Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Making Momentum: INSOURCING

As promised, we're kicking off our series on some of Momentum Resources' successes this year by talking about something that doesn't happen often in a recession: insourcing.

Last year, an energetic director of a Washington, DC based trade association came to us after reading a segment about us in the Washington Post and said, "my Executive Board is challenging me to lower my variable overhead costs by 30% and I need some help." She wasn't alone, non-profits across the country have been hit particularly hard in this economic downturn.

Together we looked at her overhead costs and determined that she was spending an exorbitant amount of money for a large public accounting firm to do simple general ledger entries and payroll for 5 employees. We brought the Executive Director a Momentum Resources candidate, a seasoned financial manager in the non-profit world, to perform the same duties at a 45% cost reduction. Take that, Executive Board! Not only that, but our resource was going to be a permanent fixture in their organization (not the big firm's CPA du jour) and thus committed to their mission. After only 6 months there, the Executive Director charged our resource with leading the annual budget cycle planning process and even federal financial reporting.

But that's only half the story. As I mentioned, our candidate is an experienced professional in the arts management field- an area that had dried up to nothing during the recession. With a dream of launching her own children's theater company, she needed some steady part-time work to pay the bills. She leveraged her financial management and bookkeeping skills in a different type of nonprofit environment, and is able to earn enough to keep the lights on at home and begin the nest egg for her start up, all by working just 5 or 6 hours per week.
  • Business Value: Client gets a top-notch resource at a 45% cost reduction who is committed to the organization and can do more than what was originally budgeted for.
  • Candidate Value: Candidate translates her in-demand skills to a slightly different industry and earns fair market value rates for her work, allowing her to pursue her dream endeavor.

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