Guita Sharifi believes a nonprofit should run like a business, albeit with room for tears and fun.
After she joined the AIDS Services Foundation Orange County in 2016 as chief financial officer, she helped double its revenue in 2017; a year later she reduced costs by 35%.
Then last December, the foundation changed its name to Radiant Health Centers to reflect its expanded offerings.
“If you are not profitable, you can’t provide the programs and services that your population needs,” Sharifi said.
The winner of the nonprofit award at the Business Journal’s 12th annual CFO of the Year event on Jan. 31 is not slowing down as she helps Irvine-based Radiant prepare its first comprehensive care center in Santa Ana (see profiles, pages 1, 4, 6 and 10).
The planned 10,000-square-foot center, scheduled to open in 2021, will give the nonprofit a new revenue source.
The nonprofit has launched a $5 million campaign for a project that may eventually cost $15 million to build.
“We are just getting the word out,” she said. “We are looking for partners—development partners, city partnership for land.”
Seeking Revenue
Nonprofits typically generate about 40% of their funding via individual donors or special events, she said. Sharifi’s expecting that percentage to decline significantly because of the 2017 tax law, which is why Radiant’s looking for other sources of revenue.
The need to increase income was a main driver for the name change, the inclusion of the LGBTQ population and the new center.
“There is a lot of stigma with AIDS,” she said. “We would see people driving in our parking lot but wouldn’t come in the building. Not all of the population we serve has AIDS.”
This year, the organization has received federal funding to support family planning and preventative health services.
The funding allows Radiant to be eligible for a drug discount program that will expand on full-spectrum preventative measures and testing on STDs, as well as preventative and post exposure medications against HIV. Sharifi said the nonprofit can now increase the access dollars to enhance medical services to treat all categories of infectious diseases.
“We were more focused on case management before. Now, our focus is more on providing services that bring money in,” she said.
“Obviously, the people we care for matter, and our mission—[providing] medical services that are compassionate and comprehensive—is the same, but you need to make money to be able to provide those care.”
It also offers housing and transportation, as well as food pantry and education programs. The nonprofit is hiring, seeking a medical director and more skilled care providers.
Nonprofits
Being a CFO was not Sharifi’s dream job growing up. She speaks four languages—Turkish, Italian, English and Farsi—and has lived in Iran, Switzerland and England. “I thought I could’ve worked for the U.N.,” said the Iran native.
Sharifi, who began her career in the for-profit sector, ventured into the nonprofit world in 2003 after a hiatus as a stay-at-home mom—she has four children, three girls and one boy, ages between 18 and 21.
She landed a job at Western Youth Services, a Laguna Hills organization that’s the largest contract provider for the county and provides behavioral mental health services for children, youth and families.
Workplace conditions were not comparable to her for-profit gig.
“My office was in the back, it was more of a filing room and it stank,” she said.
After three months, the chief executive at Western Youth asked her to go through client files and prepare a request for proposal for funding.
“I would review the files, going through pictures clients have drawn and every night I’d go home and cry,” she recalled.
Her friend told her that she should quit if her job is making her cry every day. She disagreed.
“You are touching so many people’s lives,” she said.
“For-profits are about the numbers, the bottom line. With nonprofits you are more involved, more connected with the people you are working with.”
She left Western Youth in 2010 because of a demanding travel schedule while earning an MBA at Pepperdine University. She served briefly as a consultant and contract director of finance at Saratech Inc. in Lake Forest while attending graduate school, before returning to the nonprofit world again—first at Alzheimer’s Family Center from 2011 to 2016, and then Radiant.
Nonprofits are close and dear to her heart.
“It’s something I want to do,” she said, adding that all her children are big on giving back to the community.
Right Hand
Sharifi advises young finance professionals wanting to work for nonprofits to do some exploring first.
“Start at the Big Four organizations, [like] PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, then build your resume at for-profits companies, and then got to nonprofits. What’s lacking in the nonprofit space is that for-profit background,” she said.
“In the past, many nonprofits don’t talk to each other, don’t merge. They are very standalone. But if working together as one organization makes you a stronger organization—you can reduce duplicate administrative cost and serve more clients—[mergers] should be considered,” she said.
She also said it’s important for CFOs to work closely with CEOs.
“I feel like I am my CEO’s right hand,” Sharifi said. “Numbers talk to me, but there are a lot of people in our organization who are not number people. You need to be able to talk to them, get them involved and teach them how to read the numbers and make meaning.”
