Non-profit motives.

• Author: Gray, Carol Lippert
• Position: Includes related article on differences between non-profit and for-profit entities

You can do well by doing good. Just be prepared to work hard.

Just because an organization is a non-profit doesn't mean working there is a no-brainer. Still, some financial executives view tenure at a non-profit as a way to take an on-the-job vacation or to wind down their careers and prepare for retirement.

That image couldn't be further from the truth. "I have to work just as hard, if not harder," says George McGuinness, who became director of administration and finance at The Seeing Eye, North America's pioneer dog guide school, after being merged out of his CFO status at a New Jersey bank. "You can carry over a lot of the basic accounting-type things but other things are completely different, like regulatory reporting. And regulation doesn't disappear. It's just very different."

When it was reorganizing, Joan Netzel left the New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority, a quasi-governmental agency, to be controller of SciTrek, a science and technology museum in Atlanta that attracts about 200,000 visitors a year. She says switching "is easy from a technical standpoint, although it can be challenging. But it's more challenging from a cultural and human resource perspective."

William Aiken, CFO of the Jewish Child Care Association of New York and custodian of its $40-million budget, says, "For-profits have more of a drive toward economies and efficiency with a view toward strengthening the bottom line. Non-profits have a desire to provide as much program support to the community as possible, without going over budget. There's less interest in leaving funds, because you want to drive the mission. That's not reckless spending but being of service."

Aiken, whose history includes a stint as CFO of the Long Island Rail Road, said when he was hired, the JCCA was looking for a CFO with a public-sector mentality, "so we could get people thinking more about efficiency and effectiveness, and look at doing for-profit kinds of things to generate additional revenue in a for-profit way. So going to a nonprofit is not easier if you intend to make something happen. You're not going to go into a non-profit and cool out; it's not a place to rest. You should be more hands-on because a non-profit really needs leadership to generate more revenues and cut expenses." If you're not pro-active, he warns, "you fail the people who brought you in to turn the organization around in a positive way."

Michael Manning, group vice president for organizational development with...