Financial Management Training & Consulting with Eric Plato
David Hartley was very excited to welcome Eric Plato to the team at Nonprofit Help back in March 2019.
We believe Eric to be one of the very best financial consultants available to Canadian nonprofits/charities for the following reasons: (1) his breadth of experience with all sizes and types of organization; (2) his incredible ability to make difficult financial concepts and systems easy to understand; and (3) you simply cannot find a kinder, more gracious, individual on this planet.
1) Eric’s Bio: Eric Plato is a CPA, CMA who has held many finance roles in the nonprofit sector since 1990. Between board and work experience he has worked with organizations with budgets ranging from under $100,000 to over $100 million. Eric is dedicated to supporting nonprofit and charity leadership (your staff and/or Board) in learning and gaining confidence in matters of nonprofit financial management. Eric’s education: Bachelor of Commerce, McMaster University; CPA, CMA – Chartered Professional Accountant, Certified Management Accountant; Certificate of Social Accounting – OISE – University of Toronto.
2) Financial Training & Consulting topic options: click here and scroll to page 2 (this is not a complete list).
3) Financial Management Training fees: go to our “all training” page and scroll down to 2019 training fees, David and Eric’s fees are the same: click here
4) Eric’s Testimonials:
“Eric Plato is an excellent trainer, speaker, and facilitator in nonprofit and co-operative financial management. He has worked for over ten years with the Schulich School of Business teaching students in both the MBA program and a wide variety of Executive programs. He offers expert professional training at all levels, and also brings insights and leads discussion about current issues and thorny problems in this sector. Our students speak very highly of his ability to take difficult subjects and make them accessible and immediately operational.”
Brenda Gainer, Royal Bank Professor of Nonprofit Management, Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto
“Eric Plato is a wonderful speaker and is always in demand at the City of Mississauga! Eric has provided a number of Financial Workshops for the City ‘s Community Groups. Our groups were so pleased with Eric’s style and presentation. He has a unique ability to take complex financial concepts and break them down into meaningful and useful information for community organizations. Eric has a wonderful way of taking the “scariness” out of finance and budgeting to help volunteer Board Members and Directors feel confident and comfortable with their financial responsibilities and due diligence. Only Eric can teach how to read a budget and an audited report in a way that everyone can understand and participate. Eric is an expert in the Not for Profit sector and creates a workshop where everyone can ask questions. We are so grateful to have had Eric present to our groups!”
Heather Coupey, City of Mississauga – Community & Neighbourhood Development
“In the not-for-profit world, individuals are required to wear many hats and the least comfortable one for many passionate advocates is the financial management hat. Eric Plato’s budget workshops build confidence in budget making, financial statement and cash flow literacy. Eric understands the needs of a social enterprise and increases financial competency with accessible session content. Anyone entrusted with managing a budget should book Eric. ”
Krista Steeves, Program Coordinator, YMCA of Fredericton
“Eric is a skilled and knowledgeable accountant. Not only was he able to help me incorporate simple best practices for developing budget and reporting standards, but he helped me create monthly financial reports that clearly tracked the organization’s financial performance once the budget was in place. His strengths lie in his extensive accounting knowledge, his wealth of experience, and his unique ability to simplify tasks that could become overly complicated. I highly recommend working with him.”
Camara Chambers, Executive Director, Volunteer Toronto
“My colleague and I participated in a 4- part financial training program, with a focus on not-for-profit organizations, with Eric Plato. The sessions included training on Budgeting, Financial Analysis, and Financial Reporting procedures to Boards of Directors of an organization. Eric provided useful tools such as Excel templates for budgeting purposes and assisting in financial analysis and scenario planning, as well as sharing his experience in the not-for-profit sector. Eric was able to convey the information in a way that we were able to understand.”
Marilyn Eschelbacher, RECE Director Palmerston Community Daycare
“Eric Plato provided training on “Finance Fundamentals” to the AMAPCEO Board of Directors in February, 2018. Eric’s workshop focused on the key skills needed by Board members in reviewing financial health of the organization, as well as insights into thinking strategically as a board member about budgeting, financial planning, and oversight. Eric’s workshop was well received by the Board, and it is clear that Board members have reflected back on the session over the year. Eric’s commitment to his work and his expertise were self-evident. I would happily recommend Eric Plato for future training sessions.”
Anthony Schein, Assistant to the President, AMAPCEO
“Eric is extremely dependable and thorough. I greatly appreciated his patience and care in helping me to understand how to prepare for an audit. Eric is a natural teacher and I would gladly work with him again.”
Crystal Basi, Director of Research and Community Development, Toronto Aboriginal Support Services Council
“We engaged Eric to present at our biennial executive forum workshops in November. The overall feedback from the executive staff that attended his workshop was that the information discussed in his Financial Management in Turbulent Times workshop was highly informative and easily applicable to organizations of varying sizes within our sector. He is a strong facilitator who engages the audience in a way that makes a complex topic like finance interesting, and easy to understand. I highly recommend his workshops.”
Laura Osorio, Coordinator, OCASI (Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants)
- “Amazing session! Learned so much and really opened my eyes about budgets and social accounting
- definitely got some fresh ideas
- Well organized, very informative and valuable
- lots of idea sharing, speaker was engaged with audience
- Excellent – exactly what I needed to know
- Very engaging, explains concepts clearly and made in a simple language”
2018 Pavro Conference (Professional Association of Volunteer Leaders, Ontario) Workshop Attendees Comments
“Eric helped me launch my nonprofit and his ongoing support made such a big difference. In addition to valuable financial advice, his kindness and calm were greatly appreciated and I was always looking forward to our meetings. I highly recommend working with Eric, not only for his professional skills but also for his amazing personality.”
Ludiwine Clouzot, Founder of Ecoloodi and Science teacher at the Royal Ontario Museum
“Eric has always made the difficult language of finances easy to understand. He created tools that made it easy to track my expenditures and forecast my budgets that enabled me to do my programming effectively. Eric is a wonderful person to work with as he listens well and makes suggestions in a way that helps me understand my financial position.”
Tina Conlon, Davenport Perth Community Minister
“Eric has been a great support for UrbanArts during a time when we were undergoing significant changes in our organization which included overhauling our financial management systems and processes. Eric also took on the task of working with us on a very complex multi-funder online financial reporting system and helped to preserve our sanity! We are very grateful for Eric’s work with us, his professionalism and his candor.”
Marlene McKintosh, Executive Director, UrbanArts
“I have learned a lot from Eric! While working at Volunteer MBC, we regularly engaged Eric to share his knowledge of not for profit budgeting and finances, with boards of directors, volunteer engagement professionals and those interested in strengthening their skills. He is an excellent presenter- well organized, well spoken, clear and able to answer any question that is posed to him. Not only does he bring a strong skill set but he’s very personable, friendly and great to work with!”
Adriane Beaudry, Program Manager, VMBC (Volunteer Mississauga Brampton Caledon)