“One of the myths I’d love to dispel is that nonprofits are not strategic. People think we aren’t forward thinking or just scrapping for change and trying to get things done. I’ve had the honor of working with organizations where we really focus on our mission in a nonprofit context in a very strategic way.”
You don’t want to miss this masterclass with Amy Omand. Omand is Fractional CFO, at 7 Seat Consulting, working with not for profits getting from early to mid-stage growth. In this episode she reveals her journey from managing FP&A at Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream (bought by Nestle) to former CFO of New Schools Venture Fund and setting up her business focused on not-for-profits.
In this episode:
- Dreyer’s ice cream Budgeting Experience – the problems that can melt financial analysis with a new ice cream line launch
- Passion for K12 education and the finance factor in education
- The differences-and similarities- between nonprofit and “for profit” FP&A
- Why cash is (still) king at nonprofits
- Restrictions placed on how money is spent by nonprofits
- Taking Revolution Foods, the, the Healthy School Lunch Company through their first B Corporation certification
- Why Metallica works for budget or modeling
- The comfort in numbers and being a numbers nerd
Notes
The Social Responsibility of Business: Kelly McElhaney. https://executive.berkeley.edu/kellie-mcelhaney
Paul Barnhurst:
Hello everyone. Welcome to FP&A Today, I am your host, Paul Barnhurst, aka the FP&A Guy. FP&A Today is brought to you by Data Rails, the financial planning and analysis platform for Excel users. Every week we welcome a leader from the world of financial planning and analysis. Today we are delighted to be joined by Amy Omand. Amy, welcome to the show.
Amy Omand:
Thanks so much for having me, Paul.
Paul Barnhurst:
Yeah, we’re really excited to, to have you here with us. So a little bit about Amy. Amy comes to us from Oakland, California. She earned her bachelor’s in accounting from Georgetown and her MBA from Berkeley. She has her CPA license and has been running her own business, Seven Seat consulting, supporting nonprofits for the last year. And so we’re really excited to have her here. And we’re gonna start with a fun question we like to ask everybody. We start off the show with these days, what was the most challenging or most difficult budgeting experience you’ve ever had?
Amy Omand:
Yes, you are certainly starting with the hard hitting questions, those tough times that we have had with budgeting. I, the thing that popped into my head was actually from the past when I was working at a for-profit company at Dryer’s Ice Cream. There was a period of time that I was involved in the Capital Steering Committee where I was helping to pull together the financial analysis for any new ice cream line. And I still remember the marketing folks coming to me and saying, what ROI do I need to get my project approved <laugh>? So all of that was sort of indicative of folks, you know, sort of starting at the end point and thinking that they could backwards map, you know, the financial analysis needed in order to get their, their project approved. So, you know, it was, it was interesting to navigate those those times and sort of put together a true financial analysis when you recognize that everyone sort of had their own their own needs you know, in the budgeting process.
Paul Barnhurst:
Yeah. It reminds me of the time when someone asked me, what do you want the accrual to be?
Amy Omand:
Right.
Paul Barnhurst:
Right. You know, I was like, I want it to be what, it’s a realistic estimate of what we think’s going to happen that we can support. And what they were asking me is, how much do we need to bring in to hit our budget? ’cause We wanna save the rest for next year. Right, right. You know, that was the implied question. Kinda like, okay, just tell me what ROI need to get to and I’ll engineer a case that I get there.
Amy Omand:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. And it’s, you know, it’s, it’s difficult when people wanna start at the end rather than, you know, the beginning, kind of, I’m a, I’m a true believer in bottoms up budgeting, zero based budgeting, sort of, you know, yes, you, you do have to know where you need to be, but you gotta build up the assumptions, you know, from the detail from the ground up to, to actually have it be a valid analysis and, you know get the business going in, in the right direction.
Paul Barnhurst:
Yeah, agree. Anytime you start with, okay, we gotta get 12% and you put together the case to get to 12 and a half. Yeah. Whether it makes sense or not, you just get yourself in trouble. I know I’ve seen it more than once. So what was the key takeaway from that experience? What was the learning?
Amy Omand:
Yeah. Well you know, that the learning about kind of doing the bottoms up budgeting, you know, kind of always needing to start from, you know, the true assumptions, but also just kind of the people aspect of budgeting is, is always there. You know, in this case, the, the marketing folks, you know, they had their grand ideas to the new packaging or the new ice cream line. So they really wanted that to happen. The engineers, you know, wanted the most amount of money they could spend on their new production line and, and all of that. So the management of, of people’s expectations is it’s really salient in any, any budgeting exercise.
And sometimes those of us, I know I am an introvert, love to be, you know, in my spreadsheets, sort of performing the analysis, but you also have to be out there with people and kind of understanding their, their, their needs and wants and, and, and navigate within that context.
Paul Barnhurst:
Yeah. I like how you said navigate. ’cause There’s definitely a lot of navigation. ’cause Almost always the needs or the wants are much bigger than the dollars. Right? Right. They may say it’s needs, and then you have that, okay, what’s really a need and what can we afford? So it’s a lot of back and forth for sure.
Amy Omand:
Definitely.
Paul Barnhurst:
So can you tell us a little bit about yourself and just your background, how you ended up where you’re at today?
Amy Omand:
Yeah. Well, I I feel like numbers and accounting have kind of always been in my, my blood, my background. My, my grandfather was actually an accountant for his municipal energy company in, in Missouri long time ago in the 1920s. My dad was a small businessman, so I, I just sort of, you know, felt like business and accounting and finance you know, always kind of came naturally to me when I was in undergrad several years ago now. Got into the accounting program there and, and really loved, loved my time learning about GAAP and sort of the rules of the road and, and ended up at PricewaterhouseCoopers for a few years while I got my CPA. I spent about 10 years in for-profit companies and and then pivoted into nonprofits and social enterprise for the, the second half of my career most recently in organizations that are supporting K12 education, which has really been meaningful to me to kind of take my financial analysis into the world of, of education public education, improving outcomes for students especially as I have two children who are now 17 and 13.
I I’ve been navigating them through Oakland Public Schools. So it’s been really helpful for me to work with experts in the field that know a lot about education.
Paul Barnhurst:
Yeah, I, I could totally see that, where that would be helpful. And that’s definitely an area where, you know, we need to continue to improve. There’s plenty of room for improvement, at least from my perspective of what I see having a daughter in, you know, in, in K through 12 as well, so I can understand that. So, you know, as you mentioned, as you spent kind of the first 10 years working for large corporations and then made the move to nonprofit, what motivated that switch? What made you decide to go from profit to nonprofit?
Amy Omand:
Yeah. The, the, the, the pivot point, if you will, was, was my time at Berkeley when I was getting my MBA, I was in the evening and weekend program there while I was working at Dreyer’s Ice Cream who was, was acquired by Nestle during my tenure there. And I took a class called the Social Responsibility of Business Taught by Kelly McElhaney. And I was just really inspired by that course. I actually did my project on and presented to the CEO at the time, you know, did, did some work around our environmental impact. You know, how we treat employees as well as you know, focused on profits and, and the bottom line. So it was a really eye-opening experience to kind of go through that process and realize that even for-profit organizations can you know, kind of have this multi-stakeholder approach.
I knew at the time while I was getting my MBA, I was like, should I pivot into, you know, more ESG reporting, kind of get out of the day-to-day finance? But at the end of the day, I kind of realized organizations of all shapes and sizes need folks like me, you know, with the skillset and the CPA that I, that I bring.
So I decided to stay, you know, in my, my functional area of finance and just focus on working for organizations that mean something to me. You know, that, that, that kind of have that, that social aspect. So after I left Dreyers, I worked for an organization called Revolution Foods, which is a healthy school lunch company. I was their first finance hire. So it was really fun to take everything I learned from food manufacturing and CPG and bring it to startup organization that was providing healthy school lunches primarily to Title one schools schools that, that are supporting low-income kids.
Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> across the nation. And we, we scaled from California all the way across the country during my time there. And so that was, was really meaningful. After that experience, I pivoted into nonprofits and I was very lucky to find very strategic nonprofits to to work for. I spent the last eight years at New schools Venture Fund. So new schools was actually an initial investor in Revolution Food. So that’s where I first heard of them. New schools is a venture philanthropy. So we would give grants to education organizations and new startup schools across the country. They were actually founded in the late nineties by venture capitalists from Kleiner Perkins, who had, you know, the big vision of what if we could fund an organization that could seed innovation within k12 education across the country, similar to how in, in the late nineties, the.com boom was going on. And, you know, one of KleinerPerkins early Investments was in a little company called Google. So, so the idea was how can we seed innovation in K 12 education? So I spent eight years there as their CFO and finance person sort of helping to distribute money and learn from these education entrepreneurs that were really bringing you know, amazing innovation across, across the country.
Paul Barnhurst:
Thank you for sharing your story, and I love how you brought that together, you know, the love of the social side with your passion for finance and went, you know, non not-for-profit. I’ve always been a big fan of companies that have that social responsibility. I, you know, one of the companies I follow a lot is Corp B companies. Right. Which aren’t quite, not-for-profit, but they kind of sit a little bit in between in the sense that they have a mission beyond just bottom line. Right. And so there’s one here locally that I just love, and I’ve had their FP&A person on before called Cotopaxi, and I, I’ve got to know the CEOA little bit. Yeah. Love, see the way they’re trying to alleviate poverty. So I just, I think it’s great to see whether it’s not for-profit, whether it’s for-profit, but just doing more to benefit society, that multi-stakeholder approach.
Amy Omand:
Yes. Yes. Definitely.
Paul Barnhurst:
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So I think, I think that’s great. So today you run your own fractional CFO business supporting nonprofits. How did you decide to start your own business? How did that come about?
Amy Omand:
Yeah. Well, I decided to, after eight years at New Schools Venture Fund I left in early 2023. New schools really gave me the opportunity to work with early stage entrepreneurs. So because we were giving seed funding to early stage nonprofits Mm-Hmm, <affirmative> as well as some for-profit organizations had the opportunity to work with some of those entrepreneurs on some key questions they had about financial infrastructure, sort of what they needed as they were getting their organizations up and running. Because not only would new schools provide money in the form of grants and investments, we would provide what we called management assistance, which was basically expertise on our staff or other consultants, you know, sort of working with those organizations to, to support them as they grew. So that was really where I saw the need for organizations to have expertise such as mine, but not on a, on a full-time basis.
You know, early stage budgets you know, can’t handle full-time CFO level support. So, so I I decided to launch a fractional CFO organization, seven Seat Consulting, where I have five clients right now. And I’m helping them as they are going from early stage to mid stage and helping to shape up their financials, get the right infrastructure in place, the right internal controls, maybe get them through their first audit work on best practices for budgeting and forecasting what they need from a funder reporting standpoint. So it’s you know, I saw the need in the marketplace. And the, the other aspect was sort of my own personal needs. I, as, as I mentioned, just love finance much. And even at new schools, which is a, you know, pretty sizable organization as CFO I was in charge of technology and sometimes HR and <laugh> sort of other aspects of administration that I was like, you know, I would love to really just focus on, on finance. So the fractional CFO model really meets my own needs where I can roll up my sleeves a bit more, support my clients. I’m seeing a bunch of new and different business models, which is really exciting for me. And then they get the benefit of sort of my expertise on that, that fractional basis.
Paul Barnhurst:
Yeah, it sounds like it’s a perfect fit for you, and you’re really enjoying it, so that’s great. So, so I’m curious, right, you’ve spent a fair amount of time in not-for-profit fair amount of time in the for-profit sector. What are some of the biggest similarity and differences between the two when it comes to finance?
Amy Omand:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, yes, I would would love to talk about both similarities and differences <laugh>. And I love the fact that you mentioned, you know, a lot of people say nonprofit and they think no profit, but you, you articulated it is not for profit, which really means that nonprofits just don’t have profit as their, as their, you know, primary driver. It’s a tax designation that basically the IRS says, if you are a not-for-profit, then that means your profits don’t have to be taxed, which is lovely for those of us in this space. But it certainly does not mean that you are not making any profit because otherwise we wouldn’t be sustainable. You know, we have different GAAP terminology for that adding to our net assets for example. But one of the myths I’d love to, to just dispel is that nonprofits are, are, are not strategic.
They’re sort of not forward thinking that we’re always, you know, sort of scrapping for, for change and, you know, just trying to get things done. I’ve had the, the honor of working alongside and with organizations that are very strategically focused and you know, they we’re working within systems that can allow us to do you know, new and, and different things and really focus on, on our mission in a nonprofit context in a, in a very strategic way. So the, the ways in which they’re, they’re different. One of the primary ways that they’re different is in revenue recognition areas and primarily philanthropic revenue. So this is one thing in, in forecasting and budgeting that we can sometimes struggle with. Not all nonprofits have philanthropic revenue. Many of them do because of the tax benefits to donors.
It can be really hard to budget and forecast for philanthropy if an organization is supported on a, on a large part by philanthropic revenue in addition, or, or solely by philanthropic revenue rather than earned income. Everyone sort of manages pipelines of philanthropy, and you have, you know, weighted averages of what you think, you know, you are going to bring in and, and recognizes any year. But if one grant comes in, you know, it’s, it’s either gonna be zero or 500,000, for example. So it can be kind of hard to budget in that context. When uncertainty can creep in and you’re just not sure you know, it’s not like earned income where you can base it off of his historicals and, you know, think about revenue run rates and, and things of that sort. The other aspect of philanthropy are restrictions.
Many philanthropies like to place restrictions on how their money is spent. There’s a big conversation in the nonprofit finance world about about this in particular. And, and hopefully a movement toward less restrictions that funders are, are, are putting on their money. Many funders only want to see their money spent on program and not on things like overhead and operations and finance and accounting and things of that sort. The ironic thing is those restrictions actually cost more because we have to track them in a very detailed way from a financial standpoint. So, you know the, the hope is there’s, there’s a, a, a term out there called trust based based philanthropy where we are hoping that more philanthropic funders are gonna adopt this approach where they’re giving unrestricted funds. Mackenzie Scott has been a, a, a, a great trust-based philanthropist the last few years.
She’s actually given $14 billion to 1600 nonprofits in the last few years. And she does it in a very open-ended unrestricted way. Which, which has been a game changer for, for many nonprofits. The last thing that I’ll mention just as far as differences is, is sort of the culture within nonprofits that, that I have found is very collaborative. I know in for-profits, especially within finance and dealing with numbers, you need to be you know, you, you need to hold that information confidentially because of all sorts of different reasons. And in nonprofits, we publish our financial statements, our form nine nineties publicly you know, want to share our information publicly as well as, you know, we can kind of share across organizations what’s working and, and share things like our salaries and, and things of that sort on a more collaborative basis. So so that’s another, another difference that I’ve seen.
Paul Barnhurst:
I really like that last one, the collaborative. It’s nice that you can just be open and talk about things. We’ve all been there in finance roles where restructuring or whatever it might be, where you can’t talk about anything, and it can, it can be a challenge sometimes when you can’t share certain things. So that’s nice. You have more opportunity to be open, and I totally agree with you about the restrictions. Having talked to some people and knowing a little bit about that, having worked for the government contracting is where I started my career, right? What color of money was it, is what we’d call it. So what appropriation did it come from? What bill, what could it be used for? What couldn’t it be used for? And have to track all that just puts a lot of rules in the reporting side. I mean, obviously a little different than a, not-for-profit, but similar type of thing in that it makes it very complex. So I can relate to that a little bit. And it was really tough to be like, all right, this money can be used this way, but can it be used that way in asking those type of questions?
Amy Omand:
Yeah. Yeah. And, and I know organizations I’ve worked with that have received government funding have to, you know, track in that way. I mean, I can understand both sides of the coin. Like obviously as a citizen, I wanna make sure any government funding sort of gets spent mm-hmm. <Affirmative> according to what it’s, it’s intended to, but, but the amount of restrictions and sort of red tape. I mean, I’ve also worked with organizations who have said, I’m not going to accept any government funding because of the additional, you know, 10 to 15% of costs it’s gonna take just to manage this grant. And you know that’s a, a, a valid response as well.
Paul Barnhurst:
Well, it’s just like the cost to go public, right? You gotta manage all those rules, similar type of thing. There could be a lot, a lot of regulation and rules to go with that. So I, I could see why they choose to do that. So, you know, kind of shifting gears a little bit, can you talk about the typical budgeting process for a nonprofit? What is, what is that like, maybe, or maybe some ways where it’s similar and different, but just talk a little bit about that process.
Amy Omand:
Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I think it is more similar than, than different, you know, a lot of it is setting out the plan for the budget. You know, making sure you can kind of backwards map from whenever you need your, your end budget to be approved. Making sure that you’ve got the tools set up, you know, appropriately, kind of digging into last year’s actuals, getting your, your budget model set up. Meeting with all of the key stakeholders within the organization, whether it’s just, you know, the CEO or if it’s a larger organization, sort of the heads of different departments. And setting the budgets up so that they can input, you know, their, their wishes, dreams and plans for, for the, the future year into the budget model. I would generally then work on consolidating all of that information, you know, taking it to higher management.
And then we look at things from that 50,000 foot view. How does this budget, you know, bottoms up budget match to our expectations? What does what’s the impact on our reserves? What is the likelihood of if it’s philanthropically revenue driven, sort of what’s the likelihood of, of you know, changes in revenue coming in. So we might need to go back to those budget owners and make some recommendations to decrease expenses. But then ultimately you’re packaging it together for the ultimate approval, which is the nonprofit governance board. At the end of the year, they’ll meet a look at the budget, ask their key strategic questions, you know, from their governance standpoint to make sure that we as management have kicked all the tires. And you know, and our, our happy with the, the way that our financial performance is, is laid out, and then approve the budget from there. As we go through the year, of course, budget to actual reporting is very key. And, you know, there may be times that we have to go back to the board if we need to make a budget adjustment. So maybe we’ve gotten a new grant that we didn’t anticipate, and so that means we’re gonna increase our expenses. So, so sort of take them that real time information as we go through the year to adjust the budgets.
Paul Barnhurst:
Does that tend to be the biggest thing that causes budget adjustments? Is some kind of unexpected revenue, either shortfall or addition, it’s probably not on the expense side, but I’m guessing it’s on a, a grant that comes through, you didn’t expect or big grant that dries up earlier than you planned or whatever it might be. Is those usually the kind of the big adjustments Yes. That have to happen?
Amy Omand:
Yes. Yes. Exactly. And, and I know I, I always have a philosophy of because of the revenue uncertainty, we budget conservatively. ’cause It always feels better for the budget adjustment to be, Hey, we exceeded our revenue and so therefore we can spend more money rather than the other way around of, oh, we bought, you know, we were going to bring in this much and it’s coming in lower, so we have to cut. So, so that’s that’s always been a a key underpinning of of, of how I like to budget.
Paul Barnhurst:
Yeah. I’m with you. Upside is always better than downside.
Amy Omand:
Yeah. Yeah.
Paul Barnhurst:
So I’m curious, what are the key metrics you look at not-for-profit, like maybe take new new school’s venture fund, or, you know, just in general, since you’ve been a CFO, what are some of those key metrics that you like to look at?
Amy Omand:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, well, at new schools we follow the OKR ways of, of budgeting or, or, sorry, goal setting. Objective and key results. So our three main OKRs, the first one was fundraising. So, you know, we knew that we weren’t gonna meet our mission if we didn’t fundraise the way that we needed to. The next two were not so much financial related, but I’ll mention them, venture satisfaction. We wanted to make sure all of our grantees that were obtaining our funding were, were happy with our support and our grant process in giving unrestricted funding that they, they did not find it as an onerous process. And then employee satisfaction. So we would, we would track the NPS of our, our employees getting back into more of the financial metrics, though you know, in addition to those kind of top three OKRs many of our financial discussions the last few years were on our reserve levels.
And it was, it was interesting because going back to kind of that conservative budgeting that we were talking about and always exceeding our revenue goals, we actually had several years of, of exceeding our revenue goals. And that led to our reserves growing Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, which is great for an organization, but with an organization with a mission of seeding, you know, and funding organizations In K 12 education, we, we did not want, you know, our bank balances to get so high. You know, we wanted the impact that we were looking for in, in the education space. So, so often our finance committee, we would talk about, okay, this is our, you know, our, our base level of reserve, and let’s make sure that we’re spending mm-hmm, <affirmative> and, and, and not just saving this cash, you know, for a raining day, but kind of find that right Goldilocks level if you will, of, of reserve level.
And then the last thing I’ll mention that, you know, every nonprofit should track even with, with high reserves or just cash flow. That’s not so much at new schools, but more with my startup clients now. You know, cash is king. That’s true for-profit, non-profit everywhere. You gotta make sure, you know, you have a, a good handle on your cash balances, the money coming in. Even at new schools, we would find you know, there would be a dip in expenditures because we would give grants in the June timeframe, and many of our gr incoming funds would come in the December timeframe. Even, you know, donors still like to wait until December <laugh> to, to to, to give, you know based off of what their tax planners are, are telling them.
Paul Barnhurst:
I was just say, they wanna look at and go, okay, if I give this much, I get this much of a break. They can figure it out at the end
Amy Omand:
Of the year. Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, you, if you’re only looking at your December 31 balances and saying, oh, everything’s fine, you know, you, you still need to look at how your cash is trending throughout the year and make sure that you know, that there’s no hotspots anywhere in any place that you might need to get a line of credit, for example, or you know investigate other, other means of cash flow.
Paul Barnhurst:
Yeah. You said cash, cash is king or queen. I mean, at the end of the day, if you don’t have cash, it doesn’t matter what the rest of the statements say.
Amy Omand:
Exactly. Exactly.
Paul Barnhurst:
I’m curious, let’s say we have an fp and a person, you know, they spent most of their career in for-profit. They’re looking to support, you know, not-for-profit. They’d like to make that switch to a nonprofit. What’s the skill sets that they might need to develop? Are there areas that are different that they need to be thinking about?
Amy Omand:
Yeah, I mean, you know, all nonprofits need the, the, the skillset that FP&A professionals have, kind of being analytic being, being rational, being methodical. You know, being able to, to put together an analysis you know, see what, what the result of that analysis is. But kind of what we were talking about at the beginning of, of the episode, kind of understanding the human nature aspect of, of money is, is a skillset that is, is definitely present in nonprofits. And that FP&A professionals should should have, you know, when you are working with someone on their budget in, in a mission-driven organization, you’re generally working with you know, someone on the, the program team, if you will, someone that’s, that’s I’ll use new school as an example. They were previously high school principals, for example, or, you know, working within a school district.
So they have a very different way of thinking about money and, and budgeting. Sure. And so, so recognizing kind of where people are and their understanding of you know, the whole budgeting process and making sure that you’re supporting them is, is a key to being successful. Running budgets in in nonprofits, you know, it’s also really helpful if if you yourself are bought in on the mission. You know, I’ve always sought out organizations that are, that are doing things that are also personally meaningful to me. Because then I feel so much more engaged in the success of the organization and, you know, wanna make sure that you know, the numbers that I’m putting together are, are, are really contributing to the success of, of the mission of the organization.
Paul Barnhurst:
I think that’s great advice. Whether you are part of a for-profit or not-for-profit is right. You really do wanna buy into where you’re working nice. Wanna believe in what they’re doing. It makes it easier to get up and go to work. But I think especially so in a not-for-profit, if you’re supporting something you don’t really believe in, and they have this cause I think, and that would create even greater challenges than necessarily in a, for-profit, just because of the nature and often the passion you see in those type of organizations.
Amy Omand:
Right, right. Definitely.
Paul Barnhurst:
That makes a lot of sense. So as you know, this episode came about, someone had reached out to me asking, saying, Hey, have you had anyone on that’s not for profit? And I was like, I haven’t, they’re like, can you, you know, it sounded like they’re kind of struggling with, you know, I think a little bit of budgeting and forecasting and just providing good FP&A support for, for their company. So any advice you would offer to somebody out there that might be in that situation, you know, not for, for-profit, and just struggling a little bit with how to, you know, how to manage FP&A for their organization.
Amy Omand:
Again, a lot of it, I think it could happen in a, for-profit as well as a, as a nonprofit the, the staying organized and really trying to focus on a mantra I’ve used for, for many years called One Version of the Truth. I feel like this happens in a lot of organizations, just the proliferation of spreadsheets. There’s a spreadsheet for this, a spreadsheet for that, you know, 18 different spreadsheets to track revenue. So that organization and lens that an FP&A person brings of, of trying to make sure that there is one version of the truth and not 18 different versions of the truth in, in kind of bringing their, their analysis together is, is something that I certainly subscribe to and work with many of my clients on, sort of making sure there’s a system, you know a CRM system for tracking donors or earned income.
There’s you know, the solid information coming out of their HRIS systems and in tracking, you know, new employees and, and things of that sort. So, so that’s, that’s really key. I mean, I’ll also point back to just the, the technical nature, kind of what we were discussing before about, about revenue recognition and, and restrictions, you know, that is, is a key difference. That, you know, taking a class on that, taking a a seminar just on, on restricted revenue, kind of how to tra how to track grants in that detailed way when, when a funder does require it would be a good thing for someone that’s not as familiar with nonprofits to kind of brush up on before before jumping in and, and, you know, working in a nonprofit, for example.
Paul Barnhurst:
Got it. So if I’m hearing you right, a couple things that came to mind for me is one, like you said, just the importance of understanding the restrictions on money.Yoou know, if you don’t know anything about them, take a seminar, do some research, take a class, whatever, but bring yourself up to speed. And the second, I really liked how you called it one version of the truth, focusing on the systems and the data so that you can tell a good story so you can understand what your numbers are. And everybody could be on the same page. ’cause We’ve all, I’m almost positive everybody listening has worked for that company or multiple companies where it’s a mess and you get into a meeting and well, I have this number and I have this number. And it’s like, all right, well this meeting isn’t gonna go anywhere.
Amy Omand:
Yeah, yeah. And I, and I will say, I mean, I know many of us use Excel, we default to Excel, you know, for as our, as our main budgeting tool. I have definitely been in that boat because of its flexibility and, you know, all of the great things that Excel brings. But just the proliferation of spreadsheets is, can be, can be dangerous and confusing, and everyone sort of has a different idea of what’s going on. So you know, many nonprofits kind of going back to organizations that try and keep overhead down, one of the last systems that actually gets implemented is like a true budgeting and forecasting software. Yeah.
So, you know, I’ve been looking into those, but it’s, it’s hard to justify, you know when you absolutely have to have a general ledger and you have to, you knowthe next system that generally gets rolled out is the CRM, you know, to make sure that you’re tracking incoming funds. So, so from that system standpoint it’s, it’s not one that gets prioritized. So that means that there’s more, more kind of danger in the, in the forecasting and, and budgeting space of, of everyone kind of having their own spreadsheet going on.
Paul Barnhurst:
Sure. Yeah. That can definitely be a challenge. We’ve all been there with the perforation of spreadsheets, so I could see that. And yeah, you got limited funds and when do you invest in it, right?
Amy Omand:
Yeah, exactly. Always a challenge.
Paul Barnhurst:
So, you know, this is kind of changing subjects a little bit, but on your website, I noticed that you called yourself believe it was, you know, you described yourself as a numbers nerd. Why is that? Yeah. What is it that, that you love about numbers? Where does that passion come from?
Amy Omand:
Yeah, yeah. Yes, numbers nerd, a, a a badge I wear proudly.
Paul Barnhurst:
I do as well. So I get it <laugh>,
Amy Omand:
I mean, I feel like e even back in, in grade school and high school, I just loved math. You know, and, and it was because there was a right answer <laugh>, you know, but clarity in, in having, having a right answer that I could get to, I could figure out. I, I loved, of course, as I’ve gotten older and more mature, the complexity of the world in the universe, you know, has, has creeped in. So I know that sometimes you don’t have the clarity of, of the right answer. They still provide, however, the comfort, you know, when you can go in and do an analysis you know, see what, what, what the past is telling you. You know, you, you can, you can roll up that analysis. It’s the clarity in that is comforting.
Where, where I have had to unwind, you know, some, some of those aspects of, of my youth and always kind of driving toward the right answer is also recognizing the complexity. And especially when you start to think about forward-looking, all the different scenarios could, could play out. It is not as simple as, you know, completing a a, a math equation and, and coming out with, you know, what is the truth. So, so I’ve had to integrate that more as I’ve, as I’ve matured <laugh>. But but numbers do still give me a lot of comfort and, and joy in, in being able to, to organize and analyze information.
Paul Barnhurst:
Love it. And yeah, so when you’re little, there’s always that right answer. And kind of funny story on that is, I had an accountant that I really enjoyed working with and I needed a financial analyst and I asked him if he was interested. No, no, no. He goes, that’s just all funny math. He’s like, you’re just making numbers up and seeing if they’re right. He’s like, I like knowing what the answer is. Like I’ll stay as an accountant. I’m good <laugh>. And I just kind of laughed because he just loved the fact that you could tie it out and everything would balance. And he just didn’t wanna deal with all that ambiguity, uncertainty. It just didn’t fit his personality. So I just said that, it kind of made me think a little bit of when he told me that, because I was like, alright, well that makes sense. Well, then you stay where you’re at ’cause I like the job you do, you know, so,
Amy Omand:
Yes, yes. Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s good for people to recognize that I know, I know the differences. I certainly love it when I’m in the actuals and I’m tying things out or, you know, I can get close and then I use my favorite word, it’s immaterial, you know. Immaterial difference. I don’t have to figure out what that last, you know, $25 is. But but yeah, then thinking about forward looking and you know, all of the different scenarios that can play out. I mean, one of the things I’ll also say is like, the minute that you get a budget approved, it’s outta date. ’cause You know, life is happening and Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, you know, something different is gonna happen that’s gonna cause your budget to to be wrong. And that’s okay. <Laugh>.
Paul Barnhurst:
Yep. It’s like famous guy George Box said, it’s not about budgets, but it would apply. He said, all models are wrong, some are useful.
Amy Omand:
Yeah. Right. I love that. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>
Paul Barnhurst:
Same is true for budgets. I haven’t found a budget yet. That’s, that’s right.
Amy Omand:
Yeah. If you produce a budget to actuals with zero variants, you have done something wrong.
Paul Barnhurst:
Yeah, exactly. So as you look back over your career, what’s the accomplishment you’re most proud of and why?
Amy Omand:
Yeah. Well, I was excited that you mentioned it earlier in the podcast B Corporations. So as I was thinking about my career one of the things I am most proud of is taking Revolution Foods, the, the Healthy School Lunch Company through their first B Corporation certification. So it is it, like you, I follow B Corp. Often now when I’m thinking about, you know, who I wanna bank with or, you know, different things I’m gonna buy or, you know, vendors I’m recommending to to my nonprofits for using I look at if, if they’re a certified B Corp, just because the, the work that they do to make sure that organizations are, you know, not only for-profit organizations, they’re not only focused on profit, but also focused on sort of this multi-stakeholder view, paying employees a living wage having a, you know, smaller environmental footprint things of that sort. It’s I was, I was very proud to be on the front lines of that for, for Revolution Foods about 12 years ago now. And I’ve loved seeing the world of B Corps grow.
Paul Barnhurst:
That’s awesome. And before I started my own business, that’s really where I wanted to work. I didn’t get the opportunity, I’d applied for some jobs with the B Corp and just always really appreciated what they do. So I think that’s awesome. You got that opportunity to go through that process. Any maybe key takeaways from that, like from the process that you could tell us about?
Amy Omand:
Yeah, yeah. Well it was definitely I mean, a key takeaway was not easy. It, nor should it be, right <laugh> <laugh>. It was, it was very detailed. And I think even since then, ’cause I believe Revolution Foods was definitely on the early side of the B Corp movement. I believe it’s gotten more more rigorous and they they have you, I can’t remember if it’s annual or, or every few years, you know, sort of continue to, to report up. But you know, at the end of the day, it’s sort of served as a, as a great third party template for us to use as to how the organization wanted to grow and scale and manage its business, you know going forward. So, so, so that was great to kind of have that, that external resource and template to say, this is, this is kind of best practice. So I would encourage, you know, if anyone’s interested to, to at least look at their metrics. And then that can kind of serve as you know, as a way for you to, to, to organize your your reporting and, and ideals around engaging various stakeholders with your, your organization going forward.
Paul Barnhurst:
Well, fun. Thank you for, for sharing that. So we’re coming near the end of our time. So we have this section called the Get to know You section, so you get no more than 30 seconds for each answer. We have four questions we’ll ask you here. So the first one is, what is something interesting, something we wouldn’t find online that not many people know about you?
Amy Omand:
Yeah, yeah. This is a, a fun one. So I was thinking about this just last week. I was prepping a budget for a new client of mine, and not many people know that when I’m doing kind of deep budgeting work focused work, I have to have rock music playing in particular, Metallica seems to really work for me. So I love all kinds of music, but it has to be, you know, something that, it just, it really gets, gets my blood going when I’m, when I’m, when I’m doing modeling and kind of, you know, setting up someone’s forecast tool. Metallica’s albums really, really seem to work well for me.
Paul Barnhurst:
I’m not gonna lie, I wouldn’t have guessed that. So that’s a good one. Yeah. I don’t see you as someone rock rocking out to Metallica, but I like it. That’s fun.
Amy Omand:
I’m a, you know, gen Xer nineties, so you know, music fan. So, so yeah, that in particular works for me. It was funny ’cause I was done with my modeling and I turned it off, I switched to another task and then I was like, oh, I can’t listen to Metallica anymore. I have to switch gears to something a little lighter. ’cause It, it only comes up when I’m, when I’m kind of deep into forecasting and budgeting.
Paul Barnhurst:
Oh, that’s funny. Yeah, I’m, I’m a child of the nineties as well, so I, I know the music well, that era. So that’s fun. So if you could meet one person in the world, dead or alive, who would you meet and why?
Amy Omand:
Yeah, I, so I have fallen down the ancestry.com hole several times, <laugh>, where I have been trying to piece together, you know, aspects of my history. I sort of haven’t gone beyond great grandparents, unfortunately. So if I had the opportunity to meet anyone, I would love to meet a relative of mine that I descended from that made the decision to leave. Yeah, I believe my roots are in uk Scotland area. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So leave and, and come to the new world. I’ve been focused on kind of trying to get far as far back in my ancestry history. So, so if I had that magical opportunity, that’s who I would wanna meet.
Paul Barnhurst:
That’d be a great one. And yeah, I’ve done a fair amount. I don’t, haven’t done much recently, but family history, my wife’s done a lot as well. And it’s fascinating to learn about your history and where you came from and yeah, it’d be a great conversation. Love to have dinner with a bunch of relatives around the table and just hear their stories and what it was like. Definitely when they were alive, you, you gain a greater appreciation for yourself. There was a study that said it was really interesting. I can’t remember the exact details. I’d have to go find it. But the point was, those families that do the best and stay together tell stories of their family history. Yeah, yeah. For some of the most well adjusted families, they did a deep study on it and it was really interesting. That was one of the biggest predictors they found.
Amy Omand:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s beautiful. Yeah.
Paul Barnhurst:
And so that’s a, that’s a great one. So next one here, what is the last thing you Googled? Looked up on YouTube, or we added this asked generative AI bar chat, GPT whatever, about finance FP&A, or Excel.
Amy Omand:
Yeah. Yes. So I, I did use chat GPT to the last thing I asked ChatGPT relating to, to work was to help lay out the pros and cons of outsourcing your finance and accounting versus keeping it in-house. It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot, especially if I, I, I have clients that are kind of in this growth mode of like, what are the, the markers, you know, to think about outsourcing with someone like me or building an an in-house team. So I think both have benefits and, and drawbacks. And, and it’s interesting ’cause my model, I know that I’m eventually going to have clients that are gonna outgrow me and, and I’m gonna Sure help support them, you know? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> in, in helping to build an in-house finance team or, you know help them hire the, the right folks. So that was when I thought maybe AI would have some, some good insights to be able to synthesize for me.
Paul Barnhurst:
And how’d it do?
Amy Omand:
It was, it was so high level.
Paul Barnhurst:
Yeah. That’s often the challenge.
Amy Omand:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean there were, there were lots of bullet points, like two pages and I was like, okay, this is all pretty, like at the end of the day, it was like, outsource if you wanna or keep them in-house if you wanna <laugh>. I was like, alright, this is not, not very helpful. <Laugh>,
Paul Barnhurst:
<Laugh>. Yeah. I sometimes I’ve had a few like that as well. I could relate. . So this is probably one of my favorite questions to ask. We’ve asked this since the very beginning, if it’s the only one we’ve asked pretty much every episode. Favorite thing about Excel function or feature?
Amy Omand:
Yeah, so I, I’m gonna go historical on this one too. I don’t know. It’s embarrassing to admit that, like, I still remember this moment, which was over 20 years ago when I deconstructed the VLookup.
Paul Barnhurst:
I knew you were gonna go VLookup because anyone who goes historic gets vlookup
Amy Omand:
<Laugh>. Well, it was transformative. I mean, it took something that was taking me an hour to do and all of a sudden I can do it in five minutes. I taught everybody, this was when I was a, a general ledger accountant at Dreyers. I still remember, you know, figuring out what, what, you know, what each input meant and like how, how to use it. So, so that it, it, it remains a, a favorite of mine even though I don’t use it as much anymore. But
Paul Barnhurst:
<Laugh> well, you’re in good company. I think it is the number one most mentioned formula on the show, so, oh,
Amy Omand:
Good, good. There you go. Good. Yeah, I like going with the majority <laugh>.
Paul Barnhurst:
It works. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>. So we just have two questions left for you. So the first is, if you could offer some advice to someone starting a career in FP&A today, what would that advice be?
Amy Omand:
Yeah, if you are starting, starting your career now, I would say, you know follow your passion. You know, just if, if, if you know that, you know, analyzing numbers or kind of staying, you know, staying in the historical as we were talking about earlier is, is comfortable for you, then do that. Many organizations need excellent accountants. If you love the scenario planning and future forecasting, you know, focus, focus on that. Find a great mentor. I have definitely benefited from many of the mentors I’ve had at every organization I’ve worked for. You know, as well as the educational institutions. I’ve, I’ve had the, the honor of of, of being proximate to and, and I’ll say to to your, you know, listeners that maybe don’t have much insight into nonprofits. If you’re at a stage in your career where you can give back a little volunteer time, a great way to do that is joining a nonprofit board.
They are volunteer positions. They always need finance people. So even if you don’t know that much about nonprofit finance you can join a board. It’s a relatively low lift. You attend, you know, quarterly meetings. You might join a, a finance committee and learn from the executive director, the CEO, you know, a bit more about how their business works. And it’s a great way to kind of step your toe into the nonprofit world of something that you care about. Find a local organization you know, that’s, that’s meaningful to you. It’s a animal shelter, for example, or a school or, you know anything that’s, that’s, you know, giving back to your community. You can, you can help bring your FP&A brain to the table and provide a lot of value for that nonprofit.
Paul Barnhurst:
Great. So I like that. I love the you know, follow your passion and then joining a board or working for a, a nonprofit is a great way to learn about them. I really like that. And it’s, it’s a great way to feel good, give you an opportunity to serve. So I think that’s a great, great advice there. So, last question. If someone wants to get ahold of you, if they wanna reach out to you, what’s the best way for them to do that?
Amy Omand:
Yeah, LinkedIn is, is definitely the best way. If you just search for me Amy Omond through LinkedIn you can shoot me a message there. I love talking about nonprofits and, you know, thinking about the, the FP&A industry as a whole.
It’s been really fun to be following you, Paul, for the last year and learning more from other other folks in this space that are publishing great content out on LinkedIn. So, so you can find me there as well.
Paul Barnhurst:
Well, thank you for sharing that and thank you for joining us, Amy, I really enjoyed this chat and getting to know a little bit about you and being able to talk about not-for-profits. It’s not something we get to do a lot on the show. So I really enjoyed it. And thanks again. You have a great day.
Amy Omand:
Thanks, you too. I really appreciate the opportunity. Have a great day.
