3 Must-Have Skills for Your Nonprofit’s Financial Future ft. Tosha Anderson | Instrumentl Workshop

This isn't just another finance workshop—it’s your key to making strategic decisions that fuel your nonprofit’s mission.

Dive into advanced financial literacy principles that help you assess new opportunities, decode financial health, and lead with confidence. Through an interactive live discussion with the Charity CFO, you’ll gain hands-on experience to make informed, data-driven decisions that keep your organization thriving.

You'll walk away knowing how to:

• Master Financial Health: Decode key financial statements to guide growth decisions.
• Identify Growth Signals: Hear what the most successful nonprofits do to ensure financial sustainability
• Expand with Purpose: Learn a go/no-go framework before considering expansion

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More about our speaker

Tosha Anderson, CPA, MBAFounder & CEO, The Charity CFO​Tosha has dedicated her entire career to serving the nonprofit community, first as an auditor and then as a CFO, board member, volunteer, and consultant. After witnessing the struggles of small nonprofits to find affordable and reliable financial support (or even just answers to their questions!), she started The Charity CFO to help organizations like yours get the help you need to grow and execute your mission.

Instrumentl Partner Webinars are collaborations between Instrumentl and its community partners to provide free educational workshops for grant professionals. Our goal is to tackle a problem grant professionals often have to solve, while also sharing different ways Instrumentl’s platform can help grant writers win more grants.

👉 Start your 14-day Instrumentl trial and find grants for your nonprofit here: https://www.instrumentl.com/r/CharityCFO

📓 Workshop workbook: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XU7WDEns6U0zMNfdgVv-wbXUhVPC2IOa/copy

🖥 Link to presentation slides: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QMcIMPx87MyxlIwhSzRwuQYOkSCsGX8J/view?usp=drive_link

⚡️Go here to register for our future free grants workshops: https://lu.ma/instrumentl/events

Instrumentl Partner Workshop Replay

Instrumentl Partner Workshop Slides

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If you’ve ever worried about balancing your nonprofit’s mission with financial stability, you’re in good company. In a recent Instrumentl webinar, Tosha Anderson—founder of The Charity CFO and seasoned nonprofit financial expert—broke down the three essential skills every nonprofit needs for a healthier financial future. Whether you’re a new executive director or have been in the field for years, here’s a practical recap to help you prioritize what matters most.

Spot the Red Flags: Unrestricted Funding, Diversification, and Cash on Hand

Tosha started with the big financial warning signs she sees most often—especially for organizations in growth mode or transition:

• Too little unrestricted funding: If most of your budget is tied to restricted grants (especially government), your flexibility is limited. “We like to see more than 50 percent of our funding with essentially no strings attached, or some sort of earned revenue that the proceeds can be spent in whichever way we want,” Tosha explained.
• Over-reliance on a single funder: Tosha recommends no more than 20% of revenue from any one source. This level of diversification can be tough but improves resilience if funding priorities shift.
• Less than 30 days of cash on hand: Too little cash puts organizations in “a chaotic reactive mode, that it’s really difficult to think more strategic, and certainly not in a place to be thinking about how we can expand our programming.”

“If you are somebody that's in that place, you understand some of the consequences that come from having such little days of cash...constantly checking the cash balance in our bank account to make sure we have enough money to make payroll.”

Master Cash Flow: The Most Important Metric (and How to Track It)

While many boards and funders focus on profit and loss or budgets vs. actuals, Tosha is adamant that cash flow is king.

• Calculate your days of cash on hand: Divide your total cash by your average daily expenses (annual budget ÷ 365). This simple metric helps you stay alert to risk.
• Aim for 90–100 days of cash: While 30 days is a minimum, having three months or more provides a real buffer against grant payment delays or unexpected expenses.

Tosha shared a case from 2021:  

“Of the organizations that had more than that 30 days of cash, none of them went out of business during that short kind of time period.”  

She also stressed the importance of knowing your lowest cash point—not just your balance after grant payments come in.

Build Financial Skills with KPIs—Not Accounting Degrees

Nonprofit leaders juggle a lot, and most don’t have a finance background. Tosha’s advice: Don’t try to become an accountant overnight. Instead, focus on a few key performance indicators (KPIs).

• Track what matters most: For many, it’s cash on hand, operating reserve percentage, or program performance.
• Assign ownership: Let your development or program leads track relevant KPIs and discuss them as a team.
• Use KPIs to guide conversation, not blame:  

"Rather than just feeling overwhelmed with ‘I’m not an accountant,’ really just boils down to what are those KPIs that matter to you and to your organization and really start with understanding those inside and out.”

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This targeted approach helps leaders make data-informed decisions without drowning in spreadsheets.

Strategic Growth Starts with Financial Readiness

Program expansion is tempting—especially when new grants pop up. But Tosha cautioned against jumping in without a solid financial foundation:

• Have at least 25% of your annual operating budget in reserves, or 90 days of cash on hand, before expanding.‍
• Be aware that most new funding is partial and often reimbursable—meaning you’ll need to front costs and cover fundraising gaps.
• Plan for the long-term: Use multi-year financial projections to understand how expansion will affect your sustainability.

“If you don’t have at least 25 percent of operating reserves, or at least 90 days of cash on hand, you shouldn't even be considering program expansion.”  

What to Try First

If you’re not sure where your organization stands, Tosha recommends starting simple:

• Calculate your days of cash on hand at your lowest point in the month.
• Identify your top 3–5 KPIs. Track them monthly.
• Check your funding mix. Are you too reliant on a single funder?
• Start building a reserve goal: Two payroll cycles’ worth of cash is a good first milestone, even if 25% of your budget feels far off.

“The key is to simplify your process before you try to scale it.”  

Final Thought

Financial sustainability isn’t about mastering every spreadsheet or chasing every grant. It’s about protecting your mission with a few key habits: keep your cash flow visible, diversify your funding, and build reserves before you grow. Instrumentl stands ready to help you track grants and funding so you can focus on what matters most—your impact.