California Humanities, a nonprofit group that wants
to foster a sense of shared diversity and culture
while watching the humanities thrive in California,
transitioned to an organized financial record system
that provided the transparency it needed with the
expertise of SD Mayer.
The Challenge
California Humanities initially came to SD Mayer for a financial assessment. The non-profit lacked a technical grasp of how accounting programs could increase management and efficiency and instead tracked financial information in Excel. This is a common problem for organizations, and it resulted in a frustrated board of directors. While California Humanities had a budget, it did not track it into the accounting system. California Humanities lacked proper accounting expertise and structure, and for this reason, could not accurately or knowledgeably report numbers that the board of directors and managers relied on. The financial reports being generated demonstrated poor system utilization and were also accompanied by poor explanations.