 Welcome, thank you for joining us. Another episode of the nonprofit show. This week has been fantastic and we promise to deliver another fantastic next week. Today we have our guest, Ellie Hume, CPA MBA with your part-time controller. And Ellie is here to talk to us about the great resignation and how it impacts the NPO finance. So that's what Ellie's gonna open her brain and knock all that wisdom out. We're really excited to hear. So before we get started, we of course wanna make sure that we recognize Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. I'm Jarrett Ransom, your nonprofit nerd, CEO of the Raven Group. And we are honored to have the continued support and investment from our presenting sponsors. You can see them on the screen, but I'd also like to acknowledge Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Fundraising Academy, non-profit nerd, your part-time controller, the nonprofit Atlas, non-profit thought leader, as well as staffing boutique. And as Julia said in our green room chatter, for those of you that are early birds, we have over 500 episodes and you can catch all of them here on Roku, YouTube, Fire TV, as well as Vimeo. And what I like to say, like the infomercials, but wait, there's more. Because we're now on podcast form. So anywhere you stream your podcast, please make sure that you do queue up the nonprofit show and you get us in that queue because each and every day we are uploading a new episode. So make sure that you do check that out. Whether you're traveling or exercising, you can tune in and listen to our amazing guest, like Ellie that we have here today from your part-time controller to talk to us about the great resignation and the NPO finance world and all of the changes over the last couple of years. Welcome back, Ellie. Thank you so much for having me back. I'm so happy to be here. Oh, you know, you're one of those people that I think has helped me reframe what it means to communicate with a CPA. Okay. And that's really cool because you're fun, you're super smart. You really can pull us in with great stories and examples of things. And it just makes the process a lot less fearful. And I think so many people in the nonprofit sector get a rude awakening when they realize, holy moly, we gotta be looking at the numbers and we've gotta be having a really strong relationship with our financial folks. And so we really wanted to have you come on and talk about this because this is a fearful time. In the Green Room Chatter, Jared was even talking about this with what she's seeing with clients. And so thank you for bringing us into the discussion of the ecosystem because things are a change, aren't they? They absolutely are. And they have to continue to change in order to make it survive. And that's one of the things I wanna talk about too is the pipeline of talent is really, really bad right now for accounting and financial aspects of the operating world in businesses in general and especially in nonprofits. Wow, okay. Well, that's gonna frame up our very first question. So you kind of gave us a little peek through behind the curtains. Yeah. It's not so good. I mean, what was it like before the pandemic? So in general, the accounting profession has been aging. The people in that profession are reaching retirement age and there is not a whole lot of new young talent entering the accounting profession. It's not a glitzy fun, super exciting profession that people really know a lot about. They think very often about, I don't wanna be a CPA. I don't wanna work for a CPA firm and work really crazy hours and do audits and taxes and that whole crazy tax season nonsense. And quite honestly, I was one of those people. I didn't want that life and I never went that route. I decided there had to be a better way to be an accountant and not go into the CPA craziness of working in the public sector. So I think it's really, we need to educate young people about the profession more, really help universities understand the paths that accountants and CPAs can take but they don't have to go to CPA firms because I do think that does scare some young people away. And I've been having a conversation with the New York State Society of CPAs. I'm on one of the committees and they've been talking about how do we get more young talent interested because we have to feed the pipeline as the previous generations start to age out of the profession and want to retire and move on to play with their grandbabies and go on vacations and all of these wonderful things. So just in terms of this topic, pre-pandemic it was an aging, it was already an aging profession and people wanted to start to plan for retirement and they hadn't really thought about succession planning in the CFO role or the finance department. And I think that's been certainly something that has come out of this situation now is like, oh, we really have to be serious about succession planning across the whole organization not just planning for the CEO succession but as an organization, every position has to have a succession plan. Kelly, I love your story. Thank you for sharing it. I did not know that. What a great role model you are to so many people. And I similarly am passionate about how our universities and higher education teach about the nonprofit sector. Like we have so many business courses and it really focuses on my side, on the for-profit and not the nonprofit. And like we look at our accounting, YPTC is a national leader for nonprofit accounting. So that is a whole separate track. And I love that you're telling that story. So let our passion unite, Ellie and let's just kick these universities in a high gear to say, hey, let's talk about the nonprofit sector because we talk about business and we talk about accounting because it's a sub-sector but it's making up a huge workforce into that. So I love what you shared. Let's talk and move into this great resignation and really what our financial teams are looking like, how they're taking shape. What are we seeing right now? Because as you said, it's a little grim and I was like, thanks Debbie Downer. This is, you know, but what are our financial teams looking like? Like what is the makeup? What is the need? Talk to us about this. Well, I can tell you the need is great because the talent pool is small and we are seeing a ton of turnover right now at organizations because of people who don't wanna return to the office and employers who are talking about, oh, we want everybody to start coming back, you know, three days a week or five days a week. And they say, you know, I've done my job pretty well from home. Why do I have to come in? And they're saying, well, that's just the policy of the organization. And so that alone starts to make them think, you know, maybe there's something else out there where I can stay with the flexibility that I've come to enjoy and no commuting or very little commuting. So people are really starting to think more about those intangible benefits they hadn't really thought about before because they were just like, you know, trudging along the way it always was before. And then all of a sudden these new ideas and opportunities came about that organizations just weren't as open to before when somebody said, oh, you know, I really like to work from home one day a week. And then the organizations say, no, we don't like that idea. I mean, I have clients that still to this day their board members think if you're not at your office, you're not working. I mean, what kind of crazy mindset is that? You know, do I think that there are people in my profession and in all professions that do take advantage of the situation and may be slacking off a little bit? Yeah, but work is getting done. And a lot of work is getting done at home. And I think it's short-sighted to really be thinking that that's, you know, you have to do that. And it's leading people into the direction of looking for other opportunities that maybe they can move away from an expensive city like New York and have a better, you know, life experience with the same salary or a little bit less salary because they get the trade off. We've seen that in our community where we live in Arizona. It has been a destination for so many individuals to relocate over the last couple of years. So we have seen a spike, you know, in individuals relocating here with their families, within our school districts, the economy. So you're right, there's a lot going on. I was talking to my parents and they're not in accounting, but they are baby boomers, right? And so they're retired. And I said, hey, if you're bored and you want to work, now is a great time to get back into the workforce. Are you seeing some kind of reentry, you know, candidates because I know YPTC only hires the best and these are not, you know, green, fresh out of college. These are really experienced. Absolutely. CPAs are really expert level accounting. Are you seeing that trending? I absolutely see that trending. We have had a significant spike in candidate interest from, you know, folks that are in the 30 and 40 year experience range that they say, you know, I'm not ready to retire, but I am really thinking about this work-life balance and being at the right place with the right culture and serving the nonprofit community. How do I give back after all these years? Like I still want to get paid. I still need a paycheck, but I also want to use my skills for good. And I've had so many amazing conversations with top talent that we're interviewing to come onto our team. And I do think there's a trend there. I've always had some really great talent of folks that are like in their second or third careers as accountants and they're like, I'm not really ready to retire, but let me work part-time or, you know, they come and say I want to work full-time and then transition to part-time work and ease into retirement a little bit more. And so we are lucky enough to be able to provide that kind of flexibility to our staff members. And I think it gives us a great advantage to being, getting access to really amazing talent like that. Well, I was talking to our partner here in Arizona and Dan Tritch. And, you know, Julia, remember the day that Dan stepped foot into Arizona? And this was a couple of years ago. There was like 14 members. I met with him yesterday and he was saying how there's 18. And so the growth, the demand, the need, that's just in one state, right? And YPT certainly, yeah, really is the leading, you know, nationwide. So I am so glad you exist. So glad that this talent and resource is here for the nonprofit sector. It's just, it's so needed. Yeah. You know, it's really an interesting thing. And part of this discussion, I'd love for you to kind of give us an idea for what's the current reality? I mean, I love, and it warms my heart as just a regular citizen of this country. It warms my heart that people would recognize the value of public service to a nonprofit or to their community. I love, love, love that. I think that's super cool. But, you know, these are people at the same time that are moving out of their career. And so you use that word pipeline, which just sent chills to me because what can we do to make sure that we're hiring type top talent and where are we in this trajectory? Sure. I mean, I do think that in the nonprofit space, they need to be really thinking about what can you properly pay top talent? And, you know, I know that it's hard in the nonprofit space to pay what a for-profit organization might pay or, you know, some big finance firm in Wall Street or whatever, but at the same time trying to balance like an appropriate amount of pay for the talent that you're getting, as well as those other benefits that they would be getting. And one of the things that we offer our staff is being an accountant with a purpose. And it is not something that, you know, has a dollar value tied to it. It has that really amazing feel good thing about every day that you make a difference. And that's what people now are looking for. They're reevaluating, what do I wanna do if I have to work eight, nine, 10 hours a day? What do I wanna do with that time that makes me feel good as a person and not just trudging away at a job for the sake of having a job? And that's happening across the world, I think, in financial management jobs and in any jobs. But for us, it is leading people to us that would not have maybe considered this type of job because they are looking more for that intangible feeling about the job that they're doing. And that's where nonprofits can really play up what they have to offer. And think about like, what benefits can we provide that don't cost us a whole lot but mean a lot to our staff? And that's really where you're gonna start utilizing your efforts to attract more top talent. You know, it makes me think of like, well, how we steward donors, you know, we bring them in, you know, if we can, certainly before COVID, you know, get them to your campus, get them to a program, communicate, let them see what it is you're doing. And I suspect that we never really did that with our financial teams. No, we would just say like with a piece of paper, you know, here you go, take it or leave it versus that cultivation piece. So I really appreciate you, you know, talking about that because I think that's a really powerful thing is understanding that level of commitment that your team can have. Before we move on, we've got some interesting questions that have come in. And one of them is, I'm kind of going back a little bit, but it does talk about going forward. Jim asks, how do we get accounting faculty to steer students into other accounting opportunities? Kind of like what you were talking away, talking about other than public accounting. So that is an excellent question because it's, and it's a hard one to answer. The problem, look, I'm an accountant. I had great professors and I had some not so great professors, but the fact of the matter is, they didn't work in the life that I work in. And so they don't know what that looks like. So if they don't even know about it, then how can they tell their students about it, right? So I am trying to right now have a conversation with one of the top schools in New York that has a great accounting program. And because of my relationship with New York state society, I'm trying to say like, look, let other people that are in industry be adjunct professors. And so that that brings a new perspective instead of the academics who maybe they did a handful of years in the public CPA world before they became a professor or maybe they do a few taxes on the side, but that's all they really know about. They don't know what it's like to work in an industry as an accountant. So to me, I think it's really getting in front of those professors and explaining to them, hey, there are other opportunities for these students, maybe have a career day, bring in other kinds of accountants. Don't just assume that every person who's studying accounting is going to be a CPA and be, you know, go do audits and tax. It's just not the reality of accountants. Every business needs accountants at every level, bookkeeping, controllers, CFO, like there's so many jobs out there for accountants that aren't the traditional, you know, public accounting track. You've got me fired up with a letter. I want to call these universities. I want to make sure they're listening to the show. I'm going to blast this out, tweet it. One of the things that I have noticed, and we've talked about this, you know, here on the show, previous Julia, is the nonprofit management schools didn't exist when I went through, right? When I went through college and I'm in my 40s and I'm proud to say it, they didn't exist. And so now we really do have some amazing young talent with nonprofit management degrees. And I feel like if we can start to integrate the trajectory and really start to level up the importance of the nonprofit workforce, we are a large sum of people, right? We make up a large sum. I think that's really important. I'm curious, because we talked about this before we went live with you, Ellie, is some nonprofits have really seen a great infusion of support. And by support, I mean finances, right? This could be CARES Act dollars. It could be other federal funds. And that has really increased the complexity of their financial capacity. And so even if a team, you know, maybe they've increased their budget from, let's say, a 1.5 to a 4.5, right? Like this is happening. I have seen this and that adds, you know, to the systems, the processes, the reporting. How can YPTC come to help us with that? Like how does that work if we say, okay, we've hit our threshold. This is beyond what we know how to do. And we don't have the systems or the expertise. Is YPTC available to join us in partnership for these reasons? Absolutely. But I think the first step is acknowledging that you have reached your capacity and that you need help. Because quite honestly, what happens in all sectors, but particularly in the nonprofit sector is that they forget to think about the capacity of the finance team and the skill set of the finance team. And say when the development team is going out after these federal dollars and they'd never had a conversation with the finance team in advance about, well, what does that mean? If we won this money, what else do we have to be doing? And that's, you know, I experienced that early on in my career at an organization that was starting to think about, like, should we be applying for federal dollars? They were in Washington, DC. It could be available to them. And, you know, I had the support of a really great CFO who said, let's hold the phone here, just wait a second. Like we have to read these regulations and understand it and show you what all we have to add on to the processes in order to even think about accepting this money. And absolutely YPTC can be a support mechanism for that, but it starts at the initial stages of even considering that kind of funding and whether it's appropriate for the organization and the current capacity and then being ready for it when and if it happens. You know, and my old employer, the breaking point was like, oh, we can't possibly ask our staff to do time sheets. So we're not gonna apply for the money. And I'm like, I mean, time sheets is really not that big of a deal. But if that's the culture, you don't wanna do time sheets, then don't apply for federal money because that is an absolute requirement that you have to do. That's a great point. And I just wanna interject and say yes, and where I coach and for everyone listening, what I recommend is that you bring a grants team together and this includes your accounting. You know, this includes someone from accounting, someone from program, someone from leadership to say, okay, is this a viable funding opportunity? Let's look at the requirements. Let's look at the award. If we were awarded, what are the requirements post award? So thank you for bringing that up, Ellie. And I just wanted to interject because we should be looking at these funding opportunities before they even land in our bank account, right? Like we really need to look at the holistic approach, the impact, the systems, the capacity, as you said, even the time sheets. So let me ask the question to both of you then. Given where we are with this huge influx of money and grants that's only growing, it's a larger discussion that's really based on the transference of wealth that's going on in our nation, the economic boom to some sectors, are you seeing the reporting out for these grants getting more in depth or are you seeing it kind of lighten up? Like what does the future look like this so that when we are thinking about these types of commitments that we can be prepared? I personally think it depends on where the money is coming from, right? When it's governmental money, the reporting guidelines are always going to be excessive in my opinion. And whether they need to know that information or not, they're gonna ask for it. But I do think there is some of a trend in funders recognizing that they don't need all the information they're asking for. They are maybe overburdening their grantees on the reporting requirements. I'm literally teaching a session on it next week with a bunch of program officers about not overburdening their grantees with asking for too much information when they don't even use it for anything. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you, I love it. Okay, that's like, I'm show over. I mean, that is fabulous because this needs to be discussed, you know? And it needs to be shared. And I love that you can lend your expertise to this conversation to give real value to what the process is. What does it look like sitting on the other side of that desk? I mean, good job. Well, I'm gonna kind of bring it back into the conversation about like the resignation and everything. There's so many capacity limitations in the finance functions at nonprofits. And the more that funders ask for, the more of a burden it puts on the finance team to help deliver those, that information. And it has to be an open conversation across all the parties that are affected at the organization, the development team, the program team who has to then report on like, what did we do with the money? What did we actually accomplish? And then finance to like match the dollars to it. And it's so much of a group effort, but the strain of the great resignation and the talent pool shrinking. And all of that leads to not being able to get back to these funders and say, this is what we did with your money properly because you just can't get around to getting it all done. Yeah, the compliance issue. Well, Allie, I know you have a big day ahead of you. And I am so honored that you've taken this time to share your valuable expertise, experience. I see a children's book with your name on it. Allie, the nonprofit accountant. And that would be so, okay, YPTC, we're gonna partner because I've got it, I've got the storyline in my head. And I would love to see that really, kind of fruition to attract more nonprofit leaders, women, it's women's history month, into the accounting sector. Well, I can tell you as a teenager, 14 years old, accounting class in high school, my teacher just convinced me that this was the life for me, being an accountant. So the younger we start, the better it will be. Well, that goes into the book. And it goes into how teachers play a significant role in shaping our future. So, Allie, CPA, MBA, New York director with your part-time controller, what an honor. You are so much fun. I wish you the best in your busy day ahead. Thank you for your service. Thank you to your entire team across the nation with YPTC. Again, we are so honored and lucky to have you in our sector. And as a partner here with the nonprofit show, thank you. Thank you guys so much. It's always a pleasure to talk to you and I'll see you next month. Yeah, we're gonna have you back on. And I love that you bring to us a lot of information that's strategic, but it's things that is moving forward, moving backward, all directions. We have a lot of questions that came in today. And to so many of you, I'm sorry, we couldn't get to all of them. But here's Allie's information. YPTC has an amazingly robust website with a lot of information where you can reach out to them and hopefully help you in your journey because this is a moving target. And I think Jared and I see this all the time. Those organizations that are more connected to their financial departments are the ones that do better. No matter their mission, it just seems like when they are on top of those things, all things financial, they just can really move forward in ways that many other nonprofits struggle. So I can't recommend that highly enough. Again, I'm Julia Patrick and I've been joined by my nonprofit nerd. I always like to say she's my nonprofit nerd, your nonprofit nerd, the nonprofit nerd. Jared Ransom, thank you, Jared. And I like to say there's enough to go around. So don't worry. I love it, I think that's a hoot. Hey, we wanna thank all of our presenting sponsors because without them, we would not be here. Bloomerang, the nonprofit, excuse me, American nonprofit academy, your part-time controller, the nonprofit nerd, fundraising academy, the nonprofit Atlas, nonprofit thought leader and staffing boutique. All of these folks come to us day in and day out and we have now surpassed 500 episodes and so many of these folks have been with us from the very, very beginning. So we want to make sure that we express our gratitude. As we end every episode, we want to remind everyone to stay well so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow, everyone.