reports that you should start with.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: But another thing that you want to consider is what is there to support.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: So if the organization is experiencing like issues or you have an audit going on, these are also the type of updates and questions and leaning on you want to do on the board because they're there to they're there to support and to lend their expertise.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: So you want to make sure you're also coming to the table with the issues that you're having, the concerns, and see and let them weigh in because typically they're able to support and to help or at least point you in the right uh direction.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: That is the role of the board, right?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: But I what I'm witnessing or what I'm feeling is there is a lack of training.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, training with the same thing.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: That should be a thing.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because nonprofit accounting is also special, right?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's different.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: I do recommend some sort of board training typically, in in honestly, for management, not just the board, but also for management, because some because sometimes executive directors don't have backgrounds in like accounting or finance.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so they need to understand, you know, what they're looking at.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I say too, if you're hiring someone who's going to manage the finances for you, it's important to ask, like, will you get consistent meetings?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: What's the agenda of those meetings?
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: When we meet um weekly or monthly with some of our clients, we're sitting down and we're walking them through the books.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: We're making sure they understand, we're listening to their questions to make sure that when they walk away, they're not confused by this piece of paper that we just gave them.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_02: Jeremy, there is a lot of doom and gloom about donor trust, right?
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's on the decline.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_02: I think this is a call out to donors that are one way that you can support staff is donating to that professional development as part of building donor trust, as part of building that transparency.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: Because many nonprofit leaders, we want to put these systems in place, right?
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: We want to find the right people, we want to do the right thing, but it's kind of a mutual relationship, right?
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's just a call to the donors and also nonprofits, think about a specific campaign that you might fundraise for specifically for this purpose, specifically for investing in the right people, whether it's a contractor, whether it's a full-time bookkeeper, but then also that training piece that Jermin talked about.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: And Jermin, I wanted as kind of the last wrap-up question, you know, we just talked about this big elephant in the room about donor trust is on the decline.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted to get your opinion about this.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: Is this skepticism warranted?
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: Are you in your in your full-time work, are you finding that you're doing more audits as opposed to kind of implementing those tech tools?
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: Like what's your opinion here?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: So it's definitely on the decline.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it is partially warranted, be, but it's it's because of the nature of the industry, right?
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: You don't always see reported the great things that nonprofits are doing, but it is put on blast when there is a scandal or there's some sort of fraud happening at an organization.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so naturally, you know, when people are attuned to the news and social media and things like that, they are seeing all this negative news surrounding, you know, nonprofits.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as a professional on the on the other side who are who's doing the accounting and in the books, what I see is that the audits have become more strict.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: So not necessarily that I'm seeing more audits because once you've hit the threshold for being audited, that's it, right?
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: Annually you're having an audit.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: But what I'm seeing is we're being asked for more things, right?
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: We're being asked to verify things that might have been considered immaterial in the past, like a lot more strict.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: And there's honestly, like I'm even seeing like from the government side, a lot more trainings and webinars that are becoming mandatory for how they want to see things reported and how they want to see things show up in your books.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, that's also why it's really important when you think about your organization and the type of funding sources you have to make sure that you have the support needed because the executive director can't be all things.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: So you never run an organization.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: So attending these trainings and webinars, that might be something that's not even in, you know, in their capacity.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I definitely think that to some extent it is warranted within the nonprofit space, we get so wrapped up in this scarcity mindset that we're trying to put band-aids on everything versus really truly getting to the root of what's going on and then implementing a real solution.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you are finding that your budget has grown, you're getting more funding, your books have become more complex, then maybe the type of support you had at 500K is not the type of support you're going to need at a million or a million plus.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: No, you so you have to think about the growth that your organization is seeing and the management of said funds, right?
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so um I understand that cash strap is a thing, but that's also why I think you then have to go back to that people process tech.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: How can you get the most out of those three things?
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: How can you balance them?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because your funder does not care.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: The public does not care.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: They want these things to be in place because that helps them gain confidence in the organization's ability to steward the funds.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so you have to be able to display that.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that comes in the form of that trans whole transparency piece we talked about.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_02: Having the right systems in place, the right people, it's it's basically all the infrastructure.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I think what goes with that, Jermin, is we need to take more risk, right?
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: Like, like you said, if your nonprofit has just hit that 500k mark, well, hey, it's time to like let's be a little bit more adventurous.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: Let's let's take some risk, let's invest the money it takes to really do things right.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: And no, Jermin, as a professor, at We Are Good.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: Tell us where can our followers find you?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: I know you're heavily on Instagram, LinkedIn.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: You have a great guide.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: But for those of us listening, what kind of resources do you have out there to help a lot of us?
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: I am very active on social media.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: I put out a lot of content.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you can also find me on YouTube where I actually get much more tactical.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are, you know, looking for how-tos, I do a lot, I share a lot of that type of content in my YouTube videos.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: But yes, you can also find me on uh Instagram at the Visionary Accountant.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: You can find me on LinkedIn as my name, Jermaine Guillaume.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you can find me on YouTube as Jermaine G.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: So if you really do have a question, you can email me or you can DM me.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: I do respond to DMs.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, so yeah, you can find me, send me a message.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: And if I don't have a resource um that I can point you to, I will surely um point you in the right direction.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's been quite frankly a party here.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I would love to have you back on again, Jermaine, to talk about operations.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for having me.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: Such a great chat.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: Likewise, take care, Jermaine.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, you two.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure you're feeling as inspired as I am after this conversation.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's a clear reminder that authentic connection should always be at the heart of what we do.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for joining us on the nonprofit podcast.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: I hope you've left with the confidence to take a small step today that will make a big difference tomorrow.
• 23:16
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• 23:25
  SPEAKER_02: You're here to help others, we are here to help you.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: Until next time, stay inspired.
• 23:31
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• 23:36
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• 23:39
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• 23:42
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• 23:47
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