Nobody begins a career in accounting and goes directly to the C-suite. Attaining the chief financial officer role involves hard work and sacrifice. How did the 2024 Nonprofit CFO of the Year award recipients achieve their success? They started at the bottom, mastering basic accounting procedures, and gradually learned how to apply those principles to different scenarios.

While advancing to higher positions, they became creative problem-solvers, strategic thinkers, mission-driven stewards of budgets and team players shepherded by mentors who believed in them.

Climbing the ladder

Yvonne Bull’s journey to CFO of the $33 million-revenue International Fresh Produce Association (IFPA) in Washington, D.C., resulted from a range of experiences. Doing it all, she said, taught her how to put the pieces of the finance puzzle together and layer it with strategy and vision to move an organization forward. Equally important to working her way up through various roles were the relationships she developed with co-workers and mentors who encouraged her.

Bull began her finance career working at a call center, handling collections for a credit card company. While there, she learned the importance of not taking herself too seriously, developing friendships with co-workers and adhering to accounting standards within the workplace.

Yet, her true introduction to the industry came when she moved into a junior-level accounting position at a real estate investment company. Bull worked her way up from that position to become a senior accounting manager. She said she “built friendships, learned a lot, asked a lot of questions and took on tasks more so to learn than to get paid.”

The experience was a training ground for her next role, working for a nonprofit theater. She handled everything from payroll to benefits administration to accounting and audits.

“I had to be a one-man band doing it all,” she said. “That was probably one of the best experiences. There was no one behind you telling you to get it done. You had to create your own balance, priorities and schedule.”

Bull took an inefficient, manual system and created a new, efficient one using Excel. “It was my chance to own something and level it up a little bit,” she recalled. “I met an incredible woman, she was treasurer of the (theater’s) board and, at the time, CFO of AstraZeneca. She inspired me and said, ‘You can do more than just this. Push yourself.’”

Bull heeded the call and started graduate school at Delaware’s Wilmington University, while continuing to move ahead in her career. The next level was joining IFPA in 2002 as director of finance. Two years later, Bull earned an MBA with a minor in human resources, which proved helpful when hiring her finance team, and in 2009 she advanced to CFO.

“I was raised by a single mom and became a single mom,” she said. “Innately, there’s a desire to provide or give more. Just having that in my back pocket is my drive.” A lifelong learner, she returned to Wilmington University and in 2016 earned a doctorate in business administration.

From retirement to CFO

A love of learning coupled with teaching accounting classes for more than two decades helped Karen C. Smith easily transition from academia to nonprofit management. As CFO of The Ministry of Caring, Inc., a Wilmington, Delaware, nonprofit that serves the homeless and poor, she oversees an annual budget of about $11 million.

“I like to work on puzzles and many times, you get situations where you have to fill in the outside pieces before you can get to the inside pieces,” Smith said. “You have to dissect the problem before you can find the solution. I keep at it until I finally find the solution.”

That determination is critical to her role as CFO, a job she landed several years after retiring from 22 years of teaching at Delaware Tech Community College. It also helped her earn an undergraduate degree, certified public accountant credential, MBA and doctorate in education over the course of many years while working full-time.

Smith retired from Delaware Tech in 2012. A turning point in her retirement came in 2016, when she returned to her hometown of Wilmington to care for her sister, who was dying of cancer (she passed away a year later) and help out the family. She always held multiple jobs to keep busy and retirement didn’t stop her from working. She kept a part-time job teaching graduate and undergraduate accounting classes and counseling students at her alma mater, Wilmington University.

While showing a student how to prepare for the CPA exam, she saw an opening at The Ministry of Caring for a controller while viewing the website for the Delaware State Society of CPAs. “On a lark, I applied for it and lo and behold, I got my interview and here I am,” Smith said.

She joined The Ministry of Caring in 2016. “I was so well grounded in the accounting procedures, because I taught them over and over again, coming in to learn that was not a difficult part for me,” she said. “What I needed to learn was how the ministry operated.”

Working alongside her mentor, the organization’s CFO Bill Hayes, Smith caught on quickly. But Hayes went on medical leave shortly before the pandemic, leaving her to take over as acting CFO. The transition was easy, because she did many of the tasks associated with the job when he was there to guide her. Unfortunately, he passed away during lockdown. With encouragement from CEO Ronald Giannone, Smith transitioned from acting to permanent CFO.

Big projects, big role

Unlike Smith, CPA Carmel Darcy’s promotion to CFO of the American Red Cross, the $3 billion-revenue nonprofit dedicated to “preventing and alleviating human suffering in the face of emergencies,” was part of a formal succession plan. But first, she had to earn it. An unstoppable work ethic, excellent mentors, becoming comfortable with change and taking on bigger projects — which led to bigger jobs — made Darcy a standout for the role.

She joined the American Red Cross in 1999 after eight years in corporate America. She came on as a manager and kept receiving promotions, from manager to director to senior director, due to her work on various “ginormous” projects, Darcy said.

Darcy consolidated 500 accounting systems into one; 4,000 bank accounts into one (backups for these accounts exist); and ensuring that the $2 billion Hurricane Katrina disaster response job, which included millions in donations, was prepared for an audit if needed. “Now we live in an almost chronic disaster environment,” she said.

Every time Darcy earned a promotion, she thought that position was the best job for her. “It wasn’t until the last 10 years that senior leadership sat me down and said, ‘You could be CFO one day.’ They thoughtfully developed me across several years to prepare for this role.”

Darcy became CFO in 2022. She leads with integrity and kindness, and always lets the approximately 350 members of the finance team know how instrumental they are to the organization’s success. “We literally have accountants that, when a hurricane hits, will sleep in a staff shelter and help make sure we’re protecting the assets of the organization from a financial perspective,” she said.

Once or twice a year, she meets with the volunteers that lead teams during large disasters — the Red Cross has a total of about 275,000 volunteers. “We brainstorm about how we do our job to protect the brand but make sure our mission comes first, that we’re not getting in the way of mission delivery,” she said.

Finding value in mentors, relationships

All three honorees appreciate the support they received from mentors who recognized their talent and encouraged them to aim high in their careers.

“They helped me because they received help in their journeys, and they could not pay it back,” Smith said. “But they could pay it forward, and that’s what they instilled in me. You can help the next generation coming up.”

Bull is thankful for the guidance she received from IFPA’s former chief food science and safety officer, Bob Whitaker, and former chief administration officer, the late Duane Eaton. She also credits her high school business teacher, Patsy Perry, who pushed her to pursue accounting.

“Sometimes you need a hand up, a mentor, someone who sees talent in you and who’s willing to bring you along,” she said. “They were encouraging. They believed in me and sometimes that means more than people think.”

Instrumental to Darcy’s success has been “loving, living and breathing” the powerful mission of the American Red Cross, as well as growing up in a family that put service above self. She wakes up every day excited to go to work to problem-solve and debate with her team. At any given time, she knows the names of almost all 350 employees on the finance staff because she meets with them regularly. Those relationships are critical to achieving goals, she believes.

“I’m most proud that we have multiyear, multidimensional strategies with the objective of delivering life-saving mission,” Darcy said. “I continue to refine our revenue growth strategies (and) our capital investments and strengthen our balance sheet. All of these things will allow us to continue to invest in our mission, people and infrastructure.”

Smith is busy updating the Ministry’s current accounting system, to enable the team to “work smarter, not harder.” If she doesn’t know how to do something, Smith learns how, and that has been key to her success, she said.

Smith also treats everyone the way she would like to be treated and has an open-door policy. “I like to have meetings where there is a free exchange of ideas,” she said. “Just because I have an idea doesn’t mean it’s the best in the world. I’m always willing to try something new.”

At the moment, Bull is focused on remaining relevant, keeping up with the rapid pace of technology and embracing change. To achieve success in a CFO role requires financial acumen, problem-solving ability, compassion for others and a willingness to take on duties beyond your pay scale, she said.

Based on her experience, from call center to C-suite, Bull advises aspiring CFOs to always look for opportunities and ways to apply what you’ve learned. It will help you build relationships, learn more about the organization and this could lead to projects beyond the finance department, she said.