One of the chief concerns Kate Bolduc had when she agreed to become chief executive officer of the Greater Hartford Arts Council in 2009 was that the organization had no CFO.
“In fact, we couldn’t afford one,” Bolduc said. “We quickly realized that we could not afford to be without one, so we decided to seek out a volunteer.”
It didn’t take long. The first person Bolduc sought out was Michael Connelly, a colleague with whom she had worked for more than 10 years at Travelers.
Connelly, a Travelers employee for 18 years in various finance related roles — from head of investor relations to vice president of finance, running strategic planning — brought added value through his previous nonprofit experience.
Today, he is also chairman and former treasurer of Our Piece of the Pie, a nonprofit Hartford area youth development agency.
“I went into this role not only with perspective of what the nonprofit challenges are but I also understand the differences between nonprofits and regular, public company finances,” Connelly said.
“When you boil it down,” he said, “the chief difference comes down to available resources. I don’t see a difference in the level of commitment from those involved, I don’t think there is much of a difference in the level of complexity, but what you find in a nonprofit, is that you simply don’t have the arms and legs to accomplish things in the same manner as you can in a large corporation.”
This means that everyone wears multiple hats, he said. You might find the staff accountant is also the human resources representative and the benefits representative. And everyone better be willing to make the coffee, he chuckled.
“The goal is really to try and get as much accomplished with limited resources — financial and human — to support the activities of the organization, in our case, raising funds and awareness for arts and heritage in the greater Hartford area,” he said.
In this economy, that hasn’t been easy, Connelly said. As a fund raising organization operating through multiple channels, he explained, the Greater Hartford Arts Council has felt the affects of corporations who have had to cut back on their donations to the arts. Also, employees within these companies, who might have once given generously through individual payroll deduction, have reduced their contributions.
“This makes it more challenging for us in what we can fund going forward and makes it more challenging in our ability to project financials to ensure we remain a strong and viable organization under a much tighter revenue scenario,” he said. “You want to be upbeat about the turnaround in the economy, but on the other hand a CFO must find the balance and be realistic so he can be as transparent as possible for the directors of the organization.”
The good part in all this, he said, is that these conditions force a CFO and an organization to become more creative and strategic in thinking out the next few years.
“The arts council is reviewing its long-term strategy currently with a lot of that in mind — how do we operate in this new and different environment, how do we make a dollar go farther?”
One way, he explained, is to attack expenses. The arts council did that in a big way earlier this year by moving their headquarters to new, more modern but less expensive office space at 100 Pearl Street in Hartford, after many years at their prior location. The move, Connelly, said is saving GHAC more than $50,000 a year.
“It’s also doing what other nonprofits are doing: examining our core mission and trying to stay within that core. It puts every program or grant we do under greater scrutiny and likely means that we won’t be able to do all the programs we’ve done before.”
While annual revenue has slowed, Connelly said, and the annual campaign has remained flat, others things are occurring to counterbalance this. For example, he said, the city of Hartford is into the second round of job grants in their attempt to identify and create jobs in the arts. The arts council is acting as the fiscal agent and, while much of the dollars are passed through, it has helped to bolster revenue.
The affect that Connelly has had on the arts council’s financial stability has been transformational, said Bolduc.
“We could not have accomplished restructuring and creating a new fundamental sustainable financial platform in less than one year if it had not been for Mike,’’ she said. “Timing was critical. Mike’s business and nonprofit experience is absolutely rare and his personal commitment and accountability to our success is honorable. We need to clone him for the rest of the nonprofit community.’’
Name: Michael Connelly
Title: CFO Company: Greater Hartford Arts Council
Company headquarters: Hartford
Annual Revenue: $4 million
Age: 40
Hometown: Farmington Education/credentials: B.S., accounting, St. Michael’s College
