Insights from Erica Drinnen, CPA, Executive Search Consultant at Gilman Partners

Is the accounting talent shortage temporary? Executive Search Consultant Erica Drinnen doesn’t think so. Speaking to nonprofit CFOs at a recent CFO roundtable hosted by Greater Cincinnati Foundation, she made the case that we’re witnessing a permanent redesign of the finance organization, and that leaders who recognize the shift early will be better positioned to attract, develop, and retain talent.

Her central message was direct: you cannot recruit your way out of this shortage. It may seem ironic that this message is coming from someone in executive search, but recruiting is not a strategy. Recruiting amplifies your strategy. If the finance function isn’t designed for today’s realities, hiring another person won’t solve the underlying problem. AI changes the work, not the need for talent. The organizations pulling ahead are redesigning roles, processes, and structures first—then hiring leaders who can thrive in that environment.

A Perfect Storm of Talent Challenges

Nonprofit finance leaders are navigating several pressures at once: fewer accounting graduates, more retirements, continued demand, rising candidate expectations, and the rapid arrival of AI. Nearly 72% of nonprofits say open positions are hurting their ability to deliver on mission.

Nonprofits also face unique challenges.. They compete for the same talent as private sector employers, often with lower salaries and leaner benefits, and hiring tied to grant cycles creates a stop-and-start approach to staffing. Purpose still attracts candidates, but it has limits. Mission gets people in the door; the rest of the experience determines whether they stay.

Rethinking the Finance Department

The nonprofit finance department of 2015 is disappearing. It was designed for a labor market that no longer exists. Erica noted that three years ago, nearly every nonprofit client asked Gilman Partners to find a Controller. Today, half of those conversations sound different: Should we hire a Finance Director instead? Could fractional talent work? Can technology handle part of this role?

The future finance organization looks less like a traditional pyramid and more like a flexible mix of a CFO, a Controller or Finance Director, technology, fractional experts, and shared services.

To think through organization redesign, Erica recommends applying a capacity matrix to the work itself. For every responsibility, ask: should we keep it, automate it, outsource it, or eliminate it? Invoice entry might be automated, payroll outsourced, grant reporting kept in house and automated.

She also drew a distinction between busy roles and big roles. Busy roles are filled with transaction processing, manual reconciliations, repetitive reporting, and other manual work. They consume time without creating greater value. Big roles, on the other hand, help the organization make better decisions. They improve systems, strengthen internal controls, develop people, and provide insights that move the mission forward.

AI isn’t replacing finance professionals—it is eliminating many of the tasks that have historically kept talented people busy. That creates an opportunity to redesign roles around higher-value work. One CFO client recently shared that a board packet that used to take nearly three hours to prepare now takes about twelve minutes.

Four Actions Nonprofit Leaders Can Take Now

1. Make succession planning strategic, not secretive. Only about a quarter of nonprofits have a written executive succession plan. Map your critical roles beyond the CEO or Executive Director, be honest about internal readiness, start pipeline development early, and have a candid conversation about what stepping back looks like for a founder.

2. Adopt skills-based hiring. Prioritize a candidate’s abilities and aptitude over credentials like degrees and years of sector experience. Define what success looks like in 6 and 12 months, question which requirements are truly must-haves, add learning agility questions to your interviews, and audit your hiring process for speed and candidate experience.

3. Retain your top talent. Research shows 47% of employees in mediocre cultures would leave for the same pay elsewhere. People stay for growth, good managers, purpose, flexibility, and recognition. Define what growth looks like even when promotions aren’t available, build recognition into your culture, revisit workplace flexibility, and be transparent about the organization’s finances and direction.

4. Future-proof your workforce. Audit the capabilities your organization will need in two to three years, create individual development maps, and pay attention to who leans into new technology. Those early adopters are showing you future leadership potential.

Five Questions to Ask Today

Erica encourages nonprofit CFOs to challenge the way they think about talent with five simple questions:

• Which role on my team should look different three years from now?
• What work are we doing that AI could handle today?
• Where are we relying too heavily on one person?
• If my Controller resigned tomorrow, what would break?
• What talent investment will have the biggest impact over the next 12 months?

The organizations that win won’t be the ones with the biggest finance departments. They’ll be the ones with the smartest design. As Erica put it, the future belongs to finance teams that are smaller, smarter, and more strategic.

Have questions about structuring your finance team for what’s ahead? Reach out to Erica Drinnen at [email protected].