Mike Gellman, CPA, CGMA
Principal, Fiscal Strategies 4 Nonprofits, LLC and Sustainability Education 4 Nonprofits
Published
October 14, 2026
On-time and error-free financial reports are not enough by themselves if these same financial reports are hard to read, difficult to access, and generally not beneficial to users. The key challenge to increasing user engagement with financial reports lies mostly with understanding user needs and wants.
This article is brought to you by Institute for Organization Management, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s professional development program for nonprofit executives.
Identifying Barriers
Start by focusing on barriers that are keeping users from “opening” and interacting with financial reports. Consider these barrier chokepoints and related solutions:
Barriers to Access: Most financial reporting is mired in old systems that have not received feedback from users related to accessibility and comprehension. Users may be intimidated by numbers, or may simply be busy, and do not feel connected to their oversight and assessment roles related to financial reports.
Solutions: Periodically check in with users to get their comments and observations causing barriers to access reports. Consider adding courtesy notification messages, using personalized delivery protocols, and personalized training to walk new or hesitant users through access options.
Barriers to Comprehension: All users face some comprehension barriers like low financial acumen, busy schedules, infrequent use, operational distractions, and responsibility misunderstandings where others are perceived to monitor performance.
Solutions: Consider adding financial acumen training both formal (scheduled throughout the year at board, committee, and staff meetings ) and informal (meetings with individual users to fill in comprehension gaps as they surface).
Barriers to Use: Satisfying user needs has become a secondary point of emphasis compared to past financial reporting methods where there has been a unwillingness to make design and format changes. This equation needs to be reversed, first focusing on satisfying user needs and then meeting compliance reporting requirements.
Solutions: Consider adding financial dashboards with a short cover memo aligned to meet staff needs and wants. Also, include key performance indicators (KPIs) that are interactive and adaptable. Keep the full-set financial statements as supporting documents but not the leading document. A dashboard with relevant KPIs and a short cover memo will quickly become the executive summary that can be understood in a few minutes.
Shift Financial Reports to Add More Value
Boring financial reporting will add little value. The key is to make financial reports forward-looking by adding rolling projections to income statements, dashboards, and KPIs. Financial reports that lead the user to consider what could happen in the future rather than merely what has just happened are game-changers and a proactive tool to drive innovation. This will facilitate monitoring past trends with the added benefit of helping to shape and change the future.
“How Does This Help Me?”
To get more people to access financial reports, must answer the question for them: “How does this help me?” We must show how financial reports will help people fulfill their respective roles and duties. This will make financial reports a useful tool instead of a compliance document.
The Bottom Line
We must move from viewing financial reports as an obligation to a valuable resource. Financial reports can act as a call-to-action and innovation. We just need to make financial reports easily accessible and a value-added resource.
Additional related resources can be found at Sustainability Education 4 Nonprofits, LLC (SE4N)
A. Michael Gellman, CPA, CGMA, is a nonprofit organization fiscal and financial strategist and co-founding principal partner of Sustainability Education 4 Nonprofits, LLC (SE4N) and Fiscal Strategies 4 Nonprofits, LLC (FS4N). He is a Faculty for Institute for Organization Management (IOM).
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