For many nonprofit leaders, the hardest audience to win over is their own board. When an organization moves its finance and accounting function to an outsourced partner, board members and finance committees tend to ask the same questions: Can we trust the numbers? Who is accountable? Will we still know where every dollar goes?
In this video, executive directors and CEOs from mission-driven nonprofits share how their boards moved from doubt to genuine confidence after partnering with BTQ Financial, and what that confidence unlocked for their organizations.
From skepticism to belief
Handing off the finance function can feel like giving up control, and boards feel that most of all. For many nonprofit leaders, that doubt is the starting point, and it gives way to something else once the numbers begin to hold up.
“My board was not familiar with the concept of outsourcing finance at all. But I also knew that BTQ Financial was in a class of its own.”
— Robert Cordero, CEO, Grand St. Settlement
Support you can carry into the boardroom
Trust with a board is earned in the room. BTQ’s VP of Finance attends board and finance-committee meetings, walks members through a live dashboard, and answers questions on the spot. For leaders who came up through program work, that support changes what they can shoulder in front of their board.
“I’m a social worker by trade, so finances is not my area of expertise. However, I understood clearly that when I took on this role as executive director, I have a fiduciary responsibility to make sure that this organization is being run appropriately.”
— Ivy Gamble-Cobb, CEO, The Family Center
Speaking your board’s language
Confidence grows when a leader can engage the numbers directly. Working alongside the BTQ team, executives pick up the financial fluency their boards expect, and consistent financial oversight gives them something clear to point to.
“What’s great about this partnership with BTQ is you all speak the same language. That’s a language that I had to learn, and now I can talk about balance sheets and profit and loss statements and cash flow. They didn’t teach me any of that in social work.”
— Ivy Gamble-Cobb, CEO, The Family Center
Trust, but verified
The confidence did not arrive overnight. It was earned meeting by meeting, report by report, until a board’s early caution turned into open enthusiasm.
“We said, ‘trust but verify,’ and it’s been verified.”
— Renée Skolaski, President and CEO, MercyFirst
For leaders carrying the weight of a mission, that shift changes everything. When the board trusts the numbers, leadership is free to focus on the people they serve.
Talk to a BTQ specialist about building a finance function your board can trust.