In the May 29th Chronicle of Evidence-Based Mentoring, Dr. Jean Rhodes featured this study as follows.
This study examines a Wallace Foundation-sponsored initiative aimed at improving the financial management skills and practices of 25 Chicago after-school providers through training and coaching. Two models for this professional development were provided and each produced long-lasting improvements. Moreover, organizations receiving the less-expensive group training and coaching improved almost as much as those receiving more intensive customized coaching.http://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/after-school/financial-management-for-nonprofits/Documents/The-Skills-to-Pay-the-Bills.pdf
Ret. 5-29-15
Below is the "Executive Summary."
The Importance of Strong Financial Management for Organizations Serving Young People Nonprofit
Organizations serving young people exist to provide meaningful opportunities for those young people to build their skills; experience positive, supportive relationships; and prepare for the future. No one would judge an organization’s worth by its financial soundness alone, but financially unhealthy programs threaten an organization’s ability to achieve its mission. Unfortunately, although they are critical to effective management, core organizational capabilities and effective administrative functions often are mistakenly perceived as peripheral to an organization’s mission.1
To the contrary, good financial management is essential to effective youth interventions. First, it enables organizations to plan strategically: A clear understanding of the resources needed to serve program participants well serves as a guide to fund-raising efforts. It also provides information on the types of investments in an organization’s core capabilities — management, support functions, and infrastructure — that need to be made to sustain program quality. Second, good financial management means organizations can deploy their resources thoughtfully. It enables them to predict the impact of changing circumstances, such as funding delays or shortfalls, and respond to them while managing their effect on program quality. This report examines what happened to a group of organizations that attempted to strengthen their financial management systems from 2009 to 2013.
The Current State of Financial Management
Good financial management is not easily achieved in organizations that often have grown organically out of community need, funders’ compassion, and the passion and good ideas of people committed to bettering young people’s lives. Indeed, weakness in financial management is pervasive across the nonprofit sector. The following problems were common among participating organizations at the beginning of the current study:
- Staff members with less than optimal financial management skills, understaffed financial departments, and underdeveloped information technology (IT) systems created inefficiencies in routine tasks. Staff members in organizations’ financial departments often operated in crisis mode or were absorbed with daily tasks such as paying bills and responding to funder requests, leaving long-term financial planning functions underdeveloped. This could potentially have serious consequences for organizational sustainability and efficiency.
- A lack of transparency regarding organizations’ financial positions, and an absence of useful forecasts, meant leaders often could not make informed choices about program and organizational needs.
- Incomplete understanding of the true costs of program delivery, including the support functions necessary for high-quality programs, left those programs chronically underfunded.
- Organizations’ financial staff members operated in isolation, with few connections to staff members who understood the resources needed to support and strengthen programs and who knew how to respond effectively to weaknesses.
The challenges that arise as a result of poor internal financial practices are exacerbated by certain funder practices. Funders place limits on allowable overhead that are often insufficient for organizations to manage programs well. Funding is often insecure, obtained through short-term contracts. And payments for contracted services may be late — sometimes many months late.
The Wallace Foundation Initiative to Strengthen Financial Management in Nonprofit Organizations
Recognizing these challenges, the Wallace Foundation — which has a long-standing commitment to improving the quality of services for young people — set up the Strengthening Financial Management in Out-of-School Time (SFM) project. The aim was to equip organizations with the ability to plan and manage their financial resources and increase their potential to deliver high-quality services, and at the same time to record lessons from the experience to aid the many organizations that face similar challenges. The foundation took a three-pronged approach:
1. Directly build the financial management capabilities of organizations serving young people.
2. Work with funders and policymakers to reform practices that strain the ability of organizations to manage their resources well.
3. Fund research into the project and inform a wide audience about the effects of this approach (or lack thereof).
Staff members from 25 organizations that provided a variety of out-of-school-time programs for Chicago young people participated in the initiative.2 Their budgets ranged from $800,000 to $36 million, although most had budgets of $3 million to $8 million at the initiative’s beginning. All fell short on some or many aspects of financial management. The 25 organizations were divided into two groups based on the Wallace Foundation’s assessment of the level of intervention they could undertake. From 2009 to 2013, Fiscal Management Associates (FMA), a consulting firm that works with nonprofit organizations and foundations to strengthen financial practices, provided all of the organizations with access to peer networking opportunities, and provided each of the two groups with one of two models of consulting and training. The two models varied in the amount and type of professional development assistance offered to the organizations involved. This report refers to the more intensive intervention as the “customized learning plus group learning” model (or “customized learning,” for short), and refers to the other intervention as the “group learning” model. See Table ES.1 for a brief description of the models. Many of the activities involved the participating organizations’ senior leaders, particularly the chief executive officers and chief financial officers (CEOs and CFOs), although other fiscal and program staff members participated when appropriate. Importantly, the professional development support provided mostly occurred during the first two years of the initiative. In addition to paying for that support the Wallace Foundation provided grants to the organizations to enable them to undertake the work, and the amount and timing of those grants also differed between the two groups of organizations.
FMA made a number of assumptions about what financially stable organizations require:
First, organizations need to understand their financial positions on an ongoing basis, as
efficiently as possible. Good financial software makes that possible. Second, having well specified
internal financial procedures ensures that all parties know what they need to do and
when, with minimal redundancy. Third, in order to develop accurate, realistic budgets, an organization
must calculate not only the costs directly linked to the delivery of program services
(such as equipment and program staff salaries) but also the overhead costs of running the organization
itself. Lastly, to make appropriate financial decisions, organizational leaders need information
not only from financial staff members but also from program managers and others. Program
managers are likely to know how and when to spend resources to maximize a program’s
effect, and if cuts need to be made, they are likely to know which will be the least damaging.
FMA designed its group learning sessions around these assumptions, providing guidance
on how organizations could make their financial procedures more rigorous and systematic,
ensure adequate controls on spending, involve staff members from programs in budgeting, acquire
needed financial software, and create realistic budgets. The major difference between the
models was the degree of customization. FMA consultants worked with the staff members from
customized learning organizations, helping them design policies and procedures specific to their
organizations. In some cases, they prepared customized manuals for the organizations’ use.
They also assisted organizations in assessing their staffing configurations, and they made specific
recommendations about hiring. In contrast, the group learning model organizations received
general advice and options in group learning sessions that they could then take back to their organizations.
While the staff members from group learning organizations could discuss the advantages
and disadvantages of various options with the FMA consultant during a one-hour
phone call that followed each group learning session, and while the FMA staff could help them
figure out how to address specific problems, the organizations had to make many more decisions
on their own.
Component Customized Learning Group Learning
Financial needs assessment Individual, on-site financial Assisted self-assessment
audit
Work plan Developed in partnership with
consultants
Self-developed
Individual coaching In-depth 8 one-hour consultations
Primary staff focus of
intervention CEOs CFOs
Frequency of peer learning
sessions Quarterly Quarterly
Initial grant to organizations ($) 115,000 40,000
Follow-up grant to
organizations ($) 0 25,000
Grant for cash reserves ($) 125,000 0
Median number of hours of professional
development provided by FMA 704 183
Strengthening Financial Management
Table ES.1
For the second prong of the initiative (the one focused on reforming funding practices),
a Chicago-based organization, the Donors Forum, was selected to work with funders, state and
city policymakers and officials, and organizations serving young people. Its aim was to identify
barriers to effective financial management and set priorities among them, develop principles to
guide decisions, develop and implement practical solutions to improve the way funders manage
contracts, and build momentum for wider reforms in Illinois.
The Study and This Report
As the third prong of the initiative, the Wallace Foundation commissioned an independent evaluation
of the extent to which the initiative achieved its intended results, and at what cost of
money and effort. The foundation was committed to informing a wide audience about whether
and how results were achieved, what challenges were encountered, and whether and how the
challenges were overcome.3 It also sought to inform a wide audience about the Donors Forum’s
efforts to improve the funding environment. To address these issues, the four-year study relied
on information from interviews with CEOs and CFOs, conducted every 9 to 12 months for four
years; annual visits to a selection of the organizations; and document reviews.
This report presents findings that should be of interest to practitioners, funders, policymakers,
and the public. It examines the following questions: What forms of support do organizations
need to strengthen their ability to manage their resources? What type of time commitment
does this require from the organization itself? From consultants? What types of changes
need to be made to funder practices, and how might those changes be achieved? When those
changes have been achieved, how effective have they been? What lessons can the evaluation
offer those who seek to strengthen the financial management of nonprofit organizations?4
Summary of Findings About the Professional and Organizational
Development Models
- The financial management practices of nearly all of the participating organizations improved over the course of the initiative.
Of the 25 participating organizations, all but 2 strengthened their financial practices in
at least some areas, and improvements persisted beyond the first two years of intensive professional
development. Meaningful changes were seen in a range of areas: improved financial
skills; better — and better-used — computer systems; more useful internal financial reports and
procedures; and more — and more effective — collaboration across program and financial divisions,
which strengthened organizations’ ability to create good budgets and monitor them effectively.
Overall, organizations improved the quality of their financial decision making.
Nearly half of the organizations that received customized learning and nearly half of
those that primarily received group learning improved in 80 percent or more of the areas in
which they had been weak at the start of the initiative.
- According to organizations’ leaders and senior staff members, better financial practices led to better program planning and management, and to improved organizational stability.
- Multiyear professional and organizational support — combined with funding to purchase new financial software and to defray some of the cost of staff time — helped organizations achieve long-lasting change.
This type of deep change required organizations to expend significant staff time (typically
800 to 1,000 hours over the course of the four years) and money ($30,000 to $60,000). The
money was used to recruit new financial staff members, buy software, and pay for associated
training. Taking into account the value of staff time, the full cost to each organization is estimated
at $70,000 to $110,000. The unrestricted grants from the Wallace Foundation — $115,000 for
customized learning organizations and $65,000 for the group learning organizations — enabled
organizations to make the investments required to improve their financial management.
- To succeed in achieving the aims of SFM, an organization’s leaders needed to be motivated to change from the outset.
When CEOs reported at the beginning of the initiative that they were strongly motivated
to participate in SFM because it aligned with their organizations’ needs and plans, their organizations
made significant progress in all aspects of financial management. The reverse was true for
organizations where strengthening financial management had not previously been part of their
plans. Sustaining an organizational change initiative like SFM beyond an initial burst is not easy,
and leadership quality — the ability to communicate the change, execute it, and adapt to emerging
circumstances — was critically important for achieving rapid, deep, and long-lasting improvements.
Ironically, the initiative’s goal may have been helped by the harsh economic climate,
which reinforced the need for better financial practices. Thus, despite the recession’s adverse
effects on organizations’ finances, it may have helped sustain the initiative’s momentum.
- The financial practices of organizations receiving the group learning model of support significantly improved, though more slowly and not quite as much as those receiving the customized learning model, indicating that this less expensive approach was cost-effective.
Summary of Findings About the Policy Work
- The second prong of the initiative, aimed at influencing funding practices, made some progress, but was slow to achieve results.
- The most pressing funding problem facing the SFM organizations over the course of the project was late state payments. The Great Recession resulted in payments that were delayed by up to six months, and little could be done to speed them up.
Implications
The Wallace Foundation’s initiative casts light on the financial practices of organizations and on
what can be done to improve them. If 25 well-established and respected Chicago organizations
were struggling with financial management, it is highly likely that many more organizations
across the country face similar challenges. Encouragingly, the initiative demonstrated that with
a concerted effort it is possible to achieve significant and lasting improvements in financial
management. Together with improvements in funding practices, these have the potential to strengthen program quality by permitting organizations to focus on programs instead of managing
financial crises.
Implications for Funders and Consultants Who Support Organizational
Development
- Widespread weaknesses in organizations’ financial management can have negative effects on their stability, planning, and programs. Good financial management is an important factor in facilitating and sustaining long-term improvements in program quality. The organizations involved in the initiative all had strong reputations for providing high-quality programs, but it was clear that internal financial weaknesses plagued most. Opaque budgeting practices that did not include program managers left program staff members ignorant of their budgets, leading to over- or underspending. Organizations that did not understand how to allocate overhead costs accurately across programs faced budget shortfalls that affected program stability. Inefficiencies in financial procedures took up a lot of time for staff members already stretched thin. This initiative suggests that efforts to create change in financial management can be effective in achieving lasting organizational improvements. Improved program quality is not guaranteed when financial practices are strong, since high-quality programs require other important forms of support, such as good planning, reliance on evidence, high-quality program staff members, high-quality staff training, and activities that engage participants. But financial management provides critically important support.
- In order to create lasting changes in their core administrative infrastructures, organizations need to work consistently for several years on strengthening their financial management. Many initiatives to build organizational capabilities last only a short while, and there is little evidence that they work. It is important that organizations know how to change, but it is not sufficient; organizations also need time and resources. In SFM, changing organizations’ financial management required changes in software, written manuals, and organizational practices, and each of these changes took time and money. Given that many of the changes were interrelated, it is unlikely that lasting improvement could be achieved in substantially less time.
- Change in financial management requires widespread organizational change. It is important to emphasize that the changes under SFM occurred because the initiative addressed multiple aspects of organizations’ financial practices and multiple senior staff members. The effort focused on training senior leaders, including organizations’ CEOs and CFOs, rather than only training more junior staff members. Organizational leaders were expected to support the effort, and the evidence shows that when they were motivated to do so, their organizations made more changes to their financial management that affected more areas: staffing structure, staff members’ skills, accounting IT systems, the quality of financial reports, and internal decision-making processes. Not every organization needed to change in every area, but many needed changes in most areas related to financial management.
- Unrestricted funding made possible the necessary investments of time and capital. The amount of money required to create lasting change in an organization depends on the organization’s size and needs. In this initiative, the Wallace Foundation’s investments of $65,000 to $115,000 in direct grants covered staff time, software, and training. These costs will vary from place to place, since salaries vary across the country.
- The group learning model was a cost-effective method of improving financial practices. The grants provided to the group learning organizations totaled a little more than 55 percent of those provided to the customized learning organizations, and the former group received only about a quarter of the hours of assistance received by the latter. While the customized learning organizations demonstrated slightly larger changes, the group learning organizations also substantially improved. Achieving larger change faster is desirable, but it is possible to achieve meaningful change at a lower cost.
- Organizations interested in undertaking efforts to improve their financial practices should be prepared to spend between 800 and 1,000 staff hours on the work over two to three years. Organizations involved in the initiative spent significant amounts of time on activities designed to strengthen their financial management, spread across multiple staff members.
- An organization’s top leader and its top financial manager must be involved in this work. Without the motivation and commitment of the organization’s top leaders, changes are hard to achieve. An organization’s CEO must have a basic understanding of good financial management practices and the risks that organizations face if practices are lax. The CEO also needs to communicate the importance of the work, to maintain staff interest and commitment. And finally, it is the CEO who has the ability to oversee changes in staffing to ensure that good practices are adopted and that program and financial staff members work together. The CFO must also be involved in communicating the importance of the work to financial staff members, in ensuring that staff members get the training they need, and in overseeing necessary changes to software and policies.
- Changes in software and manuals help sustain organizational change. One of the challenges in helping organizations build their capabilities is sustaining those changes over time. In SFM, changes were made to manuals and software. Once such changes were made, staff members were trained in the changes and managers worked to ensure that they were adopted. The fact that the new procedures were built into software and written into manuals helped to sustain them over time. It appears to be especially challenging for organizations to maintain increased communication between financial and program staff members, so that change in particular should be written into organizations’ policies-and-procedures manuals.
Policy Change: Supporting Changes in Practices for Public
Funders
Influencing funder practices appeared to be an attractive route for reform, as such
changes should logically benefit many organizations at once. However, the SFM initiative’s
experience revealed several limitations to the approach. First, in order for new procedures to
generate tangible benefits, organizations and funders must learn and use them. Second, changes
must affect a substantial portion of organizations’ funding to be valuable to them. From an organization’s
perspective, is not enough to influence a single funder, particularly if that funder is
not the organization’s major source of support. Third, as is often the case with advocacy, change
is slow to materialize. For these reasons, those seeking quick results in the financial management
arena may find it more effective to focus on building organizations’ ability to manage
their finances, helping them to withstand adverse funding practices. And in fact the SFM initiative
demonstrated a feasible way to do this, albeit a labor-intensive one.
Nonetheless, there is a limit to how much an effectively managed organization can improve
its financial stability, given the existing funding environment. Thus it is valuable to pursue
changes in funder practices alongside direct capability building, even though achieving such
change will be a long-term endeavor requiring significant resources. The following sequence of
steps worked well for the Donors Forum in its efforts to improve contracting practices in Illinois:
1. Convene key stakeholders, including organizations, multiple funding constituencies,
politicians, and agency officials.
2. Define the problem, garner support for change, and define common principles
of good practice.
3. Decide where to focus attention (for example, on specific issues or on types
of funders), depending on what types of changes would benefit organizations
most and on where change can be achieved.
4. Provide concrete solutions that respond to funders’ needs.
5. When new legislation passes, provide support to help public agencies develop
concrete plans to implement it.
While working in this way is useful, it may not lead to change in the highest-priority areas.
Policy advocates need to find opportunities where change can be achieved.
Final Thoughts
Today organizations have to achieve more for less. Funders increasingly demand results but are
not always prepared to cover the attendant core organizational costs. Given this climate, the
Strengthening Financial Management initiative provides powerful and very encouraging evidence
for organizations and funders alike. Organizations can strengthen their financial practices
if they put in the time and make the needed investments. Funders who want to build the core
capabilities of an organization or sector now have a blueprint for effective work.
1 Though many organizations use the term “capacity,” this report uses the term “capability” throughout.
2 Twenty-six organizations were initially selected to participate in the initiative, but one dropped out shortly after selection and was therefore excluded from the evaluation. Another closed due to financial problems in the initiative’s penultimate year.
1 Though many organizations use the term “capacity,” this report uses the term “capability” throughout.
2 Twenty-six organizations were initially selected to participate in the initiative, but one dropped out shortly after selection and was therefore excluded from the evaluation. Another closed due to financial problems in the initiative’s penultimate year.
3 The Wallace Foundation initially awarded the evaluation to Public/Private Ventures. When Public/Private Ventures closed its doors in mid-2012 due to financial problems, MDRC and Child Trends stepped in to complete the evaluation.
4 In 2012, Public/Private Ventures published an early report on the progress of the initiative that presents an overview of the participating organizations and their financial management challenges, along with a summary of good financial management practices and early lessons from the first year of the initiative. See Kotloff, Lauren, with Nancy Burd, Building Stronger Nonprofits Through Better Financial Management: Early Efforts in 26 Youth-Serving Organizations (Philadelphia, PA: Public/Private Ventures, 2012).
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