Do I need government contract and grants management experience to be a nonprofit CFO?
It depends. If the nonprofit relies on government funding streams, it would probably require CFO candidates to have prior government contract and grants management experience. When we asked a focus group of eight nonprofit CFOs what advice they would give a for-profit CFO who was coming into a nonprofit that had enough revenue in government contracts to trigger an A-133 audit (see Q: What sorts of governmental regulations and oversight does a nonprofit CFO face?), they immediately shouted, “Don’t do it!” Several later qualified their responses, with one CFO saying, “There’s no way I’d recommend a CFO jump from a for-profit to a nonprofit with A-133 requirements unless the organization had the following pieces in place: a strong controller; a supportive board of directors; a good, reliable auditor; and timely reports.” Rick Aubry, president of Rubicon Programs, Inc., offered an explanation for why prior experience is so important here: “Government contracting is logarithmic in complexit
