Written by people who have sat in your chair.

I have spent most of my career inside the back office. Not the glamorous part of the work. The part where the systems either hold or they don’t, where the audit goes smoothly or it doesn’t, where the board either trusts the numbers or starts asking questions you can’t answer.

What I did not expect was that my most formative experience in nonprofit finance would come after what felt like the end of my financial career entirely.

I spent four years in federal prison for what the judge called something I should have known. If you want the full story, it is in my memoir Thrive: From the Inside Out. The short version is that I came out the other side with a greater awareness of the breadth and depth of the redemption that a relationship with Christ offers. God’s grace, his unmerited favor, carries the weight of my past. And for that I will be eternally grateful.

As I considered reentry into society, I was genuinely unsure whether I would ever work in finance again. Truthfully, I was not sure I wanted to. I actually took the CDL written exam while incarcerated because I thought driving a truck might be a more realistic future than sitting at a CFO’s desk. I had passed the CPA exam. I had led finance teams at major organizations. None of that felt like it belonged to me anymore.

A few months after my release, Michael Craven offered me the Director of Operations role at BridgeBuilders, a faith-based nonprofit in Dallas. My wife had worked there while I was away, as the organization had quietly created a job for her during one of the hardest seasons of our family’s life. He knew me through his working relationship with Pam during my years away. He knew my record. He hired me anyway.

That conversation changed the trajectory of everything that followed. I threw myself into the work. I led finance, payroll, HR, IT, risk management, and compliance. I came in behind two predecessors and essentially absorbed both of their roles. What I found was a nonprofit running on paper-heavy processes, outdated systems, and good intentions. I migrated them to Sage Intacct. I built new systems from scratch. I learned, in the most hands-on way possible, what a well-run nonprofit back office actually looks like from the inside, not from a consulting engagement, but from the desk where the decisions get made every day.

BridgeBuilders also became my first client when I launched ICNU. When the ministry was absorbed by Prestonwood Baptist Church, I led the migration of all their financial systems into Prestonwood’s infrastructure. I worked my way out of a job, which is, I have come to believe, exactly what good consulting looks like.

The Backoffice Blueprint grew out of that season. Not as a theoretical framework, but as the answer to a practical question: what does a nonprofit leader actually need to know to build financial systems worthy of their mission? Every pillar in this book was shaped by real work at real organizations. The Inspection Points checklists at the end of each chapter are not hypothetical. They are what I wish someone had handed me on my first day.

Today I lead ICNU, providing fractional financial and operational services to churches and nonprofits. I also serve as Executive Director of Qavah Ministries, which Pam and I co-founded to mobilize churches around the families of the incarcerated. I hold a Master of Biblical and Theological Studies from Dallas Theological Seminary. I live in Ocala, Florida with Pam, and I remain grateful every day for the people who believed in me before I believed in myself.