Being the chief financial officer at a nonprofit organization means stretching every dollar and doing a lot more than number-crunching and reporting.
But Lynne Malone, chief financial officer of the private, nonprofit Meeting Street child-development and education organization in Providence, thrives on the balancing act her job requires; she has her hands in facilities management, information technology hardware and software-upgrade decisions, administration and operational structuring and much more.
“Nonprofits typically have to do more with less, so each person’s responsibilities are very diverse, which makes the work very interesting,” Malone said.
Malone, a Pawtucket native who earned a bachelor’s degree at Providence College, decided nonprofits were the place for her after working for a CPA doing accounting and auditing for nonprofit organizations.
“I always enjoyed my time at nonprofits doing audits. Unfortunately, no one likes auditors; you get there, and everyone counts the minutes until you are gone,” Malone said. “But I was invigorated by the positive energy that nonprofit employees bring to their work every day, where there is a mission to serve others in a direct, personal way.”
So, Malone joined The Providence Center, a behavioral health care organization in Providence, as director of finance under “inspirational leader” and CEO, Charles E. Maynard, she said. She guided that organization from 200 employees when she started in 1992 to 450 employees in 2005, when Malone left for Meeting Street.
The position at Meeting Street became available shortly after Maynard retired from The Providence Center, and the school was evolving, so Malone made her move. “It was a great opportunity to join Meeting Street at that time, as it was on the brink of huge growth and change,” she said.
Meeting Street isn’t just a learning facility, but a place where children receive outpatient therapy and early-intervention services. Infants, preschoolers and children of all ages and abilities – from severely challenged to those with minor delays – learn, play and work together in classrooms but receive individualized attention from educators, therapists and staff.
When Malone joined Meeting Street, the organization had a good backbone, but it needed new IT systems to support growth and processes needed streamlining, she said.
For example, the school’s support staff reported to various, disconnected supervisors. Employees often received different answers from the people they reported too, causing communication issues and inefficiencies. Malone helped reorganize the reporting structure, so there is one point person for administrative support staff.
Malone also reorganized the “discipline areas” so that an occupational therapist (OT) now reports to a senior OT, fostering good clinical conversations, she said. She’s also in the process of revamping the organizational chart, so that directors will be responsible for their complete line of business.
She also moved the organization from a paper-billing system to a computerized system for faster billing, collections and reduced denials, which has improved the school’s cash flow. In fact, Meeting Street has not had to use its line of credit to cover operating costs for over two years.
For many chief financial officers, information technology is considered a cost center, but Malone views IT systems as among the most important factors of success. So, she’s been working with the IT director on redesigning the school’s IT systems and infrastructure. So far, they have standardized systems and invested in converting to a virtual-server environment, resulting in lower hardware costs and better reliability.
“We spent a lot of time fleshing ideas out and took some chances,” Malone said. “It saved us money and has given us flexibility, which we need because we are still growing.”
She also led the move towards mobile access for Meeting Street staffers who provide home-based services for children. Those employees now use netbooks to access client records instead of using paper, so clinical-service documents are delivered in real time for faster billing.
Meeting Street’s Facilities Department, which also reports to Malone, is also moving towards more efficient systems to keep everything at the 76,000-square-foot building, located on seven acres, running smoothly. There is now an Internet-based system that school employees use to make facilities requests, and that tool helps the facilities manager track work requests. The data collected is also useful for future scheduling and planning, Malone said.
Over the past year, she also oversaw the development of Meeting Street’s playground constructed on a brownfields site, its memorial garden and soccer field.
This past year she also helped Meeting Street secure new federal grant funding and stimulus funds, increase charitable support, and grow its operating revenue from direct services, contributing to a 10 percent increase in staffing during the economic downturn.
Malone also restructured the school’s accounting system from being organized around funding sources to being focused on the children and families served. They are reorganizing the chart of accounts to reflect the new organizational model, while retaining historical information in a usable format for trend analysis, forecasting and budgeting.
Meeting Street’s client-intake process has also been redesigned under Malone’s direction to improve the experience and procedures families have when they contact the school to request services. Now, the process is fully streamlined and integrated with client records, reception, and billing functions, reducing the steps families need to take to receive services.
Malone accomplished all of these things while establishing performance benchmarks for her respective departments, keeping the organization’s annual audits clean, and carving out time for other professional organizations, family and hobbies.
Malone is a runner, a wife and grandmother. She has served as both the board chair and finance chair of the International Charter School. She is also a board and finance committee member of the Rhode Island Council on the Humanities and a member of the Rhode Island Society of Certified Public Accountants’ nonprofit committee. •
