Korn Ferry has partnered with Boys & Girls Club of the Northern Plains on their search for a role, Chief Financial Officer.
THE ORGANIZATION
Boys & Girls Club of the Northern Plains (BGCNP) is a mission-driven, multi-community organization serving young people and families across Brookings, Elkton, Moody County, Yankton, Milbank, and Vermillion. Through safe, welcoming environments and high-quality programs, BGCNP helps young people build meaningful relationships with caring adults, develop character and confidence, strengthen academic and life skills, and envision promising futures.
BGCNP’s mission is to inspire and enable all young people, especially those who need the organization most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring, and responsible citizens. Its values of excellence, impact, teamwork, and good character guide how the organization serves young people, supports staff, and partners with its communities.
Following a period of significant growth, BGCNP is entering an important next chapter. The organization is focused on strengthening the financial and operational foundation required to sustain its impact, manage increasing complexity, and thoughtfully pursue future opportunities.
THE OPPORTUNITY
The Chief Financial Officer will join BGCNP at an important inflection point and help shape the organization’s next phase. Reporting to the CEO and serving as a member of the executive leadership team, the CFO will lead financial strategy, accounting, reporting, compliance, treasury, and financial operations.
BGCNP operates within a complex financial environment that includes multiple locations, restricted and unrestricted funding, philanthropic support, public funding, grants, reimbursement-based revenue, and multiple operating accounts. The CFO will bring greater clarity, consistency, discipline, and strategic insight to this environment while ensuring that financial practices remain aligned with BGCNP’s mission and goals.
As a trusted advisor to the CEO, executive leadership team, Board of Directors, and Finance Committee, the CFO will provide transparent analysis, sound judgment, and clear recommendations that strengthen day-to-day decision-making and long-range planning. This leader will balance stewardship with possibility, protecting the organization’s financial health while helping colleagues determine when and how BGCNP can responsibly invest, adapt, and grow.
Success will require a leader who can work at both strategic and practical levels. The CFO must be equally comfortable guiding high-level board discussions, partnering with organizational leaders, mentoring staff, evaluating systems, and becoming directly involved in financial processes when needed.
THE LEADERSHIP MANDATE
The incoming CFO will be expected to:
- Strengthen financial visibility and discipline. Improve the quality, consistency, accuracy, and timeliness of reporting so the CEO, executive team, Board, and Finance Committee have a clear understanding of BGCNP’s financial position, performance, risks, and opportunities.
- Advance cash-flow and treasury management. Develop stronger forecasting practices and improve visibility into cash availability, restricted resources, reimbursement timing, debt, bank accounts, and other financial commitments.
- Build scalable systems and processes. Assess existing financial systems, technology, controls, policies, procedures, and workflows, then establish an infrastructure capable of supporting a complex, growing, multi-location organization.
- Support sustainable decision-making. Lead budgeting, forecasting, modeling, and scenario analysis that help leadership evaluate programs, investments, contracts, pricing, partnerships, resource allocation, and future growth opportunities.
- Strengthen board partnership. Translate complex financial information into clear, concise, and actionable guidance, enabling the Board and Finance Committee to fulfill their oversight responsibilities and make well-informed decisions.
- Develop people and organizational capacity. Lead with a collaborative, team-oriented approach; clarify roles and expectations; mentor staff; and establish practices that strengthen accountability, capability, and performance across the organization.
- Partner across functions. Work closely with development and organizational leadership to improve revenue planning, contribution tracking, fund stewardship, donor reporting, and the financial foundations of fundraising and partnership strategies.
THE CANDIDATE
Technical expertise is essential, but BGCNP is seeking more than a highly capable financial operator. The successful candidate will be a relationship-builder, organizational leader, and strategic thinker who understands that finance can be a catalyst for mission impact.
The CFO will take initiative, assume ownership, and approach leadership with a collaborative “we” orientation. This individual will be transparent, highly organized, authentic, and comfortable communicating candidly with the CEO, Board, staff, and external partners. The CFO must be able to translate complex financial information into clear guidance without losing sight of the people and mission behind the numbers.
KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND COMPETENCIES
The strongest candidates will demonstrate:
- Nonprofit financial expertise. Comprehensive knowledge of nonprofit accounting, fund accounting, US GAAP, IRS regulations, and tax compliance requirements for 501(c)(3) organizations. Knowledge of GAAS is strongly preferred.
- Financial planning and analytical capability. The ability to develop budgets, forecasts, cash-flow projections, financial models, dashboards, metrics, and scenario analyses that support sound organizational decisions.
- Treasury and liquidity management. Experience improving cash visibility, managing multiple accounts and restricted resources, anticipating reimbursement timing, and aligning available funds with operational needs and financial commitments.
- Controls, compliance, and risk management. Demonstrated success strengthening internal controls, financial policies, reconciliations, audit readiness, grant reporting, tax and regulatory compliance, and the integrity of core accounting processes.
- Comfort with complexity. Experience managing restricted funds, grants, philanthropic revenue, public funding, reimbursement-based revenue, and multiple locations, operating accounts, or entities.
- Systems and process improvement. A track record of evaluating and scaling financial systems, technology, workflows, policies, and teams to support growth, improve efficiency, and produce timely, reliable information.
- Strategic and business judgment. The ability to assess tradeoffs, identify risks and opportunities, challenge assumptions constructively, and connect financial analysis to programmatic and organizational priorities.
- Board-level communication. The ability to prepare and present concise, decision-ready financial updates and recommendations to executives, boards, and committees, including audiences without deep financial expertise.
- People leadership. Proven management and supervisory experience, with the ability to establish expectations, mentor and develop staff, clarify accountability, and build a strong, service-oriented finance function.
- Cross-functional partnership. The ability to build trust across executive, board, staff, community, funding, and financial stakeholder groups and to strengthen financial understanding throughout the organization.
- Development and revenue partnership. Experience collaborating with fundraising or development teams on contribution reconciliation, revenue forecasting, fund stewardship, donor reporting, and philanthropic, corporate, or community partnerships.
- Technology and data fluency. Expertise with financial software systems and advanced proficiency in spreadsheet and data-management tools. Experience with FE NXT is strongly preferred.
- Personal leadership qualities. A proactive, detail-oriented, highly organized, and solutions-focused approach; strong interpersonal, verbal, and written communication skills; sound judgment; integrity; resilience; and the ability to manage multiple priorities and deadlines.
EXPERIENCE AND EDUCATION
- At least five years of progressively responsible financial leadership experience, ideally within a nonprofit organization.
- Demonstrated experience strengthening financial controls, treasury practices, cash-flow forecasting, reporting, and systems in a complex or growing organization.
- Proven experience leading, mentoring, and developing a team.
- Experience working directly with auditors, boards, and committees.
- A combination of nonprofit financial expertise and private-sector or business-oriented experience is strongly valued.
- Bachelor’s degree in accounting, or an equivalent degree, from an accredited college or university is required.
- An MBA or equivalent advanced degree is preferred.
- A demonstrated commitment to the mission, values, and teamwork philosophy of Boys & Girls Club of the Northern Plains is essential.
FULL POSITION DESCRIPTION
For additional information about the opportunity, responsibilities, and candidate profile, please review the full Chief Financial Officer position description
COMPENSATION
The estimated base compensation range is $180,000-$200,000.
APPLICATION
Interested and qualified candidates are invited to submit application materials to BGCNP_CFO@KornFerry.com
SE#510817243