Southern Vision Alliance’s finance department contends with the challenge of building movement infrastructure to support the world we want, while working within the legal and financial systems of capitalist establishments designed to keep that world from existing.
Every dollar that is spent or received by any of the 40+ sponsored projects and in-house programs is managed by the finance team. They strive to strike the nearly impossible balance of complying with all of the rules and regulations, while meeting the needs of the people doing transformative organizing work on the ground across the South.
With their “fun with finance” meetings, their brilliant team of multi-talented individuals, and stellar design infographics explaining processes, they try to make it as light and beautiful as possible.
Their work entails much more than bookkeeping. The team is composed of four busy full time staff members, three finance coordinators and a chief operations officer, who manage all aspects of incoming and outgoing money to the sponsored projects as well as internal programs and operations.
Priya Sreenivasan, finance coordinator, talked with me about what her team does all day. She has been with the organization since 2024 and though she is an immigration attorney by training, she’s now using those investigative and detail-oriented skills to ensure that all incoming money is accounted for. She has been resourcing her skills tool box to find ways to support transformative organizing movement work and came to Southern Vision Alliance because of the organization’s mission and values. She has skilled up through both technical and movement oriented accounting training over the years.
“I always find movement aligned accounting to be more helpful because they uphold our values and are not so engrained in capitalism, which a lot of accounting is,” she said.
On any given day, our finance staff may be processing grant payments, reimbursing project expenses, paying vendors, reconciling bank accounts, tracking restricted grant funds, preparing financial reports, and ensuring that donations are properly allocated. They help sponsored projects understand their budgets, answer questions about allowable expenses, and make sure people have the information they need to make informed decisions and that they are paid on a timely basis.
The finance team also plays a critical compliance role. They help ensure that grants are managed according to funder requirements (that the money goes where it’s supposed to), financial records are accurate (that every fund tracker for every organization is a correct representation of incoming and outgoing money), audits are completed successfully (SVA voluntarily does an annual audit of all financials), and nonprofit regulations are followed (there are so many rules to follow!).
The team constantly strives to do better by our movement partners by seeking feedback, evaluating and reevaluating systems, improving processes, working with fiscal sponsorship expert consultants, and trying to figure out how to scale in a way that can meet the needs of an entire ecosystem of grassroots organizations.
“In not having to do the administrative labor, the people doing the frontline work are able to focus on their actual work, furthering organizing, their mission, and our mission,” Priya said.
The finance team’s invaluable contribution to the movement serves as both administrative labor that enables the organizing work to get done more effectively and as protection from the imposition of unforeseen consequences due to violations of the many rules and regulations of a capitalist financial system.
Stay tuned for more behind-the-scenes of a grassroots intermediary!
