By David Beroth
Have you ever heard of Humphrey Monmouth? You haven’t? Neither had I until a couple of months ago. How about William Tyndale? I suspect you have probably heard of him. Did you know that you would have probably never heard of Tyndale and there would have likely been no English New Testament in 1526 unless Monmouth was working behind the scenes to propel Tyndale’s ministry forward? John Rinehart (2013) in his book Gospel Patrons writes extensively about how God used Monmouth behind the scenes to undergird Tyndale’s ministry. He writes, “history remembers Tyndale, but it has largely forgotten that behind this massive movement of God was a businessman. In the shadows of the English Reformation stands an invaluable Gospel Patron named Humphrey Monmouth” (p. 54).
CFOs in Christian ministries are often like Monmouth. Few people know about them but without them, few ministries would be propelled forward to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to demonstrate His love toward those who are in need. CFOs gladly and willingly labor in the shadows because they ultimately know that they are key instruments in what God is doing in the world of missions.
While it can be understood that the CFO role is important in an organization, it is not always clear what the role should entail. Maybe you have come from an accounting background, an auditing background, or a banking background. How can you be confident that you are covering the primary purposes of this CFO function? If you come from a compliance background you might think that you are fulfilling your duties if you have a clean audit, all the tax forms are filed, and your Board is happy with the budget. However, I would suggest there is more to the CFO role.
When I think of a CFO I like to think of them in the following way. A CFO should be a Comprehensive Financial Orchestrator. It is a comprehensive financial role because you are responsible to oversee all the financial components of the organization. It is also a role of an Orchestrator because you cannot individually play the second violin, the timpani, and the French horn yourself. You are to orchestrate those who play these instruments to bring forth the beautiful sounds of the financial symphony. You are to coordinate, inspire, and direct the talented musicians.
You may think this is a lofty concept, but what does this actually look like? Let me offer you four key concepts in order to function optimally as a Comprehensive Financial Orchestrator. The best way to do this is to consider the four E’s contained in the word excellence. Every CFO in a Christian ministry needs to embrace and deliver results in these four areas to serve your organization with excellence.
To bring this all together, what then does it take to serve with excellence as a Comprehensive Financial Orchestrator? This is what it takes –
E VALUATION
X
C
E XPLORATION
L
L
E XPLANATION
N
C
E DUCATION
1 – Evaluation.
As a CFO your first job is to think. You are to consider, analyze, reflect, envision, and connect the dots. You evaluate financial information, you evaluate systems, you evaluate your team’s design, and you evaluate who needs to know what and when. Let your valuable team member play the clarinet; you are to consider how the clarinet fits into the overall score and how it will best harmonize with the flute. Evaluation is to encompass the entire financial domain of your organization, so this will cover the design of transactional processing as well as what the critical, relevant insights are behind the numbers. You should reflect on who your key constituents are within and without the organization and what financial information will bring them the most value. You should inquire and discover what reports would be most insightful to your key constituents and what format and mode of delivery would best meet these needs.
Part of evaluation is not only looking at historic data but also projecting the financial implications for decisions which are being considered today. A weakness in many organizations is the inability to effectively integrate potential missional impact with financial impact to assist the organizational leaders in the decision making process. You need to help determine these key impact drivers and incorporate them in such a way as to enlighten and inform. One resource that provides an insightful matrix for nonprofits is the book by Jeanne Bell, Jan Masaoka, and Steve Zimmerman (2010), Nonprofit Sustainability, to aid you in the process. Regardless of what area you are considering, strategically seek to evaluate the different financial components of your organization and ask the Lord for wisdom to enable you to help further your mission.
2 – Exploration.
Once you have carefully evaluated, your next job is to explore. You evaluate to discover the felt needs as well as the genuine needs you see in your organization. However, after you identify these needs and opportunities you should explore solutions to these challenges. You should not just accept the status quo because “that is the way we have always done it”, but you are responsible to explore innovative solutions and look for ways to improve the financial domain in your organization – once again covering items such as the financial systems, the quality of customer service, and the design and dissemination of financial reports. You are to connect the dots of your evaluation process and then initiate both remedies to the problems you observe as well as plans to seize important opportunities. You will also need to prioritize on what challenges you will conquer at any given time. Peter Drucker wrote of focusing on just a few priorities at any given time because if you try to focus on too many items you will lose your ability to focus well and bring about real change. In conjunction with your boss you will need to determine your domain’s priorities and then reduce the focus on the other needs, at least for a season. Peter Drucker (1967) called these issues “posteriorities”, writing in his classic, The Effective Executive, “The reason why so few executives concentrate is the difficulty of setting ‘posteriorities’—that is, deciding what tasks not to tackle—and of sticking to the decision” (p. 110).
In my organization we have a core value of creativity and innovation. There is an expectation of trying new things and a willingness to see attempted ideas falter. That is okay. We mitigate the risk by often pursuing “beta” tests before implementing a proposed solution across the entire organization. Your job is to explore the options, design the plans for change, initiate the first steps in the change process, and then shepherd the modifications through to organizational acceptance. The book Leading Change by John Kotter (2012) is a helpful resource in addressing this area of change management.
One example of exploration in my organization involved our travel program. We have had significant growth in recent years, and we have had to improve our systems along the way to undergird this growth. Our second largest operational expense behind staff costs is our travel costs. Unfortunately we had not had time to comprehensively review our travel program and implement a systemic solution to this area. We realized we needed one main travel management company to coordinate our travel needs, so we set about examining our detailed travel information, considering potential solutions, interacting with vendors through an RFP process, identifying the preferred vendor, compiling a cross-functional team to assist with implementation, and then implementing the solution. This exploration component is necessary from the beginning stage of consideration to the final stage of integration into your organizational systems.
3 – Explanation.
The critical role of the accountant and/or Controller is to efficiently process financial information and compile it into accurate reports. The critical role of the CFO is to effectively explain that financial information to the various stakeholders in the organization. Of necessity, the CFO is in the communication business. Your job is to study the needs of the different stakeholders such as the Board, Board committees (business committee, audit committee or investment committee for instance), CEO, Leadership Team, budget managers, development team, donors, staff, and other external stakeholders. Once you discern their needs, your role is to effectively communicate with them. You have to consider questions such as – am I simply informing the group of historic activity, am I trying to persuade them to take certain steps of action, am I setting the stage for group discussion, am I endeavoring to overcome known obstacles, or am I one of a number of executives where I will give recommendations from a financial lens? Studying the needs and delivering communication commensurate with those needs is an art, but it is critical to the CFO role.
This aspect of explanation builds on the first step of evaluation. You need to formulate critical insights about what the financial results mean and then insightfully convey them within your specific context. Monotonous data dumps are rarely beneficial, whereas a handful of insights summarized with graphs and a couple of stories for context transform raw data into meaningful information. It is better to distill financial material into 15 minutes of relevant material coupled with another 15 minutes to facilitate questions from your audience on the details than to spend an hour meticulously discussing all the details with a fine-toothed comb. Your job is to discern what is most relevant to the audience and ensure that is effectively conveyed.
4 – Education.
To serve as a CFO well you need to be responsible for deepening the financial understanding in your organization. This is multi-faceted. You need to continue growing in your abilities. You should pursue continuous improvement in your financial insights and integration with your missional impact. You should learn from other financial leaders how they optimally serve and what new ideas and tools are working well for them. It is good to glean from other disciplines and integrate that learning in your organization. I once heard of an Emergency Room studying a race car pit service to understand how they function together so well to quickly get the cars back on the track. Always be learning to help your ministry accomplish its mission.
You also need to be concerned about the development of those who serve on your team. Are they improving their skills and abilities? Are you making volitional decisions to give them continuing education opportunities? How about more challenging work assignments? Though there will be always be checks to deposit and bills to pay, look for additional assignments to deepen your team’s thinking and help them grow. If your team is going to flourish you will need to delegate effectively to your team and see them thrive with new challenges and new competencies.
Finally, you should see the key constituents in your ministry grow in their financial comprehension. Though you are the one who is to be the financial expert, you want your audience to grow in their understanding of what components are most critical, what the key drivers are, and when to know if an alert should be raised.
May the Lord give you wisdom to assist your ministry in these ways!
References
Bell, J., Masaoka, J., & Zimmerman, S. (2010). Nonprofit sustainability. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Drucker, P.F. (2006). The effective executive: The definitive guide to getting the right things done. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers, Inc.
Kotter, J.P. (2012). Leading change. USA: Harvard Business Review Press.
Rinehart, J. (2013). Gospel patrons. Minneapolis, MN: Reclaimed Publishing.