An organization’s finance team is often one of the biggest overlooked strategic assets. However, in a connected office the finance team is a crucial part of driving success for an organization’s mission. Joining the podcast today to explore this topic is Russell Pomeranz, President and CEO of Claverack Advisory Group. Listen in to hear Russell and host Steve MacLaughlin talk about the crucial role of finance in mission success, how and why the finance team should build relationships with other departments, and the importance of investing for the long term.   Topics Discussed in This Episode: The importance of financial leadership in mission success Why organization leadership can’t operate in a vacuum How to build relationships from the finance team outward Understanding the mix of different funding sources How finance can partner with other departments to make critical investments Thinking about the budget in non-traditional ways Investing for the long-term  Resources: Russell Pomeranz eBook: The Connected Office: Your Guide to Creating a Cohesive Constituent Experience Article: Three Roles of the Nonprofit CFO that Lead to Mission Success Quotes:  “Basically, mission success, fundraising success, marketing success, programmatic success, can’t happen without financial function leadership, and financial function leadership can’t happen without understanding the mission.” –Russell Pomeranz “The drive and the alignment of finance and fundraising, and finance and programming, and finance and everything else is so important to get the organization to where it wants to go.” –Russell Pomeranz “The notion of investing long-term is limited because finance committees and boards are so focused on the short-term they’ve stopped thinking strategically on the long-term.” –Russel Pomeranz