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Successful Nonprofits Podcast
Top 5 Mistakes Nonprofit Executive Directors Make with Marvin Webb
00:35:30
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- [00:00]
A
I wish that nonprofits were more polyamorous and not so. I think the nonprofits are kind of monogamous when they want it. When they want to do their revenue streams, they're like, oh, we want to do this. That's going to be our. That's going to be our. They turn their mission sometimes into their main revenue stream.
- [00:30]
B
Welcome to the Successful Nonprofits Podcast. I'm your host, Dolph Goldenberg. Friends, in today's episode, we're going to be talking with Marvin Webb about the top five financial mistakes that executive directors make. Marvin says, cash is king, revenue is queen. And we might add that too many executive directors just can't tell the difference between the two. Before Marvin and I have the conversation, let me share a little bit about him. Marvin is a dancer originally and then transitioned from dance to operations and finance. He's been a coo, a cfo, a combination of the two, and in the process often done the work of a chro. So his depth of knowledge is very impressive. He is one of the few people I know with three graduate degrees. He has an MFA in Modern dance, an MBA in marketing, and an Ms. In accounting. So it is not at all surprising that I'm like, oh yeah, we absolutely need to be talking with Marvin about the top five financial mistakes that executive directors make. He was in the nonprofit sector at a leadership level for a long time and over the last year or two rolled out into his own consulting practice where he's helping nonprofits strengthen their financial health and their operations. And part of what I like about him, and this is why I have recommended him to more than one client, is he is known for practical, no nonsense guidance. He's not going to say, oh, I think you should do this just because that's what everyone says you should do. And he gives that guidance in a way that really helps leaders learn and grow so that they can navigate their finance and HR challenges as well. Now, as I've already mentioned, today we're going to be talking about the top five finance mistakes that nonprofit chief executives make. And these mistakes are especially dangerous for the small and mid sized nonprofits where one misstep can not only jeopardize a chief executive's tenure, but can actually jeopardize the organization's survival. And I promise you that by the end of this episode, you will have some concrete takeaways to protect your organization's financial health. Hey Marvin, welcome to the podcast.
- [03:04]
A
Thanks for the great introduction, Dolph. Great to be here.
- [03:07]
B
Well, I'm super happy you are. And you know, it's funny, kind of the origin of me inviting you is I had, I'd referred you to a client and just the way I heard you speaking with a client, I'm like, oh my gosh, I gotta get Marvin on the podcast. As you think about these five mistakes that chief executives make in finance, what is the most common financial misunderstanding that you see?
- [03:31]
A
The most common, I think, is not many executives understand and sometimes boards to understand the difference between cash flow and revenue flow. And that's why I say cash is king and revenue is queen. When a board pays more attention to the income statement and that's all they look at. They don't look at the balance sheet, they don't look at any other reconciliations, Right. So they're looking at the bottom number, thinking that they're, well, but the cash flow will actually help, you know, if you're going to be well into the future. Right. It's the difference between closing today versus closing in six months or closing in 12 months. Right. For me, when I work with clients and when I was a regular W2 employee, I would always tell the treasurer and the board and the executive team, revenue is really what makes your financials look pretty to external people. Internally too. But rev, but you try to keep your revenue and expenses tight, like revenue greater than expenses, including the difference between restricted, unrestricted funding. You want to keep those tight and under wraps because that's how your books are going to go out with your audit, your annual statement, your 990. Because people look at those, right? That goes on Guystar, which is now candid. But you live day to day with the cash flow because cash flow is what you pay bills with, cash flows what you pay all the expenses with. And for me, with clients who have a development person, I really work hand in hand. Every time there is a development person, I'm doing the finance role versus the HR role. I try to make sure that I train up the development. So when I become Rihanna, I say, the person better have my money, but she doesn't sing at that version. I'm singing the clean version. Somebody better have my money. They understand, oh, and their response should be, when do you need it? I said, I need $800,000 by November. Of course, I'm telling them this in January. Right. So I give huge leeway of amount of. I need this amount of money in the bank for cash flow purposes, otherwise we're going to be in trouble, right? Or otherwise we have to use our reserves or otherwise there are other Options. Otherwise, we have to use line of credit, whichever is available to the nonprofit. When I was at Funders for LGBT Issues, the development person knew when I was coming to her, I was either going to ask her about her kid or cash flow. It was that. It was the relationship was that clear. It got so good. I would ask her, what's upcoming cash flow? Tell me something good. Or she would come into my office, hey, I got some new cash flow for you. I'm like, great. And then, because I think sometimes financial leaders may not be able to do this. When you have a development person, you can help them navigate even by the date, because most development people are really close with their funder. You can say, hey, cash flows good. Can we move this to the next quarter, or can we change the date on the grant? If you ask a funder to change the date on the grant because of classical purposes, they're going to say, yeah, Very, very few funders say, oh, my go, no. But most funders will be okay with that because then that impacts your revenues and expenses. But also, there's something there, Dolph, about sometimes in the financial space and looking at financials, we. And my husband's gotten better at this, by the way. We assume that because money's coming in, we can spend it. And that may not be. That may not be the case. So I told my husband, we can't get the couch because you already bought a trip to San Diego. Because when he buys a big ticket item, he knows, oh, I can't buy another big ticket item for a while until we have some more cash flow to back that up.
- [07:28]
B
One of the ways I think about it, I think it might be another way to explain it as well. For our friends who are listening is part of the difference between cash and revenue is revenue is recognized, but it doesn't mean it's come in the door. And so, for example, when you invoice, if you're on accrual, and. And most nonprofits are these days, when you invoice a funder, or maybe it's a government funder or some other funder, you book that as revenue even though the cash has not come in. And some funders, I'm not naming any names, but let's say New York City, City of Atlanta, and a few others can be. Can take not just months, but a year or two. Yeah, I'm looking at you. New York City can take a year or two to actually pay. And so, yes, you've recognized it as revenue in that year, but you may not see it until the next year. And I think so often that's the cash flow that really kills organizations that are heavily government funded.
- [08:19]
A
Yeah, that's true. I think a lot of community centers, and especially LGBT centers that are really focused on government funds to help the community. And now with this administration extracting those larger items, whether it be HIV funding or youth funding, they're extracting that and not continuing that. That's like three or four staff full time positions. Right. Sometimes the government doesn't even complete the contract. They will just stop the contract. And I had that with a client who had maybe a million dollar contract and they were owed like quarter of a million, but they're never going to see that money.
- [08:56]
B
I'll share that. I have one client where they'd already invoiced 100%. And of course this is under the new administration. They'd already invoiced 100% of the grant. And so they, and they'd already been paid 100% of the grant, but the administration sent them a letter terminating their contract a month early saying you will get no money. And you know, of course that was just something they sent out to every grantee. And it's one of the reasons why I said to the client, you need, if you can legitimately invoice for expenses, you want to invoice as much as you possibly can.
- [09:27]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [09:29]
B
If you can legitimately do it under your contract, you better go ahead and invoice.
- [09:34]
A
It's crazy. It's really crazy. Yeah.
- [09:37]
B
Well, so I know for you, I think, because you've given me the list, so I know it. So I think for you, you're number two is ignoring reserves and liquidity.
- [09:46]
A
Yeah, it's a cousin of cash flow. Right. To me, reserves and liquidity is like your backup. Right. Like I think some newer nonprofits, it's hard to have reserve when you're a new nonprofit. But established nonprofits historically have had a reserve between three to six months. Right. And that. And if you are 80% government funded, either you contract or you use your reserves. And the question becomes then about liquidity. How much of your reserves do you use and how long can they take you before you inevitably be contracted? Do you contract first and then use the reserves later? These are larger questions that strategy questions nonprofits are having in real time. And we're talking about nonprofits who are on the front lines of like homelessness and hunger. Right. Which is a really sad place to be. And some of them are turning to local, local areas saying, hey, we're running out of money. We can't house the homeless or feed the poor. What does the community want us to do? Otherwise, we have to close.
- [10:48]
B
When I have conversations with clients about reserves and liquidity, I'm often talking about a metric that I know you are, too, which is days of cash.
- [10:57]
A
Yeah.
- [10:57]
B
And what I really love is days of unrestricted cash. But, you know, I'll also take days of cash, too. Like, you know, let's show you both.
- [11:05]
A
Yeah, yeah. Because sometimes with restricted cash, you can also have a conversation with the funder and maybe have a release or portion of a release, depending upon your. Your dire situation. But I think with so many nonprofits nowadays, they're like, oh, we don't have. Many of them don't have reserves. All they have is incoming receivables. Again, which is future cash, not current cash. Right. So then they're like, okay, what do we do now with. Who do we have to borrow on? And some of them. And some of these folks are in the. They're at the brink of. Now that we. We pay off our building, do we have to reinvest and now take a loan against our building just to survive? But then the larger question is, how long can that loan take us?
- [11:50]
B
So can you really quickly explain the concept of days of cash? Some folks, it might be like, that seems obvious, but let's just break it down.
- [11:58]
A
For my view, days of cash is how much cash you have now divided by your monthly expenses. I usually do months of cash versus days of cash, but I know for some entities, they need to do days of cash. Right. And that's between 365 versus 12. But then you're going to really need to figure out what. What serves you better and where. I think for soup kitchens and places that are really direct service, they're going to need days of cash unless they have huge significant reserves. Right. And it's going to be an uphill battle unless they can go back to major donors and have those relationships. Right. Cause I think they're going to need days of cash sooner and they're going to run out of days of cash sooner.
- [12:43]
B
Yeah. I also sometimes use months of cash, but for me, it kind of depends on where they are. If they're less than three months, I'm like, let's talk about days, because that's really what you got is days. If you're over three months. Okay, we could talk about. I hate to be that plain about it, but I'm like, all you got is days. You know, if you're at 89. That's days. But the other thing I often have organizations ask me, dolph, how many days of cash or months of cash should we have on hand? And there's not a cookie cutter answer to it. You've also got to look at your own cash flow cycle and ask yourself what, what's our leanest time and what's the worst case scenario? And how much money will we need to get through that lean time? Some government funders, again, looking at New York City and Atlanta, can take a year or longer to execute a grant, which means you're providing those services on a quarter million, half million, $5 million grant and not getting paid for them for that period of time.
- [13:36]
A
And other entities are contracting, Right? Maybe a federal funder, the government funding is contracting, but also a state funder is contracting, but the state funding's funded by the federal government and that's why it's contracting. Y so if you have multiple government contracts and they're all contracting, then what's your revenue base? That's the question. Right. And this comes down again to that diversification. But I think many nonprofits who were doing services tried to diversify in between government entities, not thinking that the whole government would pull the rug from under us, but it has. Right? Even for my clients. Now I question we have the hard talk like, how much money do you think is available to you, can you get in the future? And that goes into your forecasting what you're talking about. And if, if that number is lower, let's work with that number that you know and contract the budget as such. Because then it comes down to what can we streamline to be at a highest program level. Highest program level with minimal resource.
- [14:46]
B
Yeah, and I'll share with you. I think sometimes ignoring reserves and liquidity runs the other way, but it's rare to be clear. So I know friends who are listening are going to laugh like, well, okay, yeah, thanks daw for sharing this. But it's really rare. Like I've worked with a couple organizations that are not government grant driven. They're primarily philanthropy driven and they're liquid. They're liquid unrestricted net assets. So essentially their cash that's not restricted was in the multiple years, like three or four years. Unless you're expecting a major downturn in your philanthropy dollars, you're not taking enough risks.
- [15:19]
A
That's a question that would come up. I mean, for some, I think think tanks have that often think tanks are cash heavy, they're not cash prudent, but they're cash heavy. And they also have great reserves. Right. For, especially for these times. I know that line of thinking you're talking about, like, oh, if you're having so much reserves, how much is too much reserves and are you investing in the resources you're giving by sitting on the money? But now they're kind of sitting comfortable because they have reserves. Right. And we're not talking foundations, we're talking like nonprofits who do certain services for the, for the nonprofit sector and what that means. But it's interesting because I have a preference of 9 to 12 month reserves for any nonprofit. Just my personal preference. I know that people like board members like to fight me. Oh, that's too much. I'm like, well, how you like me now? That's my question. You could. I think those same people who were thinking like three, six months is good. I'm like, well, how are we doing now? But it depends on the nonprofit. Some nonprofits who are legal now may be killing it when it comes to. Right. This time frame also depends on the time frame. Legal nonprofits may be killing it, getting a lot of money because people are worried about the system that we're in and it's destabilization and what that means. And so they're putting their money into legal non profits, which is totally understandable. They may be doing well. Non profits that are direct service, not all of them are doing so well. Foundations, they're doing well because they're still their investment base. Right. But you know, most Nonprofits are under $500,000 budget. So they are the ones on the brink. Yeah, right. Yeah, the ones on the brink. And the ones that are government funded. They're on the brink.
- [17:10]
B
Yeah. Well, let's, let's pivot and talk about your third item over relying on a single revenue stream.
- [17:18]
A
I wish that nonprofits were more polyamorous.
- [17:23]
B
Say some more about that.
- [17:25]
A
So I think the nonprofits are kind of monogamous. They turn their mission sometimes into their main revenue stream. For many now who are government funded, that may not be well. Right. I think it's good when years are good, but it's bad. We're seeing when years are bad. We never thought this would happen, but I always knew in my mind anything's a possibility. When it comes to funding shifting. I think that obviously relying on a funder government contract is dangerous trap. But also there's the, in the 990, there's this rule like, you know, after so many years, you can't have one main source of funding it's in the 990. Right. I forget the page it's on. But that's a test that you can't fail. And the IRS comes for you loosely. They may come for you differently. Now with this administration, there is, you know, I prefer revenue mix than diversification, because then you're getting it from different streams. Even as I built my business, I designed it in a way. I lost one client. I wasn't bothered. And I think sometimes nonprofits design their revenue streams for thriving short term, and they may look at them as thriving long term, but I don't know if they understand that shifts in government, politics, people's opinions shift. Right. And so I wonder in that same vein, like, how do we help nonprofits help themselves and think of different ways of revenues and don't be afraid of thinking out of the box sometimes. If you're, if you're a soup kitchen nonprofit, why do you not have a restaurant? If you are a homeless shelter, what could you do that would sell something to actually add to your bottom line? And not that that's an answer, but that's one version.
- [19:24]
B
I want to make sure we talk about the other two. Next one. Linking budgets to mission and strategy.
- [19:31]
A
This is the hardest one, I think, for some nonprofits. For me, it's key to onboarding. When you onboard your people, whether they be ops, development programs, executive, or even onboard your board, there should be an intentional conversation led by the executive team or the HR team about why your role is important to the mission. I mean, if you even, even if you're a financial analyst for, like, a homeless shelter, they have to know why that role is important to the mission and what it means. And what it means if they don't do it. Well, yeah, to me, that's so key because then it changes the frame of, oh, that's not my department. Like, no, it's like everybody's on board to move the mission forward because you're moving as a team. It can be easy for us to assume we're just a cog in the wheel versus oh, no, we're doing great work. We're doing work to build the organization's resources so we can do its job.
- [20:33]
B
Yeah. So how do you coach executive directors to build. Build a budget that truly reflects strategy?
- [20:42]
A
You're gonna, you're gonna get my, my secrets away. I would say. I would say I start with the larger picture. Where do they want to go in three to five years? And it doesn't have to be. And this can be a one on one conversation. It doesn't have to be board driven. It can be just a one on one conversation. Where do they want to go? And then I said, okay, you wanna, let's say you wanna grow your staff and five years. And I say how many staff you want to grow and why do you want to grow them? So then we do a whole analysis, job analysis, on what roles are needed and why. And then I turn that into money. Like what salary ranges are we talking? Do we talk to director, director level, manager level? And then we build a team at the end. And then I go backwards and say, okay, you can't hire all these people now. You have to hire them in steps. And so we create steps going backwards and that's a strategy for the hiring. So it depends on the outputs. I say, what are your, what are your goal outputs? They may go backwards. Similar to if an ED says I want to make everybody's salary X amount of a percentage of the budget. I said, okay, you can do that now because that would be really horrendous on your budget. So let's take incremental steps. You want to. How about we do it? I show them a three year plan, a five year plan, a seven year plan. So everybody gets larger sums of money going up the ladder. I remind the EDs, anything you want to do, you. When you're building your resources, you have to put money to that because that's how much money you need to fundraise.
- [22:18]
B
Yeah.
- [22:18]
A
So if you want to add seven staff, you're going to have to add all those salaries at thriving wages, all those benefits, and you have to add maybe one and a half times for one or two of them to roll off because they got another job somewhere. Those replacement costs, right. It depends on for that. That is easier. When senior leadership gets more esoteric about like when someone says I want to save the world in five years, I'm like, that's a hard number. As if we had to bring it back to strategy. You want to save the world through what means? And then if they can say they want to save the world by stopping homelessness in Pittsburgh on the west side, then okay, then we can do that. I can do that. Then we say, how many, how many meals a day is that? How many people a day is that? And then we turn that into what's that price now? Then we turn it into that. But also we add for that particular example, what supplies are needed to make those meals, what staff needed to make those meals, what buildings do you have that you need access to to make Those meals and what are your connections? What are your possibilities? Then we do the whole budget. Then we pull the budget apart saying, okay, who can you partner with to make this cheaper? Because this is a lot of money, right? Because to me, it's about the execution of the mission. Can happen, but it's going to take money. And that money needs to be fundraised. So I can build you the budget for the money, but I can't raise the money.
- [23:44]
B
Yeah, yeah, yep.
- [23:47]
A
Because you have goals, right? You have goals. But many strategic plans. Well, not many. Some don't have associated budgets because I always say, like, hey, where's. Someone said, all we're gonna do is strategic plan. I'm like, okay, let's do a budget. Like, why would we need a budget? And I kind of wait. And I'm like, don't scream. Don't scream, don't scream, don't scream, don't scream. I'm like, okay, you need a budget because if you're going to want to do this, it's going to take money and you need to know how much money you need to generate. Otherwise.
- [24:15]
B
Yeah, so. So I'll share with you. You really are making me feel good. Cause it's part of the planning process. I'm like, okay, what resources are you going to need? Staff, equipment, fixtures, buildings, what. Lease, buy, whatever. And then there's a multi year pro forma for the life of the plan. Boards get uncomfortable. Boards like, well, we passing a budget. I'm like, no, this is not set in stone. This is not your annual budget for the next four years. But this is a guide for you. So as you're doing your budget next year, you're like, whoa, what do we need to achieve our plan anyway? So you made me feel really good. One of the other, One of the things you mentioned, though, that I think is a good, good pivot to your fifth item is you talked about salary increases for staff. So your fifth item, big mistake that executive directors make. That's a finance mistake. Is neglecting staff compensation and equity.
- [25:01]
A
There was, I don't know if you know this about me when I had, I had a job for 13 years. During that time, I would always apply for jobs for two reasons. Even though I didn't want them to see what it was like and how others would do their process. For one, to make our process better, but also to see what the other CFO landscape was like. I'm like, what are people doing? And so in that one instance, I applied for a job in my own hometown of Bethlehem, I'll leave the nonprofit out. And this Ed was retiring and, you know, as a CFO, I do a 990, a three year analysis to see what they're looking at. I noticed, like, his salary is really low for this side. What's up with that? And I asked him in the interview and he said it kind of broke my heart because I don't think he understood what he was doing, but maybe he did. He said, my salary is low. He goes, oh, you noticed that? He was proud. He goes, I keep my salary low because I know nobody can make higher than me. Which is true. Nobody can make higher than a CEO. I get that. But he was, what he was doing, he missed. He was forcing the lower level of his staff to work two jobs.
- [26:06]
B
Yeah.
- [26:07]
A
Wow. This, this nonprofit had equity and healthy and reaching people out of their bootstraps and out of poverty. All of the Roth remission. But I'm like, but you're keeping your staff poor.
- [26:18]
B
Yeah, yeah. And I'll share with you, Marvel. My pet peeve are these organizations that say, we want a diverse workforce, we want to be inclusive, we want people who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, and we want to underpay them. To me, that's mind blowing. Okay, so you essentially want to perpetuate inequality.
- [26:37]
A
Yeah, yeah. Or we want people from diverse backgrounds, but everybody has to come from harm. I've seen that too. Or everybody. Well, sorry, they may not say that, but everybody on the staff listing is from an Ivy League.
- [26:51]
B
Yeah.
- [26:52]
A
And I'm like, I came from a Jesuit school. I guess I'm not going to apply. But I think that to me, the issue with staff compensation is there's sometimes a misunderstanding that it must be based on numbers. Yeah. You have to do your equity research to see, oh, what's the market paying if you're national versus in your. In your hometown if you're. If you're only one locality based. But also you want to pay a thriving wage. And what does that mean for your entity? Right. Because usually, more often than not, the only thriving wage we pay for is executive team. Everybody else is on their own.
- [27:24]
B
Yep.
- [27:25]
A
Right. And then when people leave, like, well, oh, nobody can stay, I'm like, because you pay. You pay managers like crap. Everybody who's a VP is paid really well. Right. So it's similar with benefits. Right. There was a nonprofit that I knew that only gave a stipend to the executive director and not. And didn't give it to the staff for health care, which is illegal, but they thought that they didn't see an issue with it. And neither did executive director. He's like, well, what's wrong with that? I'm like, yeah, but where's the equity in that? Where's the equity in that? But I think, and final with compensation, I think the hard thing is again, if you want to increase it, you have your numbers. You looked at outside and you looked at the market. You need to base it on some form of metrics. To me, your thriving wage should always be equal to or above market. It should never be below market. MIT has this great link that it says thriving wages for all. I think it's by county even. Right. But it also takes into consideration people's expenses, not just salaries. That is taken. I think sometimes you're talking about salary compensation studies that are done like by state association sometimes. I think the foundation center has one, United Philanthropy Forum has one. I think those studies are useful. You need. I agree with you. You should take them with a grain of salt because they're collecting data of who's being paid. They're not collecting data of what should people be paid. Right.
- [29:01]
B
One of the other powerful things I've done with some boards, I'll ask for a listing of all positions without names and their total annual salary and then I'll remove all the position names and I'll sort it from the person that makes the most executive director or chief executive to the person who makes the least. I then find government data that indicates the average cost of a two bedroom apartment in that metro.
- [29:26]
A
Right.
- [29:27]
B
Because you know, almost every landlord requires that you make three times the monthly rent. And then I draw a red line, a horizontal line, and I say to the board, every salary you see below this line is someone who cannot afford a two bedroom apartment.
- [29:40]
A
Yeah, I love that.
- [29:42]
B
And, and I once had a board member say to me, well, you know, when, when I first got out of graduate school, I couldn't afford an apartment either. And this is what I love about being a consultant. Marvin, I said someone should not have to be a person of privilege to work here.
- [29:57]
A
You know, we, I'm 60 again. We do that as old people sometimes. It's just jacked up. We're like, well, back in my day, I'm like, dude, there's no day for you. Your day is done. I'm like, back in, back in your day, the subway was a buck fifty. Now the subway is $8. So I'm like, there's no, like, I guess for sometimes we, as I call us elder adults, we don't do the internal math. And actually make it. Make the math. Math we speak instead of saying, hey, let me check Excel, because this could be crazy, what I'm saying. It's actually, if you looked at like my rent in New York City, 1989 was 275 for one bedroom. Actually 275 times three. So there were three of us in one bedroom. We had three bunk beds, and that was Manhattan. In Hell's Kitchen, that same apartment, I think is going for like 4,500.
- [30:49]
B
Yeah.
- [30:51]
A
Right. So there's no way, I mean, I could still afford to live there if there were three people in the same bedroom. Right. But still, that's a whole different frame because I think now in America, you used to be able to live off one full time employee salary at McDonald's could support one family of four.
- [31:12]
B
That was a long time ago.
- [31:13]
A
Long time ago. Now it's expected if you have two parents, but both parents are working. If you have one parent, one parent either has a six figure job or they have two jobs. That's the expectation for living now. And then some people at the top are wondering like, what's. Why is it so hard? Why is it so hard? I'm like, it's hard, dude, because the math is not mathing.
- [31:34]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [31:36]
A
The math is not mathing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [31:39]
B
Well, Marvin, I have loved this conversation. I also want to make sure I squeeze in two truths and a lie. So I would love it if you would tell me three facts about yourself. And I'm going to try to guess which one is not real.
- [31:55]
A
My first foreign country was Finland. And my first job in New York City was a buyer's clerical and Macy's. And when I would visit my grandparents in Arkansas, I would run behind the mosquito truck thinking I could get high when I was like seven or eight or nine. That's what you did when you were little.
- [32:19]
B
So I've known you for a while. I think I've heard you tell that story. So I think that's true. I think you did run behind the mosquito truck trying to get high. You and I, I think we've known each other for almost 20 years at this point. So now I have to decide between Finland, which I could see because you're. You're a dancer. But Byers clerical at Macy's is so specific. So I. This might be a trap that you have laid for me, Marvin, but I'm gonna. But I'm gonna guess that Byers clerical at Macy's is also true. Which would mean the first country you went to is Not Finland.
- [32:54]
A
The first country I went to was Finland.
- [32:55]
B
Wah wah.
- [32:57]
A
And I was a byers clerical at Lord Taylor.
- [33:00]
B
Dang it. Okay, that's a 100%. I just moved to New York City job in 1989. At least I got the job, right? Marvin, I want to make sure people know how to reach out to you because I started this episode by saying I've recommended you to folks. In fact, I also, I also, before we hit record, said to you, hey, I was talking to a client about you today. So friends, if you're listening and you're like, I need to call Marvin Webb, you can connect with marvin@marvinweb microconsulting.com There you can also see tons of the organizations that he has worked with. Marvin has only been doing this for a year and a half or two years, and the number of organizations he has helped really transform the way they handle finances is impressive. Additionally, I want you to check out nonprofit operations.com and that's a job board for operations CHRO CFO type positions. There's also a newsletter so Marvin writes writes some posts for that as well. But it's an amazing job board. I actually subscribe to it, so I see it as well. If you're an executive director who's like, you know, I need to fill an operations position or a finance position, you should really check out nonprofit operations dot com. And finally, if you like this episode, there's two more I want you to consider. The first is episode 115, streamline your finance office with Kelsey Vatsis. And the second is episode 136. This, friends, is actually one of my favorite episodes ever. The CFO Crash Course with Tosha Anderson. That, my friends, is our podcast for the week. I hope that you have gained some insight to help you and your nonprofit thrive. And I wouldn't do this, but the lawyers would put me out of business if I didn't. I'm not an accountant nor an attorney and neither I nor the consulting practice provide tax, legal or accounting advice. You know that means that this podcast, it's for informational purposes only. Don't rely on this podcast for tax, legal or accounting advice. Some other places I would suggest you not rely on it. I'd suggest you not ask strangers for tax, legal or accounting advice. I also would suggest that you not ask ChatGPT for it. Instead, find a licensed qualified professional in your area and get the help you need. And also, if you have listened all the way through this disclaimer, you are either running in the car and can't touch your phone or a super fan. Thank you so much.