Cream Always Rises to the Top

In a former post, I wrote about Caroline, a beautiful Jersey bovine that our board vice president, Mike McNevin and I owned while growing up in rural Kentucky. Typical of her breed, Caroline delivered high volumes of milk daily, and when left to sit in the milk pail, the cream would rise to the top; luminescent and rich.
Four years ago, at one o’clock in the morning, I had a “moment.” The world of nonprofit finance was crumbling around my shoulders, and with the deadline for filing our 990 papers with the IRS just a week away, I was overwhelmed and out of my element. Finding Freedom suddenly and urgently needed a Certified Public Accountant that knew how to negotiate their way through the complex tax laws governing contributions and nonprofit tax law. After weeks of trying to accomplish the tax files on my own I had learned one of the basic principles of nonprofit governance. 
You can’t be good at everything and you had darn well better get someone to help you who is. 

A quick internet search and phone call later I had an angel in the form of a CPA who was not only capable but who traveled…right to my door and my files. She listened, she questioned, she got it and she persevered. A week later we had filed our IRS forms and the board was breathing easier. In essence, she saved our fledgling little organization, and we learned how to keep financial files that were compliant with tax law.
We’ve learned so much more since that difficult night. Working in Guatemala has taught us about persistence and relationships and what defines them in Central American culture. We have gained resources, strengthened our legal contracts and added good people to our board.
The bigger lessons haven’t been about Guatemala at all. They have been more about what defines personal growth and using that knowledge to do our best work in Guatemala.

This particular CPA had a party recently, in celebration of friendship and all that it means to hold each other up as women. I was invited as a fellow Sistah-hood member. Our relationship had been born out of distress, and acute need. The circumstances have changed but the friendship continues. Friendships, relationships, professional liaisons; it takes all of these and more to make a difference in this difficult time we live in.
Years later, our status with the IRS is strong. 
Cream always rises to the top.