Executive Director Fiduciary Excellence
March 25, 2025 @ 11:30 am - April 22, 2025 @ 1:00 pm
$75.00 - $150.00
Join us for this five-week course for executive directors 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.
Target audience:
• Core: Nonprofit Executive Directors and CEOs
• Secondary: Nonprofit staff and board members
o 90% of the content should have universal appeal
o When we do breakout rooms, let’s keep the two groups separate so people can have peers they relate to more
Format:
• Zoom or equivalent
• Once per week for five weeks
• 75-90 minutes each time, including a brief break about halfway through
• Mix of presentations, Q&A, and small group activities (using breakout rooms)
Week 1: Core roles and duties
• Executive Director Role
• Financial Staff
o Hiring
o Firing
o Fraud triangle
o Preventing burnout/resentments/fraud
o Current hiring and retention challenges
• Board Role
o Legal requirements of all board members (quoting TX law)
o Treasurer role
o Chair’s role
o Finance Committee role
• Legal liability
• Horror stories
• D&O Insurance
Week 2: Money and Your Relationship with Board and Staff – getting it right
• Executive Director with staff
o Accounting and finance staff (including their interactions with board)
o Staff who manage budgets
o Staff who touch money (e.g., reimbursements, credit cards, etc.)
o Power dynamics and the importance of clear roles
• Executive Director with Board
o Budget
o Reporting
o Where does the buck stop?
o Engagement
o Overperforming and underperforming
Week 3: Financial Reports
• Why read the financial reports?
• Who gets financial reports?
• How to read the financial reports
o Balance Sheet
o Profit and Loss
o Materiality (what to worry about and what not to worry about)
• Dashboards
o Inclusion
o Engaging the full board and key staff in financial discussions
Week 4: Fraud prevention, audits; separation of duties
• Internal controls
• Separation of duties
• Audit
Week 5: Capstone
We’ll ask the class, immediately after the previous week, to email their requests for additional topics. Potential topics to include some (but not all) of the following:
• Budgeting
o Board and staff roles
o Setting aside a reserve
• Annual Finance Committee Calendar
o What to do every month
o What to do quarterly
o What to do 1 or 2x/yr
• Can a nonprofit make a profit?
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
o Pay transparency
o Reimbursement policies
o Who to provide benefits to
o Unpaid internships
o Criminal background checks
• A healthy mindset – having a healthy attitude towards money
o Frugal vs cheap, including Sam Vimes boots theory (it’s more expensive to be poor than rich)
o Budgeting during uncertain times
o When to spend the reserve fund (and not to)
• Key policies: Grievance and whistleblower, gift acceptance, investment
• Things to avoid
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.
