verity consulting, llc.

CFO-LEVEL FINANCIAL LEADERSHIP FOR NONPROFITS THAT CAN’T JUSTIFY A FULL-TIME CFO

Your bookkeeper records the transactions. Your executive director runs the programs. Verity Consulting handles everything in between — the board reporting, the grant compliance, the cash flow forecasting, and the audit prep that keeps falling to whoever has time.

THE PROBLEM

You're not missing a bookkeeper. You're missing the layer above.

Most nonprofits operate with a capable bookkeeper, an overloaded executive director or CEO, and nobody in between. That gap shows up in predictable ways:

  • The finance committee asks a question in the meeting and nobody has the answer until next week.

  • You know the org has money in the bank, but not whether it's actually spendable.

  • Grant reports get assembled in a scramble the week they're due.

  • Audit season means three weeks of your ED reconstructing documentation.

  • A funder asks for your indirect cost rate and the room goes quiet.

  • Budget-to-actual variances get noticed in month four, not month one.

None of this means anyone is doing a bad job. It means the work requires a skill set nobody on your team was hired for.

SERVICES

FRACTIONAL CFO

Ongoing strategic partnership. Monthly financial review, cash flow forecasting, board and finance committee reporting, budget development, and a standing seat at the table when you're making decisions with financial consequences.

Best for: organizations with a bookkeeper in place who need strategy and oversight.

Grant & Compliance Support

Budget development for proposals, restricted fund tracking, grantor reporting, indirect cost rate documentation, and Uniform Guidance compliance for federally funded organizations.

Best for: organizations where grant revenue is growing faster than the systems tracking it.

Audit Readiness

Year-round preparation, not a fire drill. Reconciliation review, schedule preparation, documentation systems, and acting as your point of contact with the audit firm.

Best for: organizations approaching their first audit, or coming off a difficult one.

Board & Finance Committee Support

Financial statements your board can actually read, dashboards that surface what matters, and — if it's useful — attending meetings to answer questions directly so your ED doesn't have to translate.

Best for: boards that want more financial visibility than they're currently getting.

Project Work

Chart of accounts redesign. Functional expense allocation methodology. Reserve policy development. Financial policies and internal controls. Interim coverage during a finance staff transition.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • A bookkeeper records what happened. A tax accountant files your 990. A CFO tells you what the numbers mean and what to do about them — cash flow ahead, whether you can afford the hire, how a new grant changes your funding concentration, whether your reserves are adequate. Different jobs, all necessary.

  • Often, yes, and they work well together. Your accounting firm handles compliance and the annual audit or review. I handle the ongoing financial leadership between those touchpoints. I'm happy to coordinate directly with your existing firm.

  • Yes — All versions of QuickBooks, Sage Intacct, Blackbaud Financial Edge, Xero, Wave, all of it. And if your current system isn't serving you, I can help you evaluate whether a change is worth the disruption.

  • Yes. Engagements are handled remotely, and I work with organizations across the country.

  • That's normal, and it's what the initial consultation is for. Plenty of organizations come in describing one problem and discover the real issue is somewhere else.

MELISSA VENTURA, MBA

25 years of accounting experience from the ground level up

I started Verity because I kept meeting nonprofit leaders who were spending their evenings buried in spreadsheets instead of doing the work they signed up for. Every hour an executive director spends untangling a grant budget is an hour not spent on the mission. I'd rather they hand me the business stuff and get back to what matters.

I've spent 25 years in accounting, and I started at the very bottom. I've held nearly every seat between that first job and this one. That matters more than it might sound like: when I look at your books, I know exactly where those numbers came from and what it took to produce them. I don't hand a bookkeeper a list of demands. I've done that job.

My MBA covers the strategic side — forecasting, budgeting, the decisions with money attached. My bachelor's in psychology from UNLV has turned out to be just as useful. Most financial problems I encounter at nonprofits aren't math problems. They're translation problems: a board that can't read the statements it's being handed, a funder asking a question nobody wants to answer, a staff that's afraid of the budget. I'm good at making financial information make sense to people who don't think in numbers.

I've called Nevada home for more than 30 years. I'm a mom, an avid reader, and have a soft spot for any animal that crosses my path.

Meet the Founder

Thirty minutes, no cost, no pitch. Tell me what’s keeping you up and I’ll tell you how I can help.

Fill out the contact form and I’ll be in touch to schedule a consultation!

Let’s Talk ABOUT WHAT YOUR ORGANIZATION ACTUALLY NEEDS