Nonprofit Remote Digest - Issue #713

Nov 22, 2021

The Management Center

We help leaders working for social change build and run more equitable, sustainable, and results-driven organizations. We help leaders working for social change build and run more effective, equitable, and sustainable organizations.

Vice President, Finance

Do you want to put your financial and analytic superpowers to work to support social justice leaders on the front lines of the resistance? Are you known for using spreadsheets for #everything?

The Management Center (TMC) is seeking a Vice President of Finance to ensure the smooth operation of our organization and support our high-performing team as we grow. This organizational leader will operate like a Controller, manage our internal accounting function, and serve as a key partner to the head of finance and data. They will build the systems, provide financial reports, lead regulatory compliance, and support organizational leaders in ensuring financial health and stability as we expand to reach more clients effectively.

Who We Are

Our mission is to help social change leaders learn how to build and run more effective organizations so they can deliver great results. Founded in 2006, we’re now a 45+ person, $11.5 million organization (and growing!). We've helped shape the practices of hundreds of influential organizations and thousands of individual managers, with a particular focus on social justice organizations. Our clients work on issues – like promoting immigration reform; fighting for racial, economic and gender justice; advocating for educational equity; and protecting voting rights – where they face an inherently uphill battle, and so must fight more effectively than their opponents if they are going to win. We aim to help them do that by making their organizations as effective as possible, by providing coaching, training, and publications for the broader field.

What You’ll Do

As TMC’s staff, programs, and sectors have grown, our finances – and those of our sister organization, The Management Action Center (TMAC) – have become much more complex. The VP of Finance, who will report directly to TMC’s Partner of Finance and Data (the head of the Finance function), is in charge of maintaining accurate historical financials and ensuring financial compliance.

The role will evolve over time, but you will:

Manage all the day-to-day accounting functions of our organization, including ensuring quality control over financial transactions and financial reporting
Maintain, design and improve accurate fiscal policies, accounting procedures and the technology that powers them
Directly and project manage members of the 4-member Finance Team (and serve as an individual contributor to perform closing tasks as needed) to accurate and timely month-end, and year-end closes.
Own important compliance functions like leading our annual audit, tax reporting, grant reporting, and related party transactions between TMC and TMAC by maintaining accurate revenue and cost allocations
Play a key role in supporting annual budget development and mid-year budget reviews and forecasts
Support organizational leaders with information and analysis to inform strategic decisions

If you were serving in this role over the next year, you would engage in some of the following projects and initiatives, for example:

Tighten up the timeline on our month-end close by identifying gaps and fixing inefficiencies in our processes
Work with our outsourced Accounts Payable consultant to equitably design a new process for consistent, accurate and timely payments to contracted trainers that efficiently maintains the appropriate financial controls
Regularly report to our Executive Team the actuals for the combined and team budgets, having ensured those actuals were accurate and easy to pull
Lead us in our audit

Who You Are

To be successful in this job, you will demonstrate the judgment, work, and wisdom of a senior leader who can garner the trust of the rest of our team of very smart individuals. Fundamentally, we want someone who loves making things work, directly and through others, and who has the skills and seasoning to do that in our context. You may have managed staff directly and have significant experience managing complex projects involving staff who didn’t report directly to you.

More specifically, you will have or be most or all of the following:

Nonprofit finance and accounting expertise and ability to manage complex financials: Your expertise does not come from a certain number of years in the field or type of degree; it comes from the experience of successfully and responsibly leading the accounting functions and tasks of a nonprofit organization. You have led processes around cost allocation systems, department- or program-level reporting and analysis, and financial audit preparation. You demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of how finance and operations must follow from, and enable what, the organization wants to achieve programmatically.
A very strong and persistent problem solver: When faced with a financial mystery (why do these quarterly numbers not agree?!?) you put on your detective hat and dive into the details. You are rigorous about testing the accuracy and reliability of your numbers. When you find a discrepancy, you troubleshoot with a can-do attitude and critical eye. You can also zoom out from the details of the numbers, ask “what led to this problem,” and propose or implement practical solutions for the future.
Demonstrated commitment to racial and gender identity equity: You have demonstrated success in ensuring more equitable and inclusive outcomes for those impacted by your work. You understand the impact of systemic and implicit biases related to race and gender identity that can play out in financial processes and practices, and you’re able to surface this for the organization as you operate as a support and/or guide. You can proactively spot issues of equity and inclusion in finances and can bring practical solutions.
Demonstrated success creating resilient systems in a complex environment. You have the ability to create and revamp strong accounting systems and financial controls that are practical, yet creative where appropriate. You discern what tasks require the highest level of care and accuracy and when good enough is good enough. You are results-oriented and have experience and expertise in building systems, processes, and internal controls that make managing complex finances more efficient, effective, and transparent.
Detail-oriented in a fast-paced environment: You bring a passion for making things work well and an ability to handle a large volume of work impeccably in a high-performing environment. You strategically prioritize the most important and impactful projects, juggle competing demands in a way that keeps things moving forward, and you take leadership on regulatory compliance tasks for two separate legal entities with distinct structures and reporting requirements.
Management experience: You have managed diverse (with regard, minimally, to race and gender identity) staff and/or projects to ambitious goals. You can manage effectively upwards, sideways, diagonally and can work collaboratively. You are able to gain followership of staff and team heads. You collaborate with colleagues in problem solving and are flexible in creating solutions that satisfy a broad set of stakeholders.

Prior experience in the progressive advocacy, educational equity, or broader nonprofit arenas is a plus, but not a requirement. You also need to contribute positively to our culture, which we like to think blends excellence with heart (and a keen sense of humor helps).

What Else You Should Know

We are an equal opportunity employer, are committed to racial and gender equity, and we make a particular effort to recruit candidates who identify as Black, Indigenous, people of color, and gender non-binary to apply for open positions.

The position can be based anywhere in the U.S. and is full-time. Once it is safe to travel again, and TMC is doing in-person work, this position might involve travel 5-6 times a year.

Salary

USD $94,554 - USD $135,023 / year

Salary depending on experience and new staff rarely starting at the top of the range

Benefits

We also offer excellent benefits, including a trans and gender non-binary health fund and an additional 5% employer contribution to your retirement fund with no match required.

How to Apply

https://managementcenter.applytojob.com/apply/KG0yKjzS8I/Vice-President-Finance

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