Background of The Fellows Group

History of Our Team

The Fellows Group (the business, not the marriage) formed in 2008, growing out of work that partners Cheryl and David Fellows had done as employees and consultants over the prior 20 years in the areas of Finance and Information Systems.

We saw a real need in the local finance support market for fractional “Chief Financial Officer” services. This means finance and advisory services that go beyond what a bookkeeper or even part-time CPA can offer start-ups, small businesses and nonprofit businesses. Those groups are often too small to afford a full-time CFO, but can benefit from the financial and business knowledge that an experienced CFO can bring to a business (whether for-profit or nonprofit). The “sweet-spot” size for this business model is organizations with $1,000,000 to $5,000,000 in annual revenues. Below $1,000,000 it becomes difficult to provide sufficient resources at the price point an organization that small can afford. Above $5,000,000, and an organization typically has the financial resources to bring these functions completely in house and stay within the reasonable G&A percentage for nonprofit organizations.

Both Cheryl and David had served as CFO’s for small- and medium-sized businesses. David has deep information systems experience and Cheryl operations and logistics experience in their prior roles with corporations such as Universal Studios, the Walt Disney Company, Coors Brewing Company and Qwest Communications International. Both have Masters of Business Administration degrees.

In addition, we both gained nonprofit experience during the 2000’s, with David serving as CFO of the then-Allied Jewish Federation/Jewish Community Foundation (now JEWISHcolorado, one of our current clients) and Cheryl consulting for AJF, the City of Boulder, Women’s Foundation of Colorado and others. Cheryl and David are both QuickBooks Online Pro Advisors.

Tiffiny Harrower, our Accounting Manager, has worked with The Fellows Group since 2013, providing bookkeeping, payroll and benefits administration, cash flow forecasting, and other back office services for both our for-profit and nonprofit clients. She is a QuickBooks Online Pro Advisor.

David Kirkland, Financial Analyst, joined our team in 2021. He is a QuickBooks Online Pro Advisor.

How We Work

Our engagements with organizations typically begin with an assessment of their current back office operations. “Back office operations” in this context generally include:

Financial operations, including business transaction processing, bookkeeping, accounting and reporting of financial information from internal statements to grant reporting and on up to board presentations;
HR, Payroll and Benefits operations, including administration, onboarding and offboarding;
Information systems used (and not used) to capture, process and record financial information and those that further the operations and mission of the organization.

We present these findings to our client sponsors (typically the Executive Director and finance committee board members), along with recommendations for improvements or outright transformations to bring the back office functions into current best business and nonprofit financial practices, recognizing financial, human resource or other limitations that the organization may have in moving forward with an improvement or transformation plan. As part of our recommendations, we will, in appropriate situations, propose providing a tailored set of outsourced services to either bridge the organization until it hires the appropriate staff, or provide those services in lieu of hiring their own staff until internal growth allows for bringing some or all of the functions in house. We can provide just bookkeeping services under the direction of an internal Finance Director, or provide a CFO-level service while supervising an internal bookkeeper, or provide the entire finance function.

One of the ways we seek to add value for our clients is that we have developed and specialize in a particular business “suite” of systems and services built around QuickBooks Online Accountant. While this may occasionally limit us from certain clients, it does allow us to focus on and be expert in a set of tools and practices that we feel bring tremendous benefits to the client as well as keeping the costs of deployment and our ongoing services down through our expertise with these tools and the relationships we maintain with their vendors. All of our staff are Certified QuickBooks Online ProAdvisors.

Prior Work with Nonprofit Organizations

Since 2008, The Fellows Group has worked with a number of start-up companies, but have mainly worked with nonprofit organizations, providing outsourced back office functions including finance, HR and payroll administration, Sample engagements include:

Engaged by an interim Executive Director to turn around the finances and back office functions of a fifty-year-old membership organization that was one month away from running out of cash.
Assessing the back office functions of an organization after their long-time Finance Director left, and implementing all-new online financial systems. We were then hired as outsourced staff to operate the systems while providing finance services and payroll administration.
Setting up and operating the finance function for several new nonprofit organizations including one with a sizeable restricted endowment.
Acting as contract CFO for $20 million nonprofit, reorganizing and rebuilding their finance function and then managing an internal controller and team.
Acting as interim Finance Director for three months for a church during their search for a permanent resource.

Clients (past and current) include:

Environmental

Health/Advocacy

Faith/Community

Startup

River Network

Healthier Colorado and The Fund for a Healthier Colorado

JEWISHcolorado

In The Telling, Inc.

Colorado Water Trust

Colorado Consumer Health Initiative

St John’s Cathedral

Impact Finance Group

American Solar Energy Society

Center for African American Health

St. Stephen Missionary Baptist Church/Acacia
Learning Center

P2B Investor

GoFarm

Mile High Health Alliance

Lift Up Routt County

Denver Urban Gardens

Project VOYCE