Join us for this five-week course for boards to dig deep on nonprofit financial best practices, help them avoid pitfalls and permit them to
About this Event

Join us for this five-week course for boards to dig deep on nonprofit financial best practices, help them avoid pitfalls and permit them to make a strong overall contribution to the organization they serve. We welcome all nonprofit leaders to attend this class, although new executive directors may find it particularly helpful. Most board members, staff leaders, veteran EDs, and aspiring EDs can all learn valuable lessons from it.

Week 1: Core roles and duties:
-Legal requirements of all board members (quoting TX law)
-Legal liability
-Horror stories (Family Connections, my mom, etc.)
-D&O Insurance
-Treasurer role
-Chair’s role
-Finance Committee role (briefly; more next week)
Week 2: Relationship with staff – getting it right; adding value:
Board relationship with staff
-Executive Director
-Accounting and finance staff
-Power dynamics and the importance of clear roles
Finance Committee Role
-Adding value to the board
-Adding value to the staff
-Overperforming and underperforming
Week 3: Financial Reports
Why read the financial reports? Plus, how to read the financial reports
-Balance Sheet
-Profit and Loss
-Materiality (what to worry about and what not to worry about)
-Dashboards
-Inclusion
-Engaging the full board in financial decisions
Week 4: Fraud prevention, audits; separation of duties
-Internal controls
-Separation of duties
-Audit
Week 5: Bringing it all together
Additional Tools, benefits
-1:1 Advisory: In addition to the in-class time, each participant will get a 25-minute 1:1 phone advisory session with Sean Hale.
-Light weekly homework: Between each session we’ll have a light assignment such as a brief video (like the Little Table) or article. We’ll use this to reinforce key concepts and as a conversation starter the following week.
-Written Resources: Each week we will provide one or more resources to attendees such as treasurer job descriptions, templates, readings and podcast recommendations to continue learning, etc. The resources will come from a combination of Sean Hale Consulting’s materials, online materials (e.g., Board Source), and the Nonprofit Austin archives.

Nonprofit Austin reserves the right to postpone this learning opportunity if there is inadequate registration.

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More about our facilitator:

Sean has served a variety of nonprofits professionally since 1999. During his 20 years as a nonprofit employee, he made improvements that reduced waste, generated new revenue, boosted staff productivity and morale, grew financial transparency, and shrank risk. Sean has consistently left the organizations stronger and ready for their next stage of growth.

In 2020, he founded Nonprofit CFOs (formerly Sean Hale Consulting) now a 12-person team that helps small and medium-sized nonprofits ensure they have strong, effective financial management. Services include interim staffing, fractional CFO, and indirect cost rate calculations.

Over the years he has served on a variety of boards. He currently volunteers as an officer in two: the Austin Nonprofit Financial Leadership Group and the League for Nonprofit Human Capital.

Sean holds a Master’s degree and Certificate in Nonprofit Management from the University of Texas at Austin.