Case study - Nonprofit
Year one, built right.
Every dollar accounted for.
A newly formed Arkansas nonprofit camp was opening its first season with a $5 million capital campaign and a donation-funded operating budget. We built the accounting, registration, and donor systems from scratch so leadership could see the whole picture from day one.
Camp profile
Who we were working with.
- Location
- Arkansas
- Type
- Newly formed nonprofit overnight camp, operating year 1
- Ownership
- Nonprofit
- Years operating
- 1 year, inaugural season
- Full-time staff
- About 6
- Seasonal staff
- About 20
- Capital campaign
- About $5.0 million startup campaign
- Annual operating revenue
- About $1.5 million
- Revenue streams
- Donor contributions, major gifts, capital campaign funds
- Common spend
- Capital build-outs and facility construction, software implementations, inaugural program purchasing, donor relations
The challenge
A newly formed nonprofit camp in Arkansas was launching its inaugural year with an ambitious $5 million capital campaign in place and a $1.5 million operating budget funded entirely by donations. The founding leadership team was deeply dedicated to the mission but did not have formal backgrounds in camp accounting and financial management. Their setup was fragmented across an in-house bookkeeper and a general CPA. They had no camp-specific accounting structures, no dedicated camp registration or donor management systems, and no efficient way to track multi-million-dollar facility construction expenses accurately.
The solution
Bowline built a complete operational and financial foundation from the ground up. Partnering with their existing team, we overhauled the accounting system, implemented purpose-built camp registration and donor management platforms, built detailed project tracking for the facility build-out, and provided strategic guidance on cash flow timing.
How we did it
The implementation.
Chart of accounts restructuring
Designed a camp-specific chart of accounts to cleanly separate general operating expenses, capital project funds, and donor gifts.
Software stack implementation
Guided the setup of both a camp registration platform and a dedicated donor management system to streamline camper enrollment and donor tracking.
Capital campaign project tracking
Established real-time project accounting to monitor expenditures across the facility build-out, keeping construction on budget.
Results
Integrated tech and financial stack
Registration, donor management, and core accounting connected and talking to each other from the start.
Capital campaign transparency
Complete visibility into the site build-out, with clear reports for board members and major donors.
A camp-specific chart of accounts, purpose-built registration and donor systems, and real capital project tracking gave this new Arkansas nonprofit the financial foundation it needed to launch an inaugural season and manage a startup campaign with total transparency.