Missions to Movements
Missions to Movements is the nonprofit marketing and fundraising podcast that helps you grow recurring donors, scale monthly giving programs, and build digital campaigns that convert.
Hosted by Dana Snyder—speaker, strategist, and founder of Positive Equation—this show is packed with actionable nonprofit growth strategies, social media tips, and fundraising best practices.
Each week, you’ll hear how organizations are increasing donor retention, building thought leadership, and using digital fundraising to drive real impact. If you want to learn how to attract monthly donors, master nonprofit marketing, and transform your mission into a movement, this podcast is for you.
Missions to Movements
The CFO’s Case for Monthly Giving: How Recurring Donors Drive Long-Term Decision Making with Stephen Newland
What does recurring giving look like through a CFO’s eyes, vs. relying on grants and one-time gifts? It isn’t just good for cash flow – it’s the foundation for smarter, calmer leadership.
Fractional CFO Stephen Newland is here to make the financial case for monthly giving. With over 15 years of experience guiding nonprofits, startups, and Fortune 500s, he breaks down how recurring gifts build stability, reduce burnout, and give leaders the space to think beyond survival mode.
Stephen shares why forecasting is the single most underutilized financial tool in the sector, and walks through a simple, must-try exercise: take 50% of your year-end gifts and spread them evenly across 12 months. You’ll see your bank balance (and your confidence!) climb instantly.
If you’ve ever wondered what percentage of your nonprofit’s budget should be recurring, how to reduce decision fatigue, or when to bring in a fractional CFO, you’ll find clear and actionable insights you can start applying today.
Resources & Links
Connect with Stephen on LinkedIn and learn more about MoneyPath, Stephen’s fractional CFO services for nonprofits.
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Today I am joined by Steven Newland. He is the fractional CFO at Money Path. And if there's one role in my business that I thoroughly cannot recommend more, is hiring a fractional CFO or a CFO on your team. Somebody who can really break down finance into cash flow and forecasting to be able to make better business mission decisions. So Steven brings 15 years of finance experience across nonprofits, startups, and Fortune 500s to the show today. He has guided mission-driven organizations through scaling, audits, cash flow forecasting, and he has seen firsthand how recurring revenue changes the game, period. So today he makes the CFO's case for monthly giving. Why do recurring gifts really create stability, reduce burnout? And the most important thing that we talked about was empowering leaders and organizations to make stronger long-term decisions. And we put this into practical use. We'll talk through what does an organization's financial picture look like if 25, 30% of the revenue came from monthly versus relying solely on one-time gifts or grants or major giving. So really practical conversation. If you're an organization that really needs to lean into and should lean into the financial data and decisions when you're talking to your board, when you're talking to leadership, Steven is your guy. Listen in.
SPEAKER_00:Starting from January all the way through December. If you have a forecast, look at what that does to your bank account balance every single month throughout the year. Your bank account balance is going to be higher every single month. And when that bank account balance is higher, you make better long-term decisions because you're not so stressed and not so worried about the short-term thinking. But that's just one easy kind of way to run some math and see the power of moving that 50,000 forward and spreading it out throughout the year.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, today we're gonna talk about money in the best way possible. Stephen here, I've never had in I don't think in over 200 episodes, anybody with a financial specific perspective. And it's so important, like having my own fractional CFO has changed everything with my business and just having a very clear lens on what's happening, why is that happening, cash flow, forecasting. So, listener, we are gonna get into all that fun minutia today. And Steven, you have over 15 years of experience working with nonprofits and startups and Fortune 500s right now in the state that we're in, what are you seeing as some of the biggest maybe financial challenges, specifically for these mission-driven orgs that are facing in this moment?
SPEAKER_00:There's honestly two that really stands out, and I'll give a third as well. The first two, and I I've honestly been pretty surprised at how prevalent this is, but I see a lot of organizations who operate without a regularly updated and reviewed forecast. So they may operate with the budget, but then typically what my experience has been is by about like May, that budget is like the the variances on the budget are like, okay, we they're just yeah, we're just gonna pause on that and like go, yeah, we're just we're just gonna like kind of float through the rest of the year. But that forecast is so critical. It's the living, breathing budget is kind of another way to think about that forecast. That would be the first one. The second one, I would say it's a little bit of a softer thing, but I think it's so critical. It's not practicing financial curiosity. And so yeah, and so one thing that I see quite a bit in having sat across from a lot of different executive directors and leaders and presenting the monthly financials is us finance people, we're kind of bad at telling the story. Like it's just, hey, here's a bunch of numbers on a piece of paper, figure out what it means. Oh, and by the way, here's a bunch of like accounting lingo. So yeah, go ahead and have fun with that, you know, executive director. And so, first off, that's on us to do a better job at communicating it. But one thing I always love to say is like, if you are like looking at financial reports, don't just gloss over them. Just ask like two or three questions about it. It doesn't matter. It doesn't have to be some groundbreaking question. It can be, what did we spend in this category? And so that would be the other one that I'd that I'd call out.
SPEAKER_01:I love that. Yeah, something that I've been working a lot on are what were my goals originally at the beginning of the year that I set and how what story is this telling me? For instance, when I launch a monthly giving retreat or have the monthly giving summit, like what individually are these projects costing? And are they actually making money? Or where do I have the ability to go and do that conference or go and invest in that professional development thing? Hey, we're struggling in this area. Is our budget okay to be able to spend on learning in that area? And then that's when you can look and say, yeah, actually you're great, or actually you might want to wait, or could you split it up into this many payments across this many months? Like have the strategy conversation. At what point in your work, and you were talking about forecasting being really important, did you really start to see consistent, unpredictable revenue streams? And I don't know, maybe it's always been this way, but how have you worked with leaders on making those more informed decisions and working with leaders on strategies?
SPEAKER_00:For me, you know, I think the first thing is just to have kind of honest and vulnerable conversations with donors. And I'm not a fundraiser by nature, obviously, but I have often found that just being upfront and very honest, like with, hey, here are the challenges of one-time gifts and kind of living year to year by the one-time gifts. We can't make strategic decisions to the degree that we want to because we're kind of limited in the short-term thinking. And so that to me is one. And I, you know, a lot of a lot of big donors, they've got a background in business or they've got some experience in some sort of like growing a business or or operating like a large organization. They get it. They will probably understand it. And I think they a lot of them, a lot of times they'll appreciate that. So, you know, that's that's one. And and really focusing on some of those multi-year commitments or just even some of the other types of recurring revenue streams, like fee for service. You know, you might you might have something that you can sell as an organization that someone's willing to pay for on an ongoing basis. So, yeah, those are a couple ideas.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Thank you for sliding right into recurring revenue. I was gonna ask you about that. Do you see a difference in the clientele you work with that do have strong recurring gifts as a part of their financials versus others that don't? And how does that maybe compare and shift for the internal culture?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So I spent uh about five, six years helping run a financial education program. Come kind of going off on a tangent here, but I'll bring it back. During that time, I'm really glad I did that because it helped me understand a lot more about the psychology behind money to be able to then apply it in the corporate finance world. So I was dealing with a lot of people in their personal spending and their personal financial habits. But one thing I saw, and it's true personally, it's true, you know, with whether you're managing a, you know, an organization's budget. But when you are thinking about, okay, I only have enough money to get through six months or three months or a few months down the road, you make short-term decisions about your spending. And so that usually means not investing in things that are going to actually position you better in the long run. And so that's how it can really, really affect an organization is when when you, you know, with recurring revenue, you think of that as a long-term kind of revenue stream. It's not, hey, we got this grant and it's an awesome grant, and our bank account goes way up, but it's not going to come back next year. Or maybe it will, but maybe it won't. And so it really does start to shift kind of the psychology around how organizational leaders are thinking about making decisions.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, that's so good. Okay, can we go into? I always love case studies and real situations. Can you walk us through an example? And maybe it's real or maybe it's just hypothetical, of a financial picture. If you had an ideal client that you opened up the books, like what should somebody, I know there's reality and then there's ideals of what we strive for. What in a CFO's mind would be a good balance between the recurring, the one time, maybe grants, major get like what do you look for or what do you strive for?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, I think a good place to start, you know, is it probably like 30 to 25 to 30 percent of, you know, if if that can be recurring revenue, it's uh I would say it's a great place to start. Obviously, in a perfect world, 100% is even, you know, that's fantastic. Yeah. So let's kind of break that down a little bit. Let's just use kind of like even numbers here. Yeah. You have a million dollars of revenue, 300,000 of that, let's say, is recurring just right out of the gate. And then let's say, you know, on top of that, let's say you also have six months of expenses that you just kind of keep in in the bank account as reserves, which is pretty standard. Like most nonprofits, the goal is like three to six months of expenses. I would say most tend to like be a little bit more conservative and lean more towards that six months of expenses. So if you think about it, if 300,000 is recurring and then you've got another$600,000 sitting in the bank, you've already got$900,000 of your million dollar budget for the year sitting there, right? And you've got$900,000 of runway. And so that alone is like it's huge, right? And so, and that's only with 30% of your revenue being recurring. Right. And so that sets you up to be able to think long term. You're really, you're starting, your thinking is now into that second year. It's not just so much focused on how do I get through this next six months.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Or else I'm not gonna make it. So, yeah, that's one example.
SPEAKER_01:Which just has to like release so much stress, I would imagine. Or like, I know a big problem that is talked about all the time is burnout, and especially for the leaders, if if you're looking at these numbers and it's just like, oh my gosh, like how do I make this happen? Have you had those discussions with teams and seen the difference?
SPEAKER_00:Big time, a hundred percent. And the, I would even say where a lot of that kind of stress and weight comes from is, and I'm amazed by this every time, but it's it's such a consistent answer, and I think it speaks to how awesome leaders are. It's always, how am I gonna pay the staff? Like that's always the first concern. It's not, you know, how am I gonna pay myself? It's not how are we gonna, you know, it's how can I pay the staff. So, you know, my experience has typically been about 50 to 70 percent of most organizations' expenses typically are payroll. And so if 30% of your revenue is recurring and you don't kind of you can just kind of take that off the table, if you think about it, that is almost half, if not half, of your payroll, you know, expense for the year just kind of already taken care of. That's where I think a lot of that stress starts to kind of come down is when when you know, hey, I've already got, or or you know, when when I've seen people kind of clear the threshold of how much their salaries are for the year in terms of revenue, they start this weight starts to like come down a little bit and that stress starts to come down a little bit. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. If you have a monthly giving program with a retention rate in the 90s, or even, man, 85, 90%, and you're like, we pretty much know we're gonna be in this range. And that's like if we don't grow. And so hopefully you're also growing with that too. Where do organizations start? So listeners might be at all different parts in your financial journey. But if there's a leader that's listening and really wants to strengthen or launch a monthly giving program, what's the first like financial modeling or step that they should take to kind of set things up?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I'm a big believer. So, like when I see numbers, it kind of speaks to me a little bit. So it helps convince me, maybe is a better way to put it. And so I'd imagine some people listening are probably the same way, like, okay, yeah, I believe it, but let me see the actual like, let me see the hard data, let me see the evidence behind it. If you do this one thing, you will see just the simple power of recurring revenue. And that is take 50% of your year-in giving. Let's keep the number simple. Let's say you have 250,000 or 100,000 of year-in giving. Okay. We'll take 50,000 of that and just spread it evenly across the year, starting in from January all the way through December. And then look at what that does. If you have a forecast, look at what that does to your bank account balance every single month throughout the year. Your bank account balance is going to be higher every single month. And when that bank account balance is higher, back to those, the decision making, you make better long-term decisions because you're not so stressed and not so worried about the short-term thinking. That's just one example that can grow over time too. That revenue stream can grow. But that's just one easy kind of way to run some math and see the power of moving that 50,000 forward and spreading it out throughout the year.
SPEAKER_01:I love it. I mean, this is such a prime time to be having this conversation because I just wrapped the monthly giving summit, and so I was working with eight nonprofit leaders, and we're talking about their end of year. And there's still sometimes this fear into making a recurring first ask. And what I always say is you include both options, one time and recurring, but lead with recurring, obviously, for those that aren't already in your monthly giving program. And you are giving the option, but you illustrate and you showcase kind of to your point of you're helping us for the long term to be able to plan and to be able to sustain this work that we're doing, not just this month, but for the next three years, right? Two years, whatever it is, to be able to do this plan because the programs that you're running, listener, I'm sure, aren't just a one and done pop of revenue. It's it takes a really long time to solve the complicated issues that we're all working on. What are some of the figures that you think people should know, like right off the bat about their orgs?
SPEAKER_00:So I think you should always know how much you have in the bank, like how many months of cash, months of expenses do you have on hand? That is like number one. Yeah, I mean, I think that's like probably the most important because, you know, cash is kind of like oxygen for an organization. As long as you've got cash in the bank, like the organization can keep operating. That is like number one that I'd say. I would even just kind of double underline that is like the most important one. And I don't know if I'd add anything else. Like that is like probably the most important thing that I I would I would say every organization really should know and should know every single month.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. The other one that was surprising for me when I went through was making sure you have an accurate representation of expenses and the buckets that they're in, and to see if anything ever seems off or too high or too low. And like, do you have the right platforms and systems in place to help you grow? And I think sometimes we do side maybe on being really conservative in spending, but I know we were talking about like when does it make sense to invest in a new professional development thing to be able to grow and looking and reviewing that with somebody that may be a CFO, which I wanted to ask you about. How does fractional CFO work? How do you structure relationships with clients?
SPEAKER_00:My whole premise is and kind of mission is really based on helping bring financial clarity, confidence, and control to organizations. What I've typically find is as the organizations, especially ones that are growing pretty quickly, those three things, the financial confidence, clarity, and control, go out the window pretty fast just because things are moving, flying, like everything's happening, and it can be really hard to kind of keep up. And so, you know, the best way, like how my process typically works is I'll come in and develop a custom cash flow forecast for the organization. And what I'll do then is keep that updated every single month for the organization, and then I'll also build reporting off of that. So I'll do like budget versus actual reporting and I'll do forecast versus actual reporting. But more importantly, I walk the executive directors through that every single month and I say, hey, there's a bunch of numbers on this report, but here's like five bullet points at what this actually means for your organization. And here are some action steps I think you can take to strengthen your organization based on what the data is saying. So cool.
SPEAKER_01:I love that. If if you do not have a Steven in your life, best investment I ever made, literally, because I cannot do that work. And nor should I be doing that work, frankly. So I was like, I need to hire the powers that be to be able to do that. Stephen, I always like to ask what is one thing that you would like to maybe ask for help or support on, especially as we all enter this very busy season.
SPEAKER_00:My kind of mission in life, especially around like my career, is continuing to find ways to make finance easier and digestible for people who aren't finance people. And so, my like, I would love to hear any answers on like what is the most confusing thing to you about finances in the nonprofit world? Like, there's no, no dumb questions. There's no what I'm ultimately trying to get at is down the road, I would love to come up with a very simple course or some sort of like content around like just basics for board members or nonprofit leaders or aspiring nonprofit leaders so they can feel more confident in this area. So, what is the most confusing thing to you about finances? I would love to hear answers on that.
SPEAKER_01:Awesome. And where can they share those answers with you, Steven?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, great. You can find me on LinkedIn, so it's just Stephen Newland, and you can also go to my website. It's moneypathfpa.com. I've got my email and stuff on there, but I've also got a list of I have a free resource of 150 nonprofit discounts available. And so you can kind of yeah, you can kind of see like I've got it bucketed by different type. So whether it's like a CRM or financial tool, and I've got links to like where you can apply for that discount right on there. So I would say if you're looking to save money, it's a great place to start. You're probably using a vendor on there that you could probably save some money on already.
SPEAKER_01:Cool. Oh, okay. I have to ask just because you mentioned this, what's your favorite finance tool?
SPEAKER_00:I'm a QuickBooks person, like through and through, but I've used Zero and I've used a few other things. But yeah, I I love QuickBooks. I love I'm and I'm a Google Sheets, like I keep it super simple.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Cool. Cool. Thank you so much for being here and all that you do. Listeners, I hope this sparked some ideas and conversation to go check those books and all about long-term decision making forecasting. Steven, thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00:No problem. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode of Missions to Movements. If you enjoyed our conversation and found it helpful, I would love for you to take a moment to leave a review wherever you're listening. Your feedback helps us reach more change makers like you and continue bringing impactful stories and strategies to the show. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button too, so you'll never miss an episode. And until next time, keep turning your mission into a movement.
