Fahe Provides Extra Value to Members through Expertise and Services

I am really excited to announce a new working relationship Fahe has entered with our Member, Frontier Housing, located in Morehead, Kentucky.  We will be serving as Frontier’s “Virtual CFO,” utilizing Fahe staff to provide advisory financial services for the organization.

This service will be provided at a crucial time for the organization.  Frontier underwent a change in leadership that lead to vacancies in both the CEO and CFO positions within a 6 month window.  The new CEO, Tom Manning-Beavin, who is a very talented individual with many years in the Affordable Housing sector, saw this as an opportunity to get his feet under him with the organization prior to hiring a senior leadership role.  Mr. Manning-Beavin shopped the idea out to different vendors, but ultimately felt Fahe was the best fit.  Frontier has a long history with Fahe as both a Member and business partner and both companies have similar organizational structure being CDFIs with similar funding sources.  Mr. Manning-Beavin knew Fahe could make an immediate impact with the organization in a short amount of time.

We are entering the first phase of the relationship, which will include acquiring a well-rounded understanding of the past, present and future of the organization.  Fahe’s Finance Department will commence the fiscal year planning process in the next month where we will begin to dig into their financial position, as well as their organizational direction and how that factors into their financial decision making.

I am really excited with the opportunity this relationship has provided to us in the Finance Department at Fahe.  We get to share the knowledge our department has gathered in our collective 70+ years of experience with financial operations and management with one of our Members, at a time when their organization can really benefit.  They are at a pivotal moment and we will be there supporting them through it.

Ultimately, I have two goals with this program:

1. Refine and structure the program to a point where we can affordably provide these services to our Members at scale.  We can provide a skillset that they may have trouble sourcing in their region at a price point that would allow them to allocate scarce resources toward mission-oriented work instead of the back office.
2. Train staff accountants to utilize the structure and decision-making framework I use for Fahe and apply it widely to other organizations so that we have our own “CFO lab” at Fahe.  This would train the next wave of leadership to become a CFO, introduce them to the nonprofit sector, and share with them my passion for helping the people in Appalachia and Rural America – in hopes that they may choose to work directly for our Members or Partners.

Providing expertise to our Members is hardly a new idea at Fahe.  We’ve provided services through several of our departments such as Loan Servicing and Strategic Programs to great success.  These collaborations with our Members and partners provide these organizations with experience and confidence in areas of non-expertise and allow them the time and resources to do what they do best – providing leadership and essential services to our communities.