Chief Financial Officer

About the Community Economic Defense Project (CEDP)

Launched in 2020 as the COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project, CEDP was formed to keep our neighbors housed during the pandemic. Working with clients, we built  a “continuum care” approach to eviction prevention that centers the legal and financial needs of housing-insecure families and uses a variety of tools to keep them housed. 

Our team now serves more than 1,200 households per month, bringing together housing lawyers, economists, data analysts, policy-experts, organizers, and technologists to serve our clients, distributing between $7M and $10M of assistance each month. CEDP’s model has been cited as a best practice by White House, HUD, the Urban Institute, and in the media.

In recent months, CEDP has further expanded its integrated services model to include mortgage foreclosure, predatory towing, and debt collection. Similar to CEDP’s work on rental housing, these efforts offer a continuum of care that includes navigation and advisory services, targeted payments, legal support, and the ability to participate in advocacy. To further improve financial access for clients, CEDP will be launching a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) in the months ahead, allowing the organization to offer affordable financial services to clients, alongside its current suite of benefits and services. 

More about the Chief Financial Officer Role

We are seeking a creative, entrepreneurial Chief Financial Officer (CFO) to oversee the financial activities of our nonprofit, build capacity and systems across our accounting, payments, and compliance teams, and directly shape the future of our growing organization.

Over the past 18 months, CEDP has paid out $100M+ in rental assistance benefits to clients, expanded the organization’s operational budget to over $12M, and laid the foundation for future growth. The CFO will play a key role in building the tools, team, and processes to further expand our work on behalf of clients.

In This Role You Will:

• Lead CEDP’s accounting, compliance, and finance teams. 
• Manage CEDP’s nationally recognized benefits payment infrastructure, delivering millions of dollars in monthly payments to clients
• Work with the broader executive team to set the future course of the organization and expand services for clients, with a particular emphasis on improve benefits delivery and financial access
• Direct the preparation of all financial statements, including income statements, balance sheets, grant reports, tax returns, and governmental agency reports
• Direct CEDP’s multiple annual audit, single audit and reporting processes
• Manage planning and budgeting process building on current processes and methods
• Oversee investment of funds over time to improve stability of client operations and the broader organization 

Requirements:

• Significant executive-level financial experience with large non-profit institutions. Experience with a lending institution or Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) are a bonus
• Deep accounting/finance experience, including planning and managing budgets, and experience with not-for-profit accounting in accordance with U.S. GAAP.
• Excellent people skills, with experience collaborating and managing in a multidisciplinary, diverse, and dynamic accounting teams
• Training, certification, or a degree in Business, Management, Accounting or Finance
• Experience should include legal, audit, compliance, budget, and resource development, with end-to-end management of federal single audit and non-profit financial audits preferred
• Demonstrated resourcefulness in setting priorities, proposing new ways of creating efficiencies, and guiding investment in people and systems
• Proven effectiveness leading professionals in finance and accounting
• Technologically savvy, with an ability to point to examples of having worked with product and engineering staff to develop and implement new processes and systems that increased efficiency in a fast-moving environment
• Experience with nonprofit governance and a track record of success working with and supporting Boards of Directors and Finance/Audit Committees.
• Demonstrated experience in creating and assessing financial models and financial statements and budget documents.
• Flexible and a self-starter; able to multitask while also being highly detail-oriented.

To Apply:

 Interested candidates should apply by clicking the button to apply linked on this page.

Equal Opportunity

The Community Firm is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.

Benefits & Compensation

• Salary range is $120-140K per year, based on experience.
• Benefits include health, vision, dental, unlimited paid vacation, short-term and long-term disability, and 401K.
• As in-person work is sometimes required, all employees are expected to maintain current vaccination status in keeping with CDC recommendations.