Fundamentals Academy Session 3: Understanding Nonprofit Financial Health & Reframing Financial Due Diligence

Join us for the third session of our four-part Fundamentals Academy to learn about the key indicators of nonprofit financial health and ways to refine the practices funders choose for assessing nonprofit fiscal health.

Nonprofit financial statements can often feel like an overwhelming wall of numbers, making it hard to extract actionable insights, and traditional formulas for determining “what numbers matter” may not align with your organization’s values. This session will address these challenges and provide participants with practical strategies to turn financial data into meaningful, value-aligned support for grantee partners.

This session will help highlight what you can look for to improve your understanding of the financial health strengths and challenges of your grantees, while framing those insights in a grantee-centered context of equity and access. We will discuss what to look for in differing sources of information, including internal financial statements, audited financial statements, and IRS Forms 990, and together consider the choice-points and practices involved.

The session will be completed in two parts:

• Part 1 – Understanding Nonprofit Financial Health: 9am – 12pm
• Part 2 – Reframing Financial Due Diligence: 1pm – 3pm

Fundamentals Academy is offered as a certificate program! Participants who join all four sessions will receive a certificate of completion.

Target Audience

This program is designed for members of Catalyst. If you are interested in Catalyst membership, please contact Melissa Leon.

Catalyst is committed to making our events accessible to everyone. Please let us know how we can help you fully participate by contacting Maryan Osman. 

About the Fundamentals Academy series:

Fundamentals Academy is the 101 of philanthropy you wished you had when you started your job. In this four-session learning journey, you will gain in-depth knowledge of essential philanthropic practices, understand the lay of the land of our region’s funding organizations and grow your own professional network within the field.

Fundamentals Academy is a great fit for those who are new to the field of philanthropy and want to gain a solid foundation to build their work, or anyone seeking to expand their knowledge of the world of philanthropy. Paced to fit the demands of your daily life easily, there will be one session a month from February to May, culminating with a certificate of completion.

Don’t miss out on the full series, register for our other Fundamentals Academy events here.

Speakers

Ethan Zatko | Social Sector Leader & Facilitator

Ethan is a seasoned leader in the social sector, having spent his early career directing programs and organizations serving young people and their families in New York City and in the San Francisco Bay Area. He brings his advanced experience as a trainer and facilitator to his work with nonprofit, philanthropic and public agencies at BDO, and credits his successes to a strict commitment to inclusive approaches that emphasize validation of disparate experiences and needs, and accountability to shared ones.

In 2010, Ethan was selected as the US Delegate to the five-year global “Man Up” Campaign to end violence against women and girls and was hosted at the kick-off world summit event in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is a LeaderSpring Innovation Lab Fellow; has been featured in The Monthly Magazine as one of its forty favorite local movers and shakers; was an invited speaker at the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Environmental Justice Listening Session; and has appeared on television, radio and in print regarding his endeavors toward peace, equity and social justice.

Ethan serves on the Board of Directors as Treasurer for Californians for Justice, a California state-wide, youth-powered nonprofit organization working for race equity, and lives on unceded Ohlone land in Oakland, CA, his hometown.