Every Baby Guilford
CASE STUDY:
EVERY BABY GUILFORD ESTABLISHES FINANCIAL OVERSIGHT WITH THE HELP OF GOOD STEWAES FINANCIAL COMPANY, LLC
Executive Summary
Every Baby Guilford had never had a strong bookkeeping presence. The Board Treasurer managed and reconciled the bank account, and there was no budget in place. When Executive Director Jean Workman stepped into the leadership role, she streamlined processes and procedures, tightening up the nonprofit’s infrastructure. She reached out to Good Steward Financial Company, LLC, for outside management and oversight of the nonprofit’s accounts and for assistance providing financial reports to the Board of Directors.
Today, the leadership at Every Baby Guilford presents quality financial reports to the Board, understands how to navigate QuickBooks for reading and pulling reports, and feels better equipped and more confident when facing audits
“THE GOOD STEWARD TEAM LISTENS, AND THEN THEY ENVISION WHAT’S NEEDED TO GET YOU WHERE YOU NEED TO BE.”
JEAN WORKMAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
The Story of Every Baby Guilford
Every Baby Guilford began as a collective action movement through a public private partnership with Guilford County Public Health. The mission was clear: To ignite and mobilize Guilford County through partnerships and unified strategies to eliminate racial disparities and prevent infant deaths. In the early years, the name was “Guilford County Coalition on Infant Mortality.
“Even though the Good Steward team Is working virtually and contractually on our behalf, it feels like we’ve brought a finance team on in-house.”
Jean Workman, Executive Director
The Challenges Facing Every Baby Guilford
Even with such a bold mission, the organization’s financial oversight had historically not been strong. They’d always simply relied on their Board Treasurer.
“For many years, this organization was run as a public health program rather than a nonprofit — more programmatically than organizationally,” explains Workman. “So, the Board was just seeing funding that was coming in. And the process for Board oversight of financials was, ‘Do we have enough to cover programming?’ And if the answer was, ‘Yes,’ all was good. But if there was a concern over not enough grant funding, then the Board offered more program oversight than financial oversight.”
“Over the course of 25 years, a large accrual of reserves occurred,” Workman adds. “The board wasn’t paying attention to it, and we were bringing in more money than necessary. Typically, that’s a good problem to have, but without good oversight of accounting, it’s hard to go back and look at how you accrued that funding and whether it was reported accurately. We didn’t know if good nonprofit management oversight was occurring with the financials.”
Why Every Baby Guilford Chose Good Steward Financial Company
When Workman recognized the need for financial oversight, she reached out to several bookkeepers. Initially, the nonprofit chose a service provider other than Good Steward Financial Company, but the experience didn’t go as well as they’d hoped. Leadership at Every Baby Guilford quickly learned that the bookkeeper didn’t have the time or the extensive nonprofit accounting experience to meet the needs of their organization.
So, Workman reached back out to Good Steward Financial Company and recognized the difference right away. It was clear that Jasmine Simpson Galloway and her team had the leadership and expertise to provide the nonprofit with the financial oversight Every Baby Guilford was looking for.
In 2021, Workman became the Executive Director. “We relaunched the organization’s strategic direction through a collective action strategic plan and relaunched the rebrand to Every Baby Guilford,” she explains.“We made the changes because infant mortality disparities have not changed for 30 years. We wanted to inspire this bold vision, and we named a bold goal. We rebranded and relaunched to reduce infant mortality disparities by 50% by 2026.”
How Good Steward Financial Company Responded
When they began working together, the Good Steward team first listened to what Every Baby Guilford needed. Then they applied their nonprofit expertise when reviewing the organization’s financial records.
“They have good expertise and when they go in to look at your financials, they envision what’s necessary to get you where you need to be,” says Workman. “Through a team approach, they get you back on track — and without needing an excessive amount of your time. We walk through line by line to make sure we’re saying the same thing, that the alignment of our chart of accounts is from my lens versus their lens and then merging the two.”
“Throughout the process, I feel the support of the team, and I constantly get reassurance through response. When I submit something to Bill Pay, I immediately get something from the support team that says ‘Received. We’re working on it.”
The Results
With the help of Good Steward Financial Company, Every Baby Guilford has streamlined their processes and established a strong system of financial oversight.
“The response time, questions, and support from the Good Steward team are exceptional, and we truly feel the team approach,” Workman says.“Even though they’re working virtually and contractually on our behalf, it feels like we’ve brought a finance team on in-house.”
