"Now we spend maybe 15 minutes reviewing the financial report with Sara and then we are on to ministry. If you multiply it out that's a lot more hours every year that the board gives to vision, that we all can just focus on the future."
— Mark Luckey, Executive Director
The Challenge
Every Child Ministries has a clear and powerful mission: helping children and families living in poverty across several African countries by providing training, tools, and community support. But for Executive Director Mark Luckey, keeping that mission front and center was increasingly difficult when disorganized finances demanded so much attention.
As a small nonprofit, the organization lacked the budget for a dedicated internal finance manager or CFO.
"Being a small organization, we were not able to have our own finance manager or CFO. We just don't yet have the funds for that,"Mark notes. This forced them to rely on outside help — help that proved unreliable and costly.
Their previous outsourcing arrangement was only "partially successful," and the consequences were serious. Financial mishaps under that partnership resulted in significant losses.
"We lost a lot of money by making mistakes," Mark admits. "Thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars just got used incorrectly or we lost track of that."
Faced with mounting frustration and a mission too important to let slip, Mark and his board began searching for a better approach. That conversation led them to BELAY.
The Solution
Every Child Ministries presented a unique challenge: they relied on Aplos, a specialized fund accounting software built for nonprofits, to manage dozens of restricted funds — a complexity that standard tools like QuickBooks simply couldn't handle.
"The reason why we have Aplos... is because it's specifically a fund accounting software," Mark explains. "It just becomes very complicated to keep those funds in something like QuickBooks. When it comes to donations, we can't just throw all the money in one pot and pay salaries with it. We've got to use it for what it was designated for."
BELAY matched Every Child Ministries with a bookkeeper who already had hands-on experience with Aplos, enabling a smooth and immediate transition.
"It certainly helped that they didn't have to learn a whole new software system,"says Mark.
As the partnership deepened, the organization recognized a need for higher-level financial oversight.
"What we realized through that process in working with BELAY was that we also needed somebody a little bit higher to provide some oversight,"Mark recalls. BELAY responded by introducing Sara, a fractional CFO — a demonstration of how BELAY scales its solutions as client needs evolve. Sara works directly with Mark on a day-to-day basis and reports to the board, bridging the gap between executive leadership and financial governance.
"For a small organization, from the perspective of an Executive Director who is not trained in finances, having someone come alongside me to explain some of those things and report to the board has been worth its weight in gold right there."
— Mark Luckey, Executive DirectorThe Impact
Sara's arrival transformed both day-to-day operations and the boardroom experience. For Mark, who freely admits he is "not a financial guy" and doesn't "speak the right language," having a credentialed expert who could represent the organization's finances to the board was a revelation.
"For a small organization, from the perspective of an Executive Director who is not trained in finances, having someone come alongside me to explain some of those things and report to the board has been worth its weight in gold right there."
The change in board meetings was dramatic. Where financial discussions once consumed a full hour — leaving little room for strategy or vision — BELAY's clear and accurate reporting cut that time to just fifteen minutes.
"Now we spend maybe 15 minutes reviewing the financial report with Sara and then we are on to ministry. If you multiply it out that's a lot more hours every year that the board gives to vision, that we all can just focus on the future,"Mark shared.
Perhaps most meaningfully, the burden of financial anxiety has lifted entirely. With a skilled expert keeping watch, Mark and his team move forward with confidence that the mistakes of the past will stay in the past.
"To know that somebody's got an eye on it that's not going to let those mistakes happen again. Yeah, that gives a lot of peace,"Mark reflects. Today, Every Child Ministries spends more time discussing the future of their ministry than ever before — exactly the focus that mission-driven work demands.