The Columbus Family YMCA in Columbus, Nebraska had just finished the Field House, a major addition to their facility, and the community responded. Revenue was growing fast. The problem was that nobody could see what the growth was doing to the organization.
Their accounting system was older, and the statements it produced weren't readable unless you already knew the books. CEO Corey Briggs knew they were losing money, but not why, and not what was actually happening underneath. The finance help they had was backward looking: it could tell them what had already happened, not what was coming, what to hire against, or whether the pace of growth was safe.
What we did together
We pulled the data out of their system and rebuilt the reporting as charts and graphs a non-finance person could read. Then we met with Corey regularly to walk through where the Y was and where it was headed, and met with the board to explain it in language they could follow.
The biggest single cost sitting underneath the growth was their facility lease. The original terms had been built on estimates. Once we laid those estimates against actual cash flow, the arrangement was costing more than the organization could sustain.
We reverse engineered the formula so the cost could be forecast instead of discovered after the fact, then sat down with the landlord with the real numbers. It was a genuinely mutual conversation: they want a healthy YMCA in the community, and the numbers showed what healthy would take. The revised terms work, at least for this year.
Where they are now
The next year they were back to a modest profit. Revenue is up about 40% since we started. The trailing twelve months sit just under breakeven as the growth gets absorbed, nowhere near where 2024 was. At the end of 2025, Corey put together a budget, the first one built on numbers that made sense to him.
These days the engagement is light. We update the financials monthly, and there hasn't been a major problem to solve in months.