What "fractional" actually means
Fractional support means you engage senior expertise for the hours you need rather than hiring a full-time position. A small nonprofit rarely has enough bookkeeping, reporting, payroll, and communications work to fill a salaried role — but it has more than enough to overwhelm an already-stretched executive director. Fractional work closes that gap: the organization gets consistent, accountable attention without a permanent headcount.
What the finance side covers
Most engagements begin with QuickBooks: setting up a clean chart of accounts from scratch, or cleaning up years of accumulated entries so the existing data can be trusted. From there the work moves into the monthly rhythm — bookkeeping, payroll, reconciliation, and the reports a board actually reads. Whether an organization is preparing for its first audit or expecting a transformational gift, we can support these moments of transition. The last layer is training: helping staff and board members understand the numbers well enough to ask good questions.
What the communications side covers
Communications work starts with the material an organization already has and can rarely afford to produce: authentic photography of programs in action, and short-form video that shows the work rather than describing it. Beyond production, the engagement is strategic — deciding which channels are worth the organization's limited time, what cadence is sustainable, and how the same program story gets retold across a newsletter, a grant application, and a social feed without becoming repetitive.
Why the two belong together
Finance and communications are usually treated as unrelated departments, and in small nonprofits they often fall to the same exhausted person. They are in fact the same problem viewed from two directions: one is the story the numbers tell internally, the other is the story the work tells externally. When a board understands the financial picture, it can speak confidently to funders. When the external story is clear, the case for support makes sense on its own — which makes fundraising, and therefore the budget, easier to hold steady.
What it costs, and how to start
Everything is billed hourly. Each project opens with a written list of deliverables and an estimate of hours, so the scope is visible before any work begins, and there are no lock-in retainers — you pay for the support you actually use. Most engagements start with one discipline, then add the other once the first is running smoothly.
