Support act: Sarah Bell CA’s finance skills help Wellington’s women
Sarah Bell CA has seen how strong financial management can help not-for-profits deliver more of their vital services.
In Brief
- Sarah Bell CA is volunteer treasurer at Wellington Rape Crisis.
- The organisation provides counselling to survivors of sexual abuse and their families.
- Not-for-profit organisations can use the strong financial skills of CAs to help make a positive impact.
Wellington Rape Crisis provides counselling services to survivors of sexual abuse and their families. While I have nothing to do with the provision of core services, by leveraging something I am good at, I’m able to assist the organisation to continue doing amazing work. It’s important to be supporting an organisation that supports women. That’s definitely where my interests lie.
I joined in 2015 as treasurer, as part of the governance group. I was shoulder-tapped by a friend of mine who was on the board. Since then, we’ve managed to strengthen the financial position. We’ve moved offices in the past year and expanded our physical footprint, which means we have more rooms to provide our services. We have more staff and more counsellors than we’ve ever had before and our waiting list is the shortest it’s ever been.
I think if you have a CA qualification you’ve probably been afforded a lot of great opportunities in your life, and you have a set of skills that are really tangibly valuable. A lot of not-for-profit organisations do amazing work and those skills can be really useful for them. The people doing the great work may really appreciate support from CAs with strong financial skills. It’s a way of using your strengths to have a positive impact.
Picture: Sarah Bell CA.
“By leveraging something I am good at, I’m able to assist the organisation to continue doing amazing work.”
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