East End District

"I wish I had found them sooner!...."

As a former Chief Compliance Officer for the City of Houston, East End District President Veronica Chapa Gorczynski is particularly attuned to the rigors of transparency, accountability and detail necessary in securing and implementing grants. “I had half a billion dollars in grant experience under my belt,” she recalls. She met YPTC’s Tanya Pal at a community event and brought her in with Justine Townsend to serve as a part-time, functional CFO. “The ladies are awesome. I wish I had found them sooner!”

She adds, “The bottom line is they get the work done quickly, intelligently and empathetically. After the first six months, my staff is incredibly happy with them. It’s not just that we’re pleased with the quality of their work. We really appreciate that their skill set is to make sure we do everything right. And YPTC offers a customization of options that they can tailor for you, whether it’s 8 or 40 hours a week.”

Gorczynski refers to her business improvement district as a “tiny town” – of 80,000 residents. With a constituency of that size, accuracy in applying for funding is critical, as even the smallest mistake can cause a proposal to be rejected or, even worse, require the grantee to repay funds. “We have to be careful and watch every dollar and we couldn’t do it without Your Part-Time Controller,” she says. “When we get new grant funds and need expertise, I know I can call YPTC. I’ve already referred them to several friends in the nonprofit sector.”

In addition to serving as the part-time, functional CFO, Your Part-Time Controller also provides data visualization services that allow East End District to clearly communicate financial and other data.

Recently YPTC’s data visualization and accounting teams collaborated with East End District to identify, gather, and visualize relevant data to create a pair of impactful, interactive dashboards. The Leverage Report shows how EED leverages financial support from local businesses into much larger contributions from government and private partnerships. The KPI Report shows how East End District put that combined funding to work, trumpeting the organization’s positive impact on the conditions and perception of Houston’s East End.

Gorczynski was able to incorporate the dashboards into a presentation at East End District’s public hearing and both are available to the public on the East End District website. The data behind the dashboards can be updated as needed, and the dashboards themselves can be refreshed automatically. Gorczynski concludes, “I love being able to provide clear data about our organization to present to the public. The dashboards allow us to be transparent about how funds are used and share the success of our initiatives.”