Nonprofit governance in practice
Board service with 350 Chicago
The treasurer role keeps the work honest: every financial decision has an operational consequence and every commitment creates work somewhere.
Treasurer work
I serve as Board Treasurer of 350 Chicago. The role includes financial oversight, budgets, reporting, commitments, cash timing, board decisions and the capacity required to carry them out.
The job is not just reviewing numbers after the fact. It means helping the board understand what the organization can commit to, where reporting obligations sit and how financial decisions affect real staff and volunteer capacity.
Capacity and governance
One of the hardest nonprofit problems is that people often see the need before the structure can support the work. The board may want growth while staff are already carrying too much. Funding may arrive on one timeline while expenses and obligations appear on another.
Good governance means seeing those pressures clearly enough to make decisions before the organization quietly burns through the people doing the work.
That is the same pattern I care about in my research and IVA work. Finance matters, but finance cannot be the only way an organization sees itself.