Finance
Form 990, budgets, restricted funds, and audit readiness, for leaders who are accountable for numbers nobody taught them to read.
The part nobody prepared you for.
Most accountants do not specialize in nonprofit finance, and it shows in misclassified expenses, improperly prepared 990s, and reporting that confuses boards rather than informing them. Financial literacy is not a finance department's job. It is a leadership skill.
- ✦Can we spend this restricted gift on that?
- ✦What is our functional expense allocation, and is it defensible?
- ✦Are we ready if a funder asks for an audit?
- ✦What does this line on our 990 mean?
Two ways in, depending on what you need.
Ask about your own documents
ēosIQ covers this pillar with guidance grounded in nonprofit law rather than the open web, and it reads your own bylaws, filings, and agreements. The free tier includes the Legal pillar. A subscription covers all six.
Explore ēosIQAsk people who have been there
The Finance forum is one of seven in Akademia, open to subscribers and moderated for verified nonprofit professionals. It is where the questions above get answered by people who have already faced them.
Explore AkademiaThere is a course for this pillar.
Financial Literacy for Leaders
16 lessons. 3 hours and 48 minutes of content, 6 downloadable resources.
See the CourseNothing in this work stays in one pillar.
Legal
IRS filings, multi-state registration, and employment questions, in a field where the rules were written for organizations very different from yours.
Governance
Board duties, bylaws, quorum, and conflicts of interest, which is to say the machinery that determines whether decisions hold up.
Development
Donor strategy, grant agreements, and solicitation rules, where the fundraising question and the compliance question are usually the same question.
People & Culture
HR compliance, staff development, and team health, in organizations where one person often holds every one of those responsibilities.
Program & Systems
Program design, operations, and the technology behind them, including the AI tools already in use across your organization.