 Welcome to the nonprofit show. We are thrilled that you are joining us today and spending some time here. Our guest today is Jacqueline Tezo, founder and CEO of JMT Consulting. She is bringing back the curtains and we are talking about dealing with your nonprofit financial anxiety and how she can help you dump that financial fear. So stay with us because Jacqueline has some great insight to share with us in regards to finances. And here's a little sneak peek of what we'll be covering today. Origins of where that fear might be coming from, how to ask for the information you're seeking, what type of financial information you're looking for, and the lovely, I love this one, is like let's level set our expectations and the response of that expectation. So that is what Jackie's brought to us today. We also want to remind you who we are if we've not met yet, Julia C. Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy is here and I am Jarrett Ransom, nonprofit nerd and CEO of the Raven Group. Julie and I are so very proud to have the ongoing support from these amazing presenting sponsors. So shout out of immense gratitude, goes to our friends at Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, nonprofit thought leader, fundraising academy at National University, 180 management group, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, JMT consulting, again, where Jackie's from. Also, thank you to nonprofit nerd and nonprofit tech talk. Again, thank you to these companies that allow us these conversations. And if you missed any of our previous episodes, here's where you can find them. Go ahead and pull out your smartphone, scan that QR code, download the app. And if you want to find us, you can still see us on broadcast and podcast channels. So Jackie, we are thrilled to have you with us today. Again, for everyone watching and listening, we have with us today, Jacqueline Tezo. She is the founder and the CEO of JMT Consulting. Welcome to the nonprofit show, Jackie. Well, thank you so much. I am so excited to be joining you. And I love this topic. Good, good. Where is it real to have you? Tell us a little bit about yourself, Jackie, and a little bit about JMT Consulting before we dive deep into our financial fear. Well, I am what I like to describe as a double geek in that I am an accountant and I love technology. I started JMT because I worked in a number of nonprofits and I saw how important technology was and how it could help the organizations I worked for. And I just started working more and more. And so now I am all about the intersection of the two. That's fantastic. It is fantastic, Jared. And it's so desperately needed because of all these different things that we're gonna talk about today. And Jared always says this, it's the scarcity mentality, fear. A lot of times these emotions override all logic, right? And so let's start off. Why do we fear these people and these departments? We were teasing with you in the green room that we think that the financial departments always get the worst office space in the building and they're in the back where it's dark. Jared said, yeah, so they can turn down the lights, close the blinds and shut the door. And why is this? Well, I think that it's such a key thing. I'm an accountant myself. I happen to love it, but I also know such responsibility. There's so much information out there. There are so many requirements and regs. And so that focus of doing the job and making sure I do it correct. And it has to be perfect, right? You can't say, oh, it's okay if I do halfway. I don't have to do that report if it's only half done. You don't have that sort of option. So, you know, we're coming from that kind of space. And I think that applies to others who are non-accountants where they understand and they're looking at it. And sometimes it's gonna be intimidating because all this knowledge of the numbers and what they mean is held in someone's head. And you're going to them wondering, okay, can I ask the right question? Do I know what it is that I even need? They're the keepers, does the information have to be perfect for me? All of those kind of things come into play. So I'm gonna ask you like a get check question and you got to be honest on this. When somebody ever came into your office and asked you a question, did you ever go, oh my God, they are idiots, why are they asking me that? Or it's because I feel like that's sometimes what we're afraid of. We're afraid of appearing to be, you know, dumb to use that word, which I don't like that word. But we're such high performers in programming or fundraising or C-suite, whatever, except for this one area. Yes, and you know, Julia, I think you're absolutely correct. I think that that is a very real fear for everyone. You know, in my family, my husband financial management of our home finances, he's like, oh no, I could never do it, you need to do it. And I think that that just is the case in so many environments and in organizations, we have things that we're very good at doing. Our program managers, our grant managers, our CEOs, so good at delivering on the mission of the organization and that whole numbers thing can be very, very scary. You know, and it's a difficult thing. And then finance, I think, also makes it harder because a lot of times and for a very long time, finance was about everything has to be perfect. We can't release any information unless it's absolutely perfect. And so that holding it very, very close, I think it also is a symptom. Interesting. Well, let me ask you this, like how do we ask and get the information we are seeking? And, you know, nonprofits are governed by a fiduciary board, several members of the board, right? And so I see this all the time and Jackie, I have seen CEOs, co-founders say this, gosh, I hope no one asks me questions about the financials because I don't know what to say. Like, and they are the bookkeeper, they are the accounting person, they are the CEO, right? And so for these small shops, it's like, oh gosh, that's really scary to hear. So how do we ask and get the information that we're looking for? Well, I think, you know, it's us being able to ask for the information, but I also think there's a shift that needs to happen within the finance offices and environment itself as well. Part of that is I look at the finance office as being a service department for the rest of an organization. And the customers of that finance department are the program managers, the grant managers, the CEO, board members, funders, everyone. And part of that delivery of that service and that product of information is that the information has to be understandable for who you're delivering it to. And so part of the transition that I think is happening in the finance area is that more and more organizations are not looking at just sort of the traditional, oh, I need a statement of revenue and expenses, you know, statement of activities. What really is the meaningful information that I can give to my customer, that grant manager, that program manager, and way beyond just sort of paying bills or getting a statement of revenue and expense, but really information that's helpful to the organization and to that individual. And then on the individual side, it is about going in and sitting with finance and asking for just English language. I need to know how much money I have left in that grant. Right, it was in the Merrick language, is that the opposition? Yes. I've been the majority of my life as a fundraiser in the sector and I've owned up on this on the show before. Finances is not my language, right? But I have had to train myself to understand and to ask these questions and to really own up and say, look, this isn't my zone of genius, help me understand this because as a fundraiser, I need with integrity to be able to represent our numbers through a narration firm. And that is so important. You know, you're speaking to one of the key points that I think is starting to come more and more to the surface. The financial information in and of itself, a financial statement, that's not enough. It really is about telling the story of the organization and not just telling the story externally, right, to funders, but internally to everyone working at your organization, helping everyone to understand what is the story and that the numbers are just helping to reinforce and make a visual, if you will, of that story. And that's a very hard thing. It's a very hard thing and I'm very visual. So my head is going to the old school Mad Libs where it's like, okay, here's where I'm looking for, fill in an adjective, a noun, a verb, a whatever. So like what types of information are we seeking to build out this narration of the number story? Can you help us identify that? Sure. So so many times organizations look at, you know, a revenue number and then their expense number and it's just that, you know, straightforward, I call it cold. It's not connecting with the story. What we always talk to clients about is the statistical, demographical, all of that information is as important, if not more so in alignment and together with the financial information. So when I look at, you know, looking at an organization's financials, I want to see side by side, how many people have we served? How many clients? How many meals? What locations are we in? Yes, we have these dollars we spent, but side by side with them should be the impact of what our organization is doing. Imagine how much that resonates more than just showing a P&L that says, okay, here's your monthly expenses, your year's expenses, you know? So that information is so important and also some calculations, like how effective overall funding expenses to the results we're delivering, how effective are we really being? You know, it doesn't want, I don't want to see just dollars alone. Right. You know, that's very interesting because I feel like this is one of those areas where we don't have a central place where information resides. You know, it's like, well, programming knows that. Okay, well, accounting, finance, they know that. I mean, the fundraisers, they know this. And it seems like we don't do a good enough job trying to internally share our information so that we can each also be using that information together. And I don't know what your sense is on that, but that just seems to me like a strategy that a lot of our departments take because they're not working together. And you're absolutely correct, Julia. You know, technology has come such a long, long way. And we wouldn't, we now have the ability to have the information on the impact and along with the dollars, with the technology that we have today. And nonprofits are slowly trying to move in that direction because when you move into that direction with the technology, you eliminate the silos of information that exists within organizations and you truly can get to a, what I call a one source of truth that crosses all departments and where all the information, both the dollars and the impact can be in a single database. Now, does that mean you don't have a donor management program? Absolutely not. You have the solutions you need for each area of the organization, but they truly are talking to each other and they are coming into that one source of truth system. Now, because I'm an accountant, for me, that's a finance system. So I want my finance platform to be able to give it all to me. But you really do need to have that one source of truth. Okay, well, then I'm gonna push you a little on that because I love your phrase, source of truth. That resonates huge with me. But would you let somebody from programming into your system to get information? Absolutely, 100%. Yes. Okay, mine won't. Because I would be like, oh no, I don't want anyone to screw up what I'm doing. Oh no, you let them to have visibility and with visibility, we're empowering people to be creative, to be insightful in information. And this is a really big shift for finance departments and even finance leaders, because as I said earlier, there is sort of this, you know, like hands off. We can't open up and release this information too soon. But visibility provides an environment for people to see how are we doing? And where do I need to shift a little bit here to the left or to the right versus waiting? Even waiting just 10 days to see something is too long in my estimation. Well, I really see the finance department as the backbone of the entire organization because it can, like that is where you bring the data. That's where you can make data-driven decisions, not passion, not heart, not gut, like data-driven decisions. From there, you can identify how do we steward these donors? How do we take action and impact on the programming? Like that is the steering wheel. And until we as a sector start to really understand that and stop putting the finance team in the back corner with the lights off and, you know, you can only come out for lunch and that's 15 minutes. You know, like it really is, as you said, like that, what did you say? The source of truth? One source of truth, one source of truth. So we don't have tons of time, but I know we've got a couple of more talking points here and you're a double geek and I'm a nerd. So we could talk about this forever. I have a few. Let's talk about some normalcy around responses and in particular, time and data, Jackie. What does that look like? Well, you know, typically there are two issues that get in the way of, you know, financial information. There is either too much data or the other side of the coin, too little data. And then we also have the time required. So those two issues are constantly battling with each other. The time and the data. So I'm going to do time first because here again, technologists geek. The time one is one that can be addressed with technology. Right now, so many organizations, and this is for profit and non-profit. This is not a non-profit only challenge. We throw people at an issue, at a function we need to do. Our minds don't immediately go to, how can we automate this? Is it possible to automate this so that I can take this individual and then let them engage in work that's more fulfilling for them and for the organization? Technology will help us streamline and gains us time. And we all know time is money, right? We're paying a person. If we add staff, the very first thing I look to do is if we're looking to add staff, do we need to add staff or could we take an investment of those dollars and bring our technology up and eliminate manual effort and tasks? And also we want more data, but there's no point in having more data if you can't get to it or use it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, right. It's a fool's errand and I think that's become a major frustration in non-profit management. Yes, I mean, we want to chase the data. We want the data. We chase it ever or more viciously. It's always, it ludes us because there's too much work involved in utilizing that data. Plus we are looking for, well, how do I use that data? And what I really talk to organizations about is the forward perspective of data, right? It's not a snapshot right now or what happened before. Let's take that data as it's feeding in live and project forward for a forward-focused perspective. Imagine what we would do if our systems, every day, every month, we're updating and forward-focusing and saying to us, this is where we think you're gonna be in three months, in six months, if you stay on this trend. That's right, yeah. That data is huge. You can't do that if you're just relying on the time element of the manual because it's just not humanly possible. Our poor finance teams are working with the speed of everything else coming in at the speed of lightning and they just don't have time for doing this other level of work. So I'm like, automate everything you possibly can and use your team to then do that innovative, that forward-focused thinking. But Jackie, you know, this is such an interesting, you said in the very beginning, this is a shift in mindset. Yes. I mean, you're gonna have to go back as a finance department and finance team and kind of reshape what everybody else, how they should be thinking. Correct. To me, fascinating. That's a fascinating thing because we generally don't include finance in these generative discussions. And you're absolutely correct. And I think here again, there is a tide. We're really at the sort of beginning of this tide that's coming. And finance is going to catch up 100% and it's gonna be a wonderful and exciting thing and so productive for the organizations, for the leaders of those organizations and for every one of the staff and finance members of those organizations. Yeah. And that's what I was going to say, Jackie, is I'm seeing the best success with my clients that have a forward-thinking leadership team and that includes their board to say, okay, let's forecast where would we be in six months and 12 months? Going back to COVID, Julia, we had a lot of guests come in and say, so we created our budget and we're revising it quarterly, right? Because there's just too many changes and now there's this huge loss of funding from COVID, pandemic funding from the government that is being lost and not really brought back through individuals or other grants or contracts, Jackie. So really looking at this from a, and I love a good forecast, the forecast cash flow of, okay, this is where we are today as a snapshot. But what does that mean for 90 days, 120 days, 240 days? And I'm curious if you see a huge thought partner in this, because I do, and the fundraising piece, right? Because when it comes to some of the trends is monthly donors, like that's a huge trend right now. That is a forecasting element that coincides with finance. Are you seeing that more and more? And I am starting to see it and it's a great thing but we are, as I said, it's a sea change. And so, and the other part of that sea change is our poor organizations, they're in a rowboat when it comes to like the technology. When you wanna be forward, focused, you can't do this stuff in Excel. You just can't make it happen in Excel unless you had one or two people and that's all they did all day long was doing these updates and all the whole bit. So here again, technology is another tool, another arrow in the quiver, of being able to create this environment, get information in from the donor management fundraising systems from the advanced department. From the programs, seeing trends of what's happening and if we did a 2% increase over here, more and more organizations, their services are more and more and more in demand as you ladies know, their funding is not keeping up. So strategic decisions have to be made for these organizations and you need that forward focus to be able to do that. Yeah. Okay, I have another question. If we're listening, we're a nonprofit leader, board leader, whatnot, and we're totally vibing with what you're sharing, Jackie, but we realize our organization is simply not doing this. What's our first step? Like, how do we take that boat and make a one degree change to move the cruise ship, right? And that's what it takes, a one degree consistent change. Yes. Where do we start to make this change? Well, you know, I am reaching out to our clients and organizations every day right now because we have our innovate conference. And this is a perfect place for an organization to get exposure to what are some of the trends that are coming that are starting to build right now and are coming, what are the technologies that are available out there listening to speakers that are focused on this sort of forward model and how to get started in that model. So the very first thing is our innovate conference, but also conferences are a huge area where organizations can get support and can get exposure. We then also have JMT and there's other organizations firms that do this as well. We come in and talk to organizations about, you know, what is a technology strategy in alignment with the strategic goals and strategy of the organization? You know, most people talk about a technology strategy is that the sitting out over here. And that is not how a technology strategy should happen. It should really be aligned with the strategic goals of the organization, the mission, the vision, the culture of the organization. I love what you just said because it brings it into the heart of the organization and makes it a partner and a working piece as opposed to just something like you said that's kind of over there. It makes it central to how we think and how we process and how we manage. So you mentioned innovate 2024. How long have you been doing this? You're gonna be in Boston the first weekend or the first week of May. Talk to us a little bit more about this. So this is, we've been doing it for 19 years. Awesome. Yes, it is open of course to our clients but to all nonprofit organizations. We really focus on exactly what I was talking about for really looking at providing expert insights, industry trends, glimpses into what the future of finance looks like. For example, for this innovate, we have the Chief Technology Officer of SAGE with us, Aaron Harris. He is truly a leader and innovator. We're gonna be speaking about AI. Everyone's talking about AI but we're gonna actually bring it down into what it really means for organizations. Awesome. This will be really hot. What did you say earlier? Like in just plain English, just break it down in English. Yes. I love it. Exactly. I love it. This has been great. I think the thing that I really enjoyed today, Jackie, has been the approachability and the logic behind looking at this in a new way. And I think when you said in the beginning and I'll repeat it again, finance has to change their mindset too, right? I mean, so we're all in this together. We are. As we navigate forward. I'm thinking, Jared, about Ellie Hume, one of our friends from your part-time controller and some of the leadership over there, they keep saying now's a good time to look at a career for a young person in finance because it's not just the general ledger. It has a lot of strategic aspects. It has a lot of implementation. It's forward-moving. It's forward-thinking. And Jackie, you kind of, I don't know, bubbled that up to the surface today. So, Jacqueline Tezo, founder and CEO of JMT Consulting, check out JMTconsulting.com where you can learn more about their amazing team and the work that they do all over North America and Australia, correct? Amazing, amazing. Well, it has been a delight to have you here and to talk about all these amazing things. As it is, we have amazing sponsors that allow us to have these conversations. They include Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, Nonprofit Thought Leader, Staffing Boutique, your part-time controller, 180 Management Group, Fundraising Academy at National University, JMT Consulting, Nonprofit Nerd, and Nonprofit Tech Talk. Again, these folks come together so that we can have these amazing conversations. We've had more than 1,000 shows which we reached last Tuesday, our 1,000th episode. I'm glad we passed it because it's a hard thing for me to say, Jarrett, 1,000. I know, and now we get to go on to say 1,000 in however many, you know? Yeah. For four, that is wonderful. Well, thank you. Thank you so much, Julia and Jarrett. I loved our conversation and I hope we can pick it up again. We will. Well, we sure will. And the nerd in me totally sees the geek in you. So we are on this together, Jackie, thank you. Thank you. It's been amazing. You know, every episode we like to end with this message and Jarrett and I laugh all the time about how it takes on a different spin and I hear it differently. I know she hears it differently. I'm gonna say this to all the financial teams out there and that is to stay well. So you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow.