CFO consulting · built for nonprofits

A fractional CFO for small nonprofits
that can't afford a botched audit.

We run your finance function so your ED can run the mission. Board-ready financials, audit-ready books, and a real CFO in your corner — for nonprofits with $500K–$10M in revenue.

Focus

Nonprofit-focused. By design.

The firm is nonprofit-only. The founder's career isn't — a decade across real estate and tech taught us how high-performing finance functions actually run. We brought that operating bar to a sector that rarely gets it.

Built on real operational record
$44M
Largest federal grant managed end-to-end (NYC DOE program)
$7M+
Federal funding managed across additional nonprofit engagements
6fig
IRS penalties avoided through proactive compliance work
0.
Audit findings on the close processes we own and run
Across 10+ years in finance and operations roles — nonprofits, real estate, and tech. Engagement-level detail on the Past engagements page.

You don't need another bookkeeper. You need adult supervision.

The board keeps asking "are we okay?" and you're not sure.
Audits drag on for weeks longer than they should.
Restricted funds and operating cash blur into each other.
Federal grant drawdowns happen on a wing and a prayer.
The monthly close takes three weeks, if it gets done at all.
Your bookkeeper is good — but nobody is reviewing the work.

Everything a CFO reviews. Done weekly, not waved at once a quarter.

01
Systems & operations review

We open the hood on every system that touches a dollar — and rebuild the ones that are leaking time, money, or trust.

  • AP review & redesign — vendor onboarding, approval workflows, payment timing, fraud controls
  • AR & pledge tracking — invoicing, collections cadence, donor-restricted vs. unrestricted recognition
  • Chart of accounts cleanup — class & location structure that actually maps to your programs & grants
  • Internal controls — segregation of duties, approval matrices, fiscal policies manual
02
Full CFO oversight

Everything a CFO is responsible for reviewing — done weekly, not waved at once a quarter.

  • Monthly close review — recs, accruals, deferrals, variance walk before anything goes to the board
  • Cash flow & 13-week forecast — restricted vs. operating, drawdown timing, runway you can trust
  • Budget & reforecast — annual budget build, mid-year reforecasts, scenario modeling
  • Board & finance committee — packets, variance commentary, treasurer support, executive sessions
  • ED advisory — the weekly check-in where the hard questions get asked before the board asks them
03
Compliance & audit readiness

The technical work most small nonprofits get wrong — and pay for later in penalties, findings, or lost grants.

  • Audit prep & management — PBC list, schedules reconciled day one, auditor liaison
  • Form 990 review — tax-position review, narrative, public-disclosure readiness
  • Federal grant compliance — Uniform Guidance, Single Audit, allowable costs, indirect rates, drawdowns
  • IRS exposure review — UBIT, payroll, 1099, late-filing — caught before it becomes a notice
04
Automation & team development

We don't just clean it up — we make sure it stays clean, with smaller staff, lower hours, and a team that levels up.

  • AP automation — Bill.com / Ramp setup, OCR coding, approval routing, sync to GL
  • Bank & credit-card reconciliation — feeds, rules, automated matching, faster close
  • Reporting automation — board packets, variance reports, KPI dashboards built once, delivered automatically
  • Bookkeeper & ED coaching — close discipline, fund accounting, reading variance like a CFO

Three ways in. All transparent.

Not sure which fits? Most $1M–$3M nonprofits start with Tier 01. Most $3M+ orgs need Tier 02. Project work is for one-off needs — audit prep, fiscal policy rebuilds, federal grant setup.

Tier 01

Compliance Package

Adult supervision on your existing bookkeeper. Tight controls, clean books, no surprises.

$1,500–2,500
per month
  • Monthly close review (10-day cycle)
  • Board-ready financial packet (1 per month)
  • Form 990 coordination
  • We upgrade your bookkeeper — or replace them
Response 48 hours
Get started
Tier 03

Project Engagement

Fixed scope, fixed fee. One problem, one deliverable. The fastest way to see how we work.

$2,000–15,000
fixed fee
  • Audit readiness sprint (8–12 weeks)
  • Fiscal policies manual (6–8 weeks)
  • Federal grant setup (8–10 weeks)
  • Form 990 review (2–4 weeks)
Project window 2 business days · dedicated channel
Scope a project

Before  →  after.

Before · 3.1 months of cash
Runway tripled to 9.2 months.
Forecast model rebuilt, drawdown timing fixed, restricted funds separated from operating cash. The board stopped asking "are we okay?" and started asking "what's next?"
Before · 9-week audit
Audit closed in 3 weeks, zero findings.
PBC list pre-populated, schedules reconciled day one, auditors in and out. Lower fees, less staff disruption, no surprise letter.
Before · 22 days to close
Monthly close in 5 business days.
Standardized close calendar, automated reconciliations, a checklist the bookkeeper actually owns. The ED gets variance reports while they still matter.
Before · No internal controls
Six-figure penalty avoided.
Caught the IRS exposure before it became a notice. Filed clean. Wrote the fiscal policies manual the board had been "meaning to get to" for two years.
Composite outcomes drawn from multiple engagements, 2019–2025. Individual results vary by org size, grant complexity, and starting state. Specifics covered on the discovery call.

A method, not a magic trick.

Week 01–02
Diagnose
We open the books, the audit file, the grant agreements, the close checklist. We name what's working, what's broken, what's a quiet liability.
Week 03–05
Stabilize
Reconcile the schedules. Tighten the controls that are actually exposed. Get the next board packet on solid ground.
Week 06–10
Systematize
Standardized close. Cash forecast model. Restricted-fund tracking. Fiscal policies. The system the org will run on for years.
Week 11+
Embed
We stay in the seat. Monthly close, board packet, cash forecast, audit prep — owned by us, every month. The CFO function your org grows with, not one it grows out of.

Operational finance, built in the chair.

Name   Taimoor Shakeel
Role   Managing Partner
Based   Long Island, NY
Sector   Nonprofit · Federal grants

Taimoor Shakeel, Managing Partner. 10+ years in finance and operations across nonprofits, real estate, and tech. Built and led finance functions for organizations managing federal grants up to $44M, prepped multiple 501(c)(3)s through clean audits with zero findings, and rebuilt fiscal policies for boards inheriting messes.

Started this firm because nonprofits deserve the same caliber of CFO that for-profits take for granted — without the for-profit price tag.

Turned a multi-year deficit into a surplus
Restructured the budget model, tightened the close, and rebuilt variance reporting so the board could finally see where the money was going.
Cut audit timelines from weeks to days
Clean close, reconciled schedules day one, auditors in and out. Lower fees, less disruption, zero findings on the processes we own.
Managed multi-million-dollar federal streams
Uniform Guidance, Single Audit readiness, drawdown timing. The technical work most small nonprofits get wrong.
Trained finance teams to operate at CFO standard
Close discipline, audit-ready books, board-grade reporting — across multiple orgs. We embed and stay. The teams get sharper. The function stays ours.
TAIMOOR SHAKEEL  ·  MANAGING PARTNER  ·  LONG ISLAND, NY

Honest answers to the questions you'd ask on the call.

We're too small for a CFO. Don't we just need a bookkeeper?

A bookkeeper records what happened. A CFO tells you what to do next. If you're managing federal grants, prepping for an audit, or building a board packet — you need both. We work alongside your bookkeeper. If your annual revenue is under $500K and there are no federal grants in the mix, you probably don't need us yet — a good bookkeeper is enough.

We already have a bookkeeper. Do you replace them?

No. We work above the bookkeeper, not instead of them. Tighter close, cleaner books, fewer surprises. Most clients keep their existing bookkeeping and add us as the layer that reviews the work, builds the systems, and talks to the board. If your bookkeeper isn't the right fit, we'll tell you.

We can't afford a CFO.

Most of our clients couldn't either — that's why fractional exists. Tier 01 starts at $1,500/month: less than a junior staff hire, far less than a botched audit costs. If you're already spending $80K+ on a senior accountant who isn't strategic, or losing weeks to a slow audit every year, our Tier 02 retainer typically costs less than the alternative. We'll lay out the math on the discovery call.

Can you handle our federal grants?

Yes — that's our specialty. Uniform Guidance, Single Audit readiness, indirect cost rates, drawdown timing, allowable cost classification. We've managed multi-million-dollar federal streams, including a $44M DOE program end-to-end — and we'll bring that playbook to yours.

What does month one look like?

Diagnostic. We open the books, the audit file, the grant agreements, the close checklist. You get a written assessment of what's working, what's broken, and what's a quiet liability — within the first two weeks. Then we stabilize before we systematize.

How long are engagements?

Most retainer engagements run 12 months minimum — we're an ongoing fractional CFO partner, not hit-and-run consulting. Building good systems takes time, and the function stays embedded as the org grows. Project engagements are fixed scope, anywhere from 4–12 weeks.

30 minutes. No pitch.
No obligation.

Tell us where the books are messy, where the board is asking hard questions, where the audit is about to go sideways. We'll tell you — honestly — whether we’re the right fit.

On the call
10 min
You talk — what's broken, what's at stake, what the board is asking.
15 min
I diagnose — the real problems, the quick wins, what a real fix looks like.
5 min
I tell you straight — if we're the right fit, or who is.