There are numerous users of nonprofit’s financial information: Boards, banks, donors, investors, grantors, regulators, watchdog orgs…come learn what key indicators THEY are looking for and what trends and indicators YOU should be monitoring.
Steven W. Sauer, CPA
Steve is a member of the Nonprofit, Education and Public Sector Practice. For more than 15 years, he has served a variety of domestic and international nonprofits. He leads Colorado’s nonprofit attestation practice and Colorado’s nonprofit advisory practice, which includes services such as outsourced CFO and controller engagements, grants management, internal control and operational assessments, peer-to-peer benchmarking, best practice reviews, software selection, and on-demand training/educational/governance resources.
He is a frequent presenter, trainer, and panelist for a variety of nonprofit industry groups. Steve is a regular author and instructor for FORVIS’ nationally acclaimed FORsights™ as well as FORVIS’ annual nonprofit and public sector seminars. He has served on a variety of FORVIS internal office inspections as well as firmwide task forces to research and implement significant standards changes, including FASB’s Revenue from Contracts with Customers and Presentation of Financial Statements of Not-for-Profit Entities and the AICPA’s Group Audit standards.
Steve is a member of the American Institute of CPAs and COCPA. He currently serves as treasurer for Village Seven Presbyterian Church and for Disabling Barriers (a Colorado Springs grant-making foundation), as well as a member of the COCPA’s nonprofit industry resource panel. Steve is a 2013 graduate of the Leadership Pikes Peak Leadership NOW! program, which is designed to train participants in leadership and civic-minded skills.
He is a 2007 magna cum laude graduate of University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, with a B.S. degree in business administration with an emphasis in accounting.
Find yourself thinking you need to up your program evaluation skills? Or, did you learn rigorous research methods in graduate school that do not translate well to the operational reality at your nonprofit? Well, this training may be for you! Join Natalie and Lara to learn how we redesigned an evaluation system and learn about some tools and skills along the way.
Natalie De Sole
Natalie (she/her) started Rooted-Growth to coach mission-driven organizations to develop, process, and use data. She aims to build positive learning environments and incorporates a social justice lens when triangulating data. Natalie often uses a community-based participatory research approach encouraging the participants to engage, frame, and co-interpret the evaluations. The level of participants’ engagement often depends on what is most useful and feasible. Natalie De Sole is White, half-Coloradoan and half-Southern Italian, and grew up in Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, and Zimbabwe until the age of 14. In 2011, she received her MSW from the University of Michigan in Social Policy and Program Evaluation. She holds an adult teaching certificate from the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE), which she earned while teaching the macro capstone class at Metro for two years. She currently lives in Lafayette with her husband, Elliott, and dog, Billy.
Lara Carlson
Lara is the Senior Programs Director at Walking Mountains and supports organization operations and the Youth Program, Graduate Program, and Community Program teams. She has worked at Walking Mountains since 2003 in various programmatic roles. Lara loves teaching programs for both kids and adults, as well as teaching and mentoring others in developing their teaching and interpretive skills. Lara earned her B.S. in Outdoor Education from Northland College, M.A. in Environmental Studies from Prescott College, M.P.A. focused in Nonprofit Administration from University of Montana, and holds a Colorado Elementary Education teaching license. Lara is a Certified Master Environmental Educator through CAEE and a Certified Interpretive Guide and Certified Interpretive Trainer through NAI. During her free time, Lara enjoys knitting, playing outside, hiking with her husband and dog, and skiing.
This course covers:
Tom Grimmer, MBA
Tom Grimmer is career finance professional focusing on non-profits and healthcare. He has taught at the collegiate and graduate levels. His approach is to develop skills that can be readily accessed to improve business performance.
For nonprofits with small communications teams, it can be challenging to maintain a regular publishing cadence without a central hub for planning, tracking and coordinating content activities. Barefoot PR’s Director of Strategy, Laura Schwinkendorf, will walk you through the process of building a PR-focused editorial calendar to help you establish a communications workflow, define monthly storytelling priorities and strengthen your touch points with donors and stakeholders.
Laura Schwinkendorf, Director of Strategy at Barefoot PR
Laura Schwinkendorf (she/her/hers) is Barefoot PR’s strategy guide, leading the work we do to build Communications Roadmaps for clients. Laura has an eye for opportunity and a mastery of tactics that work. As she learns about a client’s audiences and the outcomes they hope to achieve, Laura builds Editorial Calendars, Story Banks, Big Ideas and Tactical Plans to guide clients through the actions they need to take to infuse purpose into their communications.
Her approach to communications planning was shaped by a desire to seek out new ideas, experience different ways of living and stretch her comfort zone while traveling to Maui, Paris, Uganda and the neighborhoods of Denver. She brings skillful exploration to her work with clients – balancing proven recommendations with opportunities to stray from the path and try something new.
When she is not at work, Laura volunteers her time as a board member for Youth on Record, dotes on Dez the cat, and cheers on the Texas A&M Aggies alongside her partner, Michael. If you ever need a restaurant or happy hour recommendation, Laura will have one ready and she suggests walking along Cherry Creek Trail or through the Jefferson Park neighborhood to soak up the best Denver vibes.
Nonprofits often join forces to achieve their goals and better serve their communities. However, the merger process can be complex and challenging. That’s why we’re excited to invite you to our upcoming session called Nonprofit Mergers: Compounding Your Impact.
During the presentation, you will learn about the key steps involved in merging nonprofits, including legal and financial considerations, stakeholder engagement, and cultural integration.
Our expert speaker, Marcia Donziger, will share tips, potential pitfalls, and best practices for ensuring a successful outcome.
Marcia Donziger
Marcia is a Colorado nonprofit workplace culture strategist and the author of a new book, You Are Meant for Great Things, which documents the story of her cancer diagnosis before starting a new cancer organization, and then merging it to increase her impact on the cancer community.
Have you been stuck in a cycle of applying for grants and receiving declination letters – without an explanation? Are you curious about pursuing grant funding for your nonprofit, but aren’t sure where to start?
Navigating the world of grant funding can feel like walking around with a blindfold, but the secrets to success are simple (even if they aren’t always easy). In this session, you’ll learn about the key elements required to build a foundation for grant-seeking success – and how implementing these principles can amplify the impact of your programs and make your work easier and more fulfilling.
Morgan Carpenter (she/her) is a nonprofit consultant and grant writer based in northern Colorado. She works with a variety of nonprofits in the human services sector to improve their grant readiness, engage in strategic planning and program development, and create tools and resources that support their ability to achieve their goals and create a positive impact in our community. Her strategic approach to this work is rooted in her experience with proposal writing and grants management, which enables her to help organizations solve challenges and achieve long-term success through alignment with nonprofit best practices.
Morgan serves as a board member for the Grant Professionals Association’s Colorado Chapter, the Zeta Tau Alpha Fort Collins Alumnae Chapter, and the Junior League of Fort Collins, where she previously served as president. In 2021, she was named one of BizWest’s Northern Colorado 40 Under Forty young professionals and was also recognized by the Junior League with the Elena Lawrence Inspiration Award for her work to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion. When she’s not working with social impact organizations to make the world a better place, Morgan enjoys cooking, reading, and watching true crime documentaries with her husband and their beloved pets. Learn more and get in touch at www.carpenternonprofitconsulting.com.
Question: Board and Staff – Who does what in a well-run nonprofit organization?
Answer: It’s a partnership!
OK, but Who does What? Attend this two-part series to discover the answers. Using a football analogy and based upon the popular manual The Invisible Yellow Line™ these sessions will explain the basic roles of board and staff in five key nonprofit management areas: governance, planning, finance, human resources and resource development.
Session 1: April 6th, 9 AM – 11 AM: We’ll dig into the primary roles of the board and staff leader in governance and planning. We’ll start with some definitions, explore the duties of Care, Loyalty and Honesty, discuss conflict of interest, mission and vision, disclosures and reporting, bylaws and policies, the basics of planning for a vertically-aligned organization, and more.
Session 2: April 26th, 9 AM – 11 AM: This session will cover key roles of board and staff in finance, human resources and resource development. At this session, we’ll answer questions about who is responsible for what financially, how well-meaning board members could cross the yellow line into HR management and why this is a no-no, and the importance of the board’s fundraising responsibilities.
Jean Block
The workshops are led by Jean Block, a nonprofit consultant and trainer in nonprofit management, board development and fundraising, and author of the Invisible Yellow Line™ and
several other nonprofit books and manuals. You can learn more about Jean at www.jblockinc.com.
Chase will help your small nonprofit demystify the donor stewardship process while demonstrating ways a small nonprofit can still engage with donors in powerful and impactful ways, even with a “shoestring” budget and staff. Chase will dissect the annual activities of a sample nonprofit org, identify engagement opportunities and finally develop an easy to follow stewardship calendar that nonprofits of any size can confidently execute.
Chase Whisenhunt, Director of Fundraising Strategy with Lasso Digital
Chase has led fund development and fundraising activities for a variety of nonprofit organizations, first responder agencies, and local governments for over 14 years, raising over $6 million for organizations through grant writing, individual and major donor development, capital campaigns, sponsorships, and special events. Before entering the world of nonprofit fund development, Chase was responsible for developing and implementing county-wide emergency planning, evacuation routes, and emergency shelter management for several coastal North Carolina counties.
He graduated from the University of North Carolina with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Masters of Public Administration.
“Why won’t anybody pay attention to my data?” Many purpose-driven individuals and social mission organizations go to great lengths to collect data, yet find that their results are overlooked, misunderstood, or ignored.
Don’t let data confusion happen to you or your audience.
In this interactive training designed for small and mid-sized nonprofit practitioners, we will begin by exploring several practices for data visualization you can use to make your data easier to understand. From there, we will discuss the exploration to explanation continuum, a tool that can help you determine how to engage others in any data-centric conversation. Finally, we will explore how you can apply general principles of storytelling (like the narrative arc) and communication (like information scaffolding) to make your messages memorable.
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Paul Collier is the founder of Coeffect, a consulting firm that works with nonprofit executives and founders of social enterprises to leverage data to make a greater impact. Since 2016 Coeffect has consulted with over 40 for-impact clients across Colorado, California, and Washington D.C. Paul has also led trainings around impact measurement strategy for hundreds of nonprofit professionals through the Colorado Nonprofit Association, Nonprofit Learning Lab, and Social Venture Partners Denver. Prior to Coeffect, Paul served as the Data and Evaluation Manager at Safe & Sound, a leading family resource center developing a data-informed model to help families raise thriving kids. He also worked for Protiviti, an international consulting firm providing internal audit services to Fortune 500 clients.
Does your organization work cross-culturally? Have you ever been frustrated by miscommunications with team members who come from different backgrounds? We will go over five basic concepts of leading a team in a way that leverages cultural diversity. Learn practical exercises that you can use in your organization to increase cultural awareness and reduce frustration. We will end with a discussion on how your organization can become an incubator for high-performing multicultural teams.
Andrew Hoskins has led and taught multicultural teams for the past two decades. He spent the first 17 years of his career leading nonprofit teams in multiple countries across Africa. He moved to Colorado Springs two years ago and is currently the Vice President of International Programs for The Exodus Road, a nonprofit fighting to disrupt global human trafficking.
Andrew is soon completing a DBA at Trevecca Nazarene University. He holds an MA in International Development from the University of South Carolina. He is an Associate Certified Coach (ACC) through the International Coaching Federation (ICF), and a Proci Certified Change Management Practitioner.