“Where Are You?” to “Where Are You Going?” By Clay Sandoz

This process helps you gain clarity today and see where you are going next.

It’s 2021, and Tim has built the beginnings of an impactful discipleship ministry, but its direction wasn’t clear. He has honed the curriculum over years, developed church partnerships, and assembled an unusually generous and engaged advisory board. Tim is uniquely gifted as the organization’s leader. He’s also pretty good at managing the books.

The board meets with admirable regularity, helping Tim review the finances and understand where the organization stands. Each month, they leave with a good financial picture and, understandably, feel good about their progress. The numbers are correct. Everything is in its place.

But Tim has begun to wonder if they’re capable of more.

The Difference Between Accuracy and Clarity

Many nonprofit leaders assume good financial operations mean good bookkeeping. Good recordkeeping is at the core of any healthy financial operation. But especially with the availability of expertise and advances in technology, correct records should be the starting point, not the finish line.

The bigger leadership question is: Where do we go with the information we now have?

Unfortunately, not every leader gets the chance to ask that question. If the books are incorrect, disconnected from other systems, or delayed, looking ahead can feel like a distant luxury. Leaders are still trying to figure out where they stand.

At Wellstead, we think the real outcome of financial operations is building leadership capacity through financial clarity.

The Hidden Cost of Carrying the Work

Leadership attention is a precious resource. Shouldn’t leaders be focusing that attention on the things only they can do?

A few years ago, an organization came to us after working with another bookkeeping firm for years. Their books weren’t necessarily wrong – their leaders couldn’t make sense of the information. In our first few months together, they repeatedly needed an answer to a shockingly simple question: “How much money do we actually have?”

Today, they aren’t spending their leadership attention figuring out where they stand. They’re asking increasingly sophisticated questions about budgets, forecasting, and where the organization should go next.

Another ministry leader described the change even more simply. Under her previous bookkeeping arrangement, she spent significant time personally reviewing the books and worrying about whether everything was being handled correctly. After a few months with Wellstead, she told us, unprompted, “I’m sleeping better at night.”

The Early Days

In the early days of a church or ministry, it’s not uncommon for the leader to do a little bit of everything. But as leaders grow in impact and influence, it shouldn’t mean they take on more responsibilities, strain, and weight. How they spend their time and what they focus on should fundamentally change.

And removing a task from a leader’s plate isn’t always enough. A leader may not be doing the bookkeeping but may still be tracking it, wondering about it, checking on it, or worrying it’s been done correctly. Someone else may be doing the work while the leader is still carrying it mentally.

As leaders grow, they should be making more room for the work only they can do.

Tim’s Bigger Future

Thankfully, Tim’s story didn’t end with a simple realization that they could do more. He decided he shouldn’t carry responsibility for the financial operations and asked Wellstead to step in. The next time the board met, the work they usually gathered to do was already done.

For a moment, they almost didn’t know what to do.

But eventually, the financial picture became the starting point, not the purpose, of their meetings. Instead of spending their time asking, “Where are we?”, they could focus on a much more important question: “Where are we going?”

We often think of stewardship in financial terms, but I believe it extends to our attention, judgment, gifts, and unique contribution as leaders.

Where Are You Going?

As a ministry leader, you carry responsibilities that only you can carry. You probably already know you shouldn’t be doing some of this work. But have you considered that there may also be questions you shouldn’t have to ask? Things you shouldn’t have to track, wonder about, or carry?

Your team, organization, and the community you serve need your leadership. So take a minute and ask yourself:

Are your financial operations merely getting you to the baseline, or are they creating capacity for you to lead?

Clay Sandoz is the founder of Wellstead Solutions, where he helps nonprofit and ministry leaders build financial operations that provide clarity, reduce administrative burden, and support better decisions. Through a combination of financial management, technology, and systems thinking, he helps organizations create leadership capacity through financial clarity.

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