Blogs

By Mary Claire (MC) Mikolay '22 and Ryan Lichtefeld '21

As our society slowly recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, business organizations are in critical condition. Specifically, the non-profit industry is suffering as the general revenue stream throughout the market is based on fundraising and contributions. Supporting non-profit entities is vital to the growth of our local communities, but these organizations cannot uplift these communities without closely monitoring their financial status. To mitigate financial pressure for nonprofit entities, Flyer Consulting is thrilled to introduce a technical-based diagnostic product for nonprofit organizations. 

Flyer Consulting is a student-run organization based at the University of Dayton providing complimentary business consulting to nonprofit organizations while promoting economic growth locally and around the world. Flyer Consulting seeks to make a real-world impact, whether through nonprofit consulting, microlending, or working with entrepreneurs and community organizations. Our program prioritizes partnering experiential learning with real-world impact for minority entrepreneurs and community organizations to fulfill our mission of improving the common good. 

In advancing this mission, Flyer Consulting has focused on amplifying the scope of our solutions through the application of the Nonprofit Health Check. This product effectively provides quantitative comparable analysis among domestic nonprofit organizations. 

The idea of the Nonprofit Health Check was conceived by President Emeritus of Flyer Consulting, Stephen Harvey (‘18). After long hours of trial and error, the Nonprofit Health Check was complete and used as a component in a client deliverable in late 2019. By using this tool, Flyer Consulting has been able to further analyze the clients’ financial data, essentially uncovering operational deficiencies/opportunities and areas for improvement. In 2020, the product was transformed to store publicly available financial data of nonprofit organizations from the IRS website in an Azure SQL database. The data is then extracted and downloaded to Tableau for visualization and analysis. 

Today, Flyer Consulting is excited to announce our recent addition to the tool, the Health Check Guidebook. This was created to optimize the use of nonprofit financial data, providing visual insights regarding industry averages. These benchmarks illustrate the profitability, solvency, and efficiency of nonprofit organizations in a comprehensive picture. 

The Nonprofit Health Check and corresponding Guidebook offers value to multiple parties involved in the nonprofit community. The most immediate impact is recognized in the experience provided to the students in Flyer Consulting. Continuing to work on expanding this tool has provided students across the organization the chance to build technical and financial knowledge. Going forward, students serving clients on semester engagements will develop  analytical skills through forming recommendations from the data. Most notably, this tool introduces a variety of valuable comparison metrics to the public sector. With the Health Check Guidebook, nonprofit stakeholders can keep their finger on the pulse of the financial performance of any domestic nonprofit organization. 

Overall, Flyer Consulting’s purpose in releasing the Health Check Guidebook is to share resources with local partners and community organizations. Countless time and effort have been put into building a tool with a goal to service anyone who would benefit from it. The guidebook is just one example of the services Flyer Consulting provides to the nonprofit industry. Our main goal is to support nonprofit organizations through consulting services and mircolending, utilizing accrued business and technical knowledge. If you are interested in learning more about the services we provide, you can visit our website or email us at flyerconsulting@gmail.com. 

Mary Claire (MC) Mikolay ‘22 is pursuing a B.S. in Computer Engineering and is planning to graduate in December of 2022. MC has been in Flyer Consulting since the spring of her freshman year, becoming the first engineer to ever join the organization. MC leveraged her technical skills to support Flyer Consulting by developing the backend of both the Nonprofit Health Check and its Guidebook.

Ryan Lichtefeld ‘21 will graduate in December of 2021 with a B.S. in Accounting. Ryan has been in Flyer Consulting since the fall of his sophomore year and played an integral role in the creation and development of the Nonprofit Health Check Guidebook. Additionally, he was vital to the launch sequence of the international Flyer Consulting microloan program.