The Good Listening Project
CASE STUDY:
THE GOOD LISTENING PROJECT GAINS FINANCIAL CLARITY AND CONFIDENCE WITH THE HELP OF GOOD STEWARD FINANCIAL COMPANY, LLC
Executive Summary
As leaders of a small organization, The Good Listening Project’s executives lacked familiarity and expertise in bookkeeping. They’d hired a bookkeeper who offered prices that fit a cheap budget, but the services provided didn’t
solve their financial problems. The team knew they needed more help but struggled to articulate the specifics of the help they needed.
When Executive Director Frankie Abralind reached out to Good Steward Financial Company, he was looking for value, affordability, and expertise. Today, with Good Steward’s guidance, The Good Listening Project has finances organized according to nonprofit industry standards, the leadership team has a clearer picture of their financial position, and they feel confident they’re respecting their resources.
“WE’RE NOW MORE RESPONSIBLE WITH OUR OWN RESOURCES SIMPLY BECAUSE WE UNDERSTAND OUR POSITION BETTER.”
FRANKIE ABRALIND, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
The Story of The Good Listening Project
The Good Listening Project is a nonprofit that fights burnout in health care and cultivates resilience and well-being through listening and poetry.
“We have a team of listener poets that meets with healthcare workers — nurses, doctors, social workers, and others — to have one-on-one conversations,” says Abralind. “For about 20 minutes, the listener poet listens to whatever’s on the mind of the person they’re talking with and later writes a poem for them based on the conversation. A couple of weeks later, we have a small group conversation with four healthcare workers who’ve participated in the one-on-one time. In the small group, participants talk about their experiences feeling heard, the ideas that came up in their sharing, and often the poems that were written for them by the listener poet.”
The bookkeeper we’d started working with was more of a generalist and wasn’t specialized in QuickBooks,” Abralind explains. “And it was frustrating for us to try to accomplish things that should have been easy but weren’t because that bookkeeper was not very familiar with them. The person cared about what we do, but we needed someone who was also familiar with nonprofit bookkeeping, which is different. We also needed someone who could teach us about QuickBooks rather than learning on the job.”
Frankie Abralind, Executive Director
The Challenges Facing The Good Listening Project
Before working with Good Steward, leaders of The Good Listening Project felt frustrated and intimidated in their financial responsibilities.
“The bookkeeper we’d started working with was more of a generalist and wasn’t specialized in QuickBooks,” Abralind explains. “And it was frustrating for us to try to accomplish things that should have been easy but weren’t because that bookkeeper was not very familiar with them. The person cared about what we do, but we needed someone who was also familiar with nonprofit bookkeeping, which is different. We also needed someone who could teach us about QuickBooks rather than learning on the job.”
Why The Good Listening Project Chose Good Steward Financial Company
The Good Listening Project hadn’t just worked with one other bookkeeper before contracting with Good Steward Financial Company. They’d worked with two. When someone first recommended Good Steward to the leadership team, they’d opted for a cheaper service from the other company already mentioned. But the working relationship with that company lasted just six months due to a multitude of challenges. So, Abralind reached out to Good Steward again, and they picked up right where they’d left off in the previous conversation.
The Good Listening Project is happy to now work with a company that can relate to their small business, has valuable expertise in nonprofit finances and is a Black Woman-Owned business.
How Good Steward Financial Company Responded
The Good Steward Financial team applied all their nonprofit expertise to assist The Good Listening Project.
“Before Good Steward, we’d tried to go with cheap versus value,” Abralind says. “Good Steward has been a really great experience for us while also being affordable for us — it’s high-quality service that fits in our budget. And it’s also helping us save money and be more responsible with our own resources simply because we understand our position better.”
“The cleanup work that Good Steward has done has given us transparency into our own financial situation. And with that transparency comes confidence and good decision making.”
“As we’ve begun working with Good Steward, they’ve been able to show us how to reorganize our finances and adopt industry standards. That brings clarity and engenders the trust of our team, clients, board, and treasurer — all who have some visibility on our finances.”
Frankie Abralind, Executive Director
The Results
With a better understanding of their financial outlook, The Good Listening Project is financially stable, fiscally healthy, and confidently transparent.
And the fear and intimidation bookkeeping has created in the past is now gone. Executive leaders no longer have to feel incompetent about the organization’s finances. They’re in good order thanks to Good Steward Financial Company.
If your nonprofit is struggling with confidence about your financial position, reach out to the Good Steward Financial team. Let us give you that confidence when we manage your finances so you can manage your mission.
“We now have logical financial statements that we have confidence in,” says Abralind.“Signing up with Good Steward has made me feel like a more mature business executive. It makes me feel like I’m taking better care of our resources.”
