Giving a Nonprofit the Financial Clarity to Focus on What Matters

The Client

Meals On Wheels West (MOWW) nourishes and enriches the lives of homebound individuals across LA's coastal communities, delivering over 80,000 healthy meals a year from their Santa Monica headquarters. Their mission runs on precision, compassion, and tight financial stewardship.

The Challenge

MOWW's existing bookkeeping resources weren't cutting it. Leadership wanted a team that was fully engaged, deeply capable, and priced right for a nonprofit budget. More than a transactional vendor, they needed a strategic accounting + finance partner.

Len Lanzi, MOWW Treasurer and Board member, knew exactly where to point them. Lanzi is also Executive Director of the Los Angeles Venture Association, a SPRCHRGR client since 2014.

"At LAVA, I've seen how SPRCHRGR excels in assigning bookkeeping talent with the right skill sets for the client's needs," says Lanzi. "I also appreciate the practicality of working with SPRCHRGR — they're available whenever we need them."

MOWW's team agreed. We kicked off the engagement in March 2015.

The Partnership

One of SPRCHRGR's core strengths is matching clients with professionals who bring the right skill set. We set up MOWW with a dedicated team from our staff that brings 30+ years of nonprofit accounting experience, primarily at the controller level.

Our team-based approach delivers ongoing, scalable support for MOWW covering day-to-day bookkeeping in QuickBooks, payroll posting, bank deposits, monthly closes, and month-end reporting.

SPRCHRGR also showed up to MOWW's office in person for hands-on year-end audit support. No gaps. No guesswork.

How We Supported + Supercharged

SPRCHRGR delivered a comprehensive finance operations solution tailored to MOWW's nonprofit needs:

• Day-to-day bookkeeping: Full-service QuickBooks management, payroll posting, and bank deposits.
• Monthly close and reporting: Consistent, clean financials that gave leadership confidence and clarity for Board presentations.
• Year-end audit support: Streamlined recordkeeping and proactive preparation that cut auditor on-site time dramatically.
• Specialist matching: A dedicated Nonprofit Practice Leader with 30+ years of controller-level experience, backed by a deep bench.
  
  

The Outcome

The results moved the needle across the board:

• Audit process, streamlined: Kevin McNulty, MOWW Chief Administrative Officer, had been with the organization since 1998. In all that time, they had never submitted their audit and year-end taxes without filing extensions — until SPRCHRGR stepped in. In 2016, auditors were on-site for just one day — down from two or three days historically.

"I shared my amazement with our auditor, who expressed admiration for SPRCHRGR's streamlining of record keeping and contribution of materials that made their job easier and less time-consuming," says McNulty. 

• Board reporting, elevated: MOWW now receives detailed financials that give McNulty the confidence and clarity to present to the Board without hesitation.

"My Board is quite pleased with the monthly financial reporting," says McNulty.

"SPRCHRGR has simplified how our financials are presented, making it easier for Board members as well as volunteers to understand the numbers," adds Lanzi.

• Labor costs, reduced: Administrative staff who previously spent hours on bill paying and record keeping now focus on mission-critical work.

"We're spending less money on these services than we were three or four years ago with the external bookkeeper," says Lanzi.

The Bottom Line

"SPRCHRGR has been an outstanding additional support for us as an outsourced bookkeeping service," says McNulty. "I find them highly valuable and always timely in responding to my requests."

"At first, many nonprofit organizations we speak with are hesitant to embrace new processes and systems," says Mark Wald, Founder and CEO of SPRCHRGR. "But those that are ultimately receptive to letting us innovate for them wind up benefiting from better process controls, more insightful and transparent reporting, and optimized efficiency throughout the organization. That's certainly been the case with MOWW."

We are proud of our successful relationship with Meals On Wheels West, which enables them to maximize the impact they're making in the community and improve the lives of all the wonderful people they serve.