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The Nonprofit CFO's Survival Guide 3 Your Mission: Support The Mission Increasing revenue. Consolidating across multiple entities. Budgeting. Implementing internal controls. Facilitating audits and compliance reporting. Sometimes, it's easy to overlook the fact that CFOs of nonprofit and for-profit organizations alike do, indeed, share many of the same challenges in pursuit of the same overarching goal: optimizing the returns of the organization's activities by carefully managing all aspects of its finances. But, of course, in the nonprofit world, it's not about maximizing profitability it's about maximizing impact. Nonprofits typically pursue a "mission-first" philosophy, aiming to achieve greater social or philanthropic goals and balance the competing interests of social mission and a sound financial foundation. The result is a host of additional challenges that can burden the nonprofit finance team and its financial so ware infrastructure. The fact is, it's never easy to be a CFO. Regardless of the organization, every CFO faces both common and unique challenges and pressures. However, in many ways, financial leaders at nonprofits must address even greater difficulties than their for-profit counterparts. It can be a result of thin or part-time staffing (and sometimes merely volunteers). There are always tight budgets, primitive tools (think of dozens of spreadsheets from multiple contributors), and far-flung management teams. Nonprofit CFOs are under the gun to achieve so much: to automate processes, improve productivity, create greater levels of transparency and visibility, enhance the governance of the organization, and strengthen the team's decision-making and strategic focus. How can a CFO survive this challenging environment? The following "Nonprofit CFO's Survival Guide" discusses some of the key challenges, special requirements, and unusual constraints of financial management and shares some tips and best practices from numerous nonprofit finance experts. Accounting 101: It's Still Job One The Challenge: Accounting in nonprofit se ings involves significant complexity. The Solution: Implement solutions that provide flexibility for diverse accounting and reporting needs. For so many nonprofit organizations, the daily tasks of bread-and-bu er accounting and financial management are inextricably driven by a broad array of complexities. Beyond the bread-and-bu er basics of accounts payable and receivable that everyone needs, the basics for nonprofits encompass a distinct set of standard documents, including statements of activities, statements of financial position, statements of cash flow, and the Form 990. If only it stayed that simple. For example, revenue management makes nonprofit accounting an especially thorny challenge—particularly with the way revenue is recognized. If the organization collects annual dues or periodic donations at different times of the year, it may be important to decouple cash receipts and disbursements from revenue recognition.

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