The Origin Story
Operational reality meets analytical rigor.
The Financial Forest was born from a simple frustration: The advice given to nonprofits rarely matches the math of how they actually survive.
The Question That Started It All
I have spent my career in the nonprofit sector in a variety of roles, from direct service to analytics to senior leadership. I sat in boardrooms and listened to well-meaning experts repeat the same mantras: "Diversify your revenue." "Keep overhead low." "Build 6 months of reserves."
But when I looked at the organizations that were actually thriving, they weren't all following those rules. And the organizations that were struggling? Many of them were trying desperately to follow that advice, and it was breaking them.
I realized we were operating on sector myths, not data.
So, I started my research with a singular focus: to test whether conventional nonprofit financial advice actually predicts success. I analyzed three years of IRS data, starting with Colorado Springs and expanding to 1,200+ organizations across ten U.S. markets, to find the truth.
The result is The Financial Forest, a new framework that proves success isn't about following generic rules. It's about understanding your specific organizational DNA.
Why These Markets?
The research began in Colorado Springs: a mid-sized market with diverse funding models ranging from $100K startups to $65M institutions. Studying one ecosystem deeply first allowed structural patterns to surface that national aggregate data obscures.
The study has since expanded to Augusta/CSRA, Honolulu, Huntsville, Spokane, Boise/Treasure Valley, Tucson, Dayton, Albuquerque, and Melbourne/Space Coast — 1,200+ organizations across ten U.S. markets. These are regional hubs where nonprofits depend primarily on local resources, community foundations, and civic institutions rather than large corporate headquarters or national philanthropic infrastructure. That dependency shapes the financial environment in ways that benchmarks built from major-metro data consistently misread.
See the research in action.
Explore the seven archetypes and the data behind them.
Explore the Research