Summary: Learn how Aprio’s Nonprofit Consulting practice helped one client scale its accounting, compliance, and business opportunities and the challenges that arose along the path to growth.
About the Client
Aprio engaged with a well-established nonprofit foundation dedicated to the performing arts. The organization operates performance venues, presents performances throughout the year, and runs arts education programs.
The multi-venue organization operates in a complex environment shaped by pronounced seasonality in its programming, restricted funding sources, endowment management requirements, and compliance obligations tied to federal grant funding.
The Challenge
When Aprio began working with the organization in 2017, it was facing several interconnected accounting and operational challenges. The internal team did not have the capacity needed to keep pace with evolving nonprofit accounting standards. Core processes, including the month-end close and audit preparation, lacked standardization and clear ownership, which led to delays in reporting and audits. At the same time, the organization’s seasonal nature created periodic capacity constraints.
The Aprio Solution
Initially, Aprio came in to address a specific technical accounting need for the organization; over time, it evolved into a long-term, embedded partner to the nonprofit. Throughout the years, Aprio’s role has unfolded across several connected service areas:
Technical Accounting and Nonprofit Standards Implementation: Aprio guided the organization through the adoption of multiple accounting standards, helping ensure compliance and resolving issues uncovered along the way.
Net Assets and Endowment Accounting Remediation: Aprio led a significant cleanup project around the nonprofit’s treatment of restricted funds, properly releasing held funds and putting sound processes in place for ongoing net asset and endowment accounting.
FundDriver Implementation: Aprio implemented FundDriver to manage the nonprofit’s endowment funds and automate the allocation of investment income and investment fees, replacing a manual, error-prone process that had previously required heavy coordination with the organization’s investment firm.
Interim Controller and CFO-Level Support: When turnover impacted the organization’s finance leadership, Aprio stepped in as an outsourced controller and provided controller and CFO-level support, stabilizing financial operations during a critical period for the organization.
Audit Preparation and Auditor Liaison: Aprio took ownership of audit prep, helping ensure the organization’s accounts were reconciled, financials were prepared, and complex technical questions were addressed proactively with the external auditors.
Operational Assessment: Aprio conducted an operational assessment that helped the organization realign its staff into roles better suited to them and the organization as a whole.
Federal Grant Compliance Support: As the organization began receiving additional federal grant funding, Aprio helped draft the procurement policy and continues to serve as the organization’s go-to resource for technical federal grant questions and ongoing compliance.
Mentoring and Knowledge Transfer: Aprio is actively mentoring the organization’s accounting team members, reflecting the firm’s philosophy of building client capability over time.
Differentiators that set this engagement apart include weekly working sessions with the client team; deep technical knowledge of nonprofit accounting; established working relationships with external audit firms; and a partnership posture that has Aprio functioning as an extension of the organization’s team rather than an outside vendor delivering a one-off product.
The Impact
The organization has realized measurable, sustained improvements across compliance, efficiency, and strategic decision-making, including:
- Five consecutive years of clean audit opinions, with prior management letter comments resolved.
- Monthly close time cut roughly in half, from a 30-to-60-day close to a 15-to-20-day close, driven by disciplined processes and a clear close schedule.
- Significant time savings on endowment fund management and on the allocation of investment fees and investment income following the FundDriver implementation, eliminating prior reliance on manual tracking with the investment firm.
- A shift from reactive to proactive accounting — the organization now consults Aprio before entering into complex transactions, allowing decisions to be shaped early so the accounting outcome aligns with strategic intent.
- A more capable internal team, with ongoing mentorship of internal staff.
- A scalable, flexible support model that gives the organization access to controller- and accounting-manager-level talent without the cost or fit challenges of carrying that capacity full-time in a seasonal business.