For mission-driven organizations, financial management is rarely just about the numbers. It’s about telling your story, maintaining accountability, and freeing up leadership to focus on what matters most: advancing your mission.
Ivy Gamble-Cobb, Executive Director and Co-Founder of The Family Center, shared how a 20-year partnership with BTQ Financial transformed her organization’s approach to financial management, and why outsourcing was one of the best decisions she made.
The Family Center provides holistic services to families impacted by illness, crisis, or loss, including mental health clinics, legal services, and care management. Here’s how they leveraged strategic financial partnership to grow from a $3 million to a $7 million organization while staying true to their mission.
Managing Complex Multi-Funder Budgets
When Ivy became Executive Director in 2006, The Family Center faced a common nonprofit challenge: a $3 million budget spread across nearly 20 different funding sources. Each funder had different fiscal years, reporting requirements, and expectations.
Managing this complexity with limited internal staff wasn’t sustainable. The organization needed both big-picture strategic planning and reliable day-to-day financial operations.
Key challenges included:
- 90% government funding from federal, state, and city sources
- Multiple fiscal year calendars to track
- Complex vouchering and reporting requirements
- Need for funding diversification strategy
“We knew that we wanted a more diversified portfolio. And then we needed the expertise for the day-to-day accounts receivable, accounts payable, making sure that our vouchering and our reporting back to our funders was on point.” — Ivy Gamble Cobb
Quantifying the True Cost of Services
One of the most valuable outcomes of professional financial management is the ability to examine each program individually and quantify what it actually costs to deliver services.
This matters because government funders rarely cover the full cost of the services they contract for. Having accurate cost data enables organizations to make the case to private foundations and other funders for supplemental support.
With clear financials, The Family Center could:
- Articulate exact program costs to stakeholders
- Identify funding gaps for each service line
- Engage private foundations with data-driven proposals
- Make informed decisions about program sustainability
“All of us who…do this work know that the funders who are paying us to provide these services don’t truly pay for the full cost of the service. And so having that number really allows us to be able to tell the story.”
Building Transparency Across All Stakeholders
Financial transparency isn’t just for funders, it’s essential for every constituent group an organization serves.
The Family Center maintains open communication about their fiscal picture with multiple audiences:
- Board of Directors: Expect detailed reporting on where dollars go
- Funders: Need accurate documentation of how grants are spent
- Staff: Must understand budget constraints and why discipline matters
- Clients: Can see the true investment in their care
Whether times are good or challenging, transparency builds trust and helps everyone understand the organization’s reality.
“Being transparent about what our fiscal picture is, when it’s really great, when we’re challenged, when we have concerns, being able to articulate that to all of our different constituent groups.”
Why Timely, Accurate Reporting Matters
Here’s a reality many nonprofit leaders learn the hard way: most funders will never visit your program in person. They base their assessment of your success entirely on two things: programmatic reporting and fiscal reporting.
This makes accuracy and timeliness non-negotiable. A rejected government report doesn’t just create extra work; it stops the payment clock entirely.
Best practices for funder reporting:
- Submit reports on time, every time
- Verify accuracy down to the penny before submission
- Tell the complete story from family intake to outcomes
- Get it right the first time to maintain cash flow
“The worst thing is to submit a report and have it rejected because it is not accurate. If you’re dealing with the government, that stops the clock. And so that timely payment protocol that they have immediately stops.”
Launching New Programs with Confidence
When The Family Center decided to open a mental health clinic, experienced executive directors warned Ivy to expect years of operating in the red. This kind of strategic expansion requires careful financial planning—and board confidence.
BTQ’s financial modeling helped the organization project timelines to profitability and communicate realistic expectations to board members who might otherwise panic at deficit budgets.
Keys to successful program expansion:
- Create detailed financial projections before launch
- Communicate the long-term vision to stakeholders
- Identify wraparound funding needs for startup years
- Keep board members informed and confident through challenging periods
“If we didn’t have BTQ as our partner sitting at those meetings, being able to convey that to the board, I think they probably would have jumped ship very early on.”
Creating a Seamless Back-Office Partnership
A successful financial partnership requires more than technical expertise—it requires relationship fit. The Family Center’s 20-year journey with BTQ included an early adjustment when the initial client manager wasn’t the right match.
Today, the partnership operates with deep integration into the organization’s operations.
Current partnership structure includes:
- Weekly departmental meetings to review budgets in detail
- Regular check-ins on all financial aspects
- BTQ attendance and presentation at every board meeting
- Ongoing education to help leadership understand financial reports
The result is a team that feels like part of the organization, not an outside vendor.
“They may work for BTQ, but I consider them to be a part of The Family Center. And so just having those transparent conversations really frees me up.”
Freeing Leadership for Strategic Work
Perhaps the greatest value of outsourced financial management is what it enables: executive directors can focus on mission advancement rather than financial administration.
When you have confidence that your finances are handled professionally, you can invest your time in strategic planning, program development, and stakeholder relationships.
This partnership enables leadership to:
- Focus on 3-5 year strategic planning
- Address immediate operational challenges
- Maintain proactive board communication
- Make difficult program decisions with financial clarity
BTQ proactively flags issues and helps with contingency planning, so leadership is never blindsided by financial challenges.
“You can’t talk about program without talking about money. The two go hand in hand. We’ve had some conversations and looking at what programs we want to continue. We’ve made some really difficult decisions around programming.”
Game-Changing Financial Milestones
Strategic financial partnership delivers concrete wins. When The Family Center’s lease ended after years of below-market rent, BTQ’s analysis determined exactly what the organization could afford—helping them find suitable space in just two weeks.
Even more significant was establishing a federal indirect cost rate. Despite having federal contracts since inception, The Family Center had never applied for one. This single change provided realistic overhead coverage that transformed their financial sustainability.
Major milestones achieved:
- Precise rent affordability analysis for real estate decisions
- Federal indirect cost rate establishment
- Streamlined audit processes completed ahead of schedule
- Successful launch of Medicaid billing for clinical services
“Getting an indirect cost rate was truly a game-changer for us as an organization because it was the one time, especially with our federal contracts, that we were able to get a more realistic overhead rate that truly covered the cost of the organization.”
The Power of Telling Your Impact Story
Financial data alone doesn’t inspire funders—stories do. But those stories need to be grounded in quantifiable outcomes that demonstrate real impact.
Effective funder communication follows a clear arc from need to outcome, making funders feel like true partners in the work.
Elements of compelling impact storytelling:
- Start with why families seek services
- Describe the wraparound support provided
- Quantify the services and their costs
- Show measurable outcomes: family stability, school performance, mental health improvements
When funders see their dollars creating life-changing results, they become long-term partners.
“You want to be able to communicate that information back to the funder and have the funder be excited about how their funds are directly impacting and making a difference in the lives of the families and the children that we’re serving.”
Why Outsourcing Makes Sense for Mission-Driven Organizations
The initial cost of outsourced financial services can give nonprofit leaders pause. But when you factor in the time spent reviewing vouchers, managing budgets, overseeing limited internal staff, and handling audit stress, the calculation changes.
For The Family Center, outsourcing professionalized every aspect of financial work. Audits transformed from nightmares requiring deadline extensions to smooth processes completed by late November.
Benefits of professional financial partnership:
- Eliminated audit deadline extensions
- Scaled seamlessly from $3M to $7M budget
- Enabled confident launch of new programs and billing systems
- Freed executive time for mission-critical work
As the organization grew, BTQ’s infrastructure scaled with them – no painful transitions or capability gaps.
“Our audits used to be a nightmare. Now our auditing process is so simple because our auditors come in and the process is just so easy. There are no hiccups. There are no bumps.”
Building Redundancy for Long-Term Sustainability
With retirement on her horizon, Ivy highlights an often-overlooked benefit of outsourced financial management: institutional knowledge that doesn’t walk out the door when individuals leave.
The Family Center operates under what Ivy calls the “hit by a bus theory”: any one person could be unavailable, but the organization must continue to function.
How partnership creates sustainability:
- Multiple BTQ team members understand the organization
- All records are documented and accessible in the cloud
- Incoming leadership inherits professionally managed finances
- No hidden boxes of records or undocumented processes
For smaller organizations where everything sits with one CFO, a departure can mean discovering years of accumulated problems. Partnership eliminates that risk.
“What you get with BTQ is that level of redundancy. If one person has to step off the scene for a while, there are other people there that are going to be able to step right in and your work is going to be able to continue.”
Take the Next Step: Partner with BTQ
The Family Center’s 20-year journey demonstrates what’s possible when mission-driven organizations partner with financial experts who understand their unique challenges.
Whether managing complex multi-funder budgets, launching new programs, establishing indirect cost rates, or preparing for leadership transitions, a strategic financial partnership with BTQ enables nonprofit leaders to focus on what they do best: serving their communities.
Is your organization ready to transform its financial operations? We’re here to help.
We’ve spent decades helping nonprofits like The Family Center professionalize their finances, tell their impact stories, and build sustainable operations.
Schedule a consultation with BTQ today to discover how outsourced financial services can help your organization thrive.