Finance Director

Turn complex finances into confident decisions—and help strengthen an organization serving Milwaukee’s children and families.

Next Door is seeking a strategic, collaborative, and solutions-focused Director of Finance to serve as our senior internal finance leader.

This is not a traditional back-office accounting role. Next Door has outsourced much of its transactional accounting and financial operations to an external finance partner. The Director of Finance will ensure that this model works effectively by providing strong internal leadership, managing the vendor relationship, supervising our Lead Grant Accountant, and maintaining organizational ownership of financial quality, compliance, and decision-making.

The Director will also serve as a trusted advisor to our President, translating financial statements, grant requirements, forecasts, and emerging risks into clear information and practical recommendations. The right person will understand that strong nonprofit finance is about more than producing accurate reports—it is about helping leaders make thoughtful decisions that protect resources and advance the mission.

About Next Door

Next Door’s mission is to ensure that children in Milwaukee have the strong start they need to thrive in the first five years of life. Next Door achieves its mission through high-quality early childhood education, family support, Wisconsin’s largest home visiting program, partner sites throughout Milwaukee and critical programs such as our Books for Kids program.

Our work is supported by a complex mix of federal, state, local, and private funding, including Head Start and Early Head Start. Strong fiscal leadership is essential to ensuring that these resources are used effectively, responsibly, and in accordance with funder requirements.

What You’ll Do
Serve as a strategic financial advisor

You will be the President’s primary internal financial advisor, helping her and other leaders understand the organization’s financial position and make informed decisions.

You will:

• Translate complex financial information into clear implications, risks, options, and recommendations.
• Prepare and present financial dashboards, forecasts, budget-to-actual analyses, and decision scenarios.
• Identify emerging financial concerns early and help leadership understand the underlying causes and available responses.
• Support decisions related to staffing, funding, programs, contracts, organizational investments, and strategic priorities.
• In collaboration with the outsourced vendor, present financial information to the Executive Team, Finance Committee, Board of Directors, and other stakeholders.

Lead Head Start and federal grant fiscal compliance

You will serve as Next Door’s internal fiscal leader for Head Start, Early Head Start, and other government-funded programs.

You will:

• Maintain a strong working knowledge of Head Start fiscal requirements, Uniform Guidance, award terms, and other applicable regulations.
• Oversee compliance related to cost allowability and allocation, personnel costs, procurement, cash management, equipment, indirect costs, non-federal share, in-kind documentation, and financial reporting.
• Partner with program, Human Resources, Development, and operational leaders to ensure that spending and staffing decisions align with approved funding and grant requirements.
• Coordinate the fiscal components of grant applications, continuation applications, budget revisions, monitoring reviews, audits, and corrective action plans.
• Identify potential compliance concerns or questioned costs and ensure they are resolved promptly.
• Help build financial and grant-compliance knowledge throughout the organization.

Direct Head Start or Early Head Start fiscal experience is strongly preferred. We will also consider candidates with substantial federal grant finance experience who demonstrate the ability and commitment to rapidly build Head Start expertise, including completing an intensive Head Start fiscal management institute or comparable training.

Manage our outsourced finance partnership

You will be Next Door’s primary relationship owner and on-site manager of our outsourced fiscal vendor.

You will:

• Establish…