Treasurer’s Report for FYE 2025 - Articles

During FYE 2025, we presented an operating budget of a loss of $123K alongside a capital budget showing expenditures of $396K. Of this $396K, $346K was for a new technology platform.

We ended FYE 2025 with an operating loss of $10K, representing a $113K positive variance to plan. Our investment portfolio gained $169K, resulting in a $158K gain in unrestricted net assets.

Some of the significant variances came from the following areas:

CFMA’s 2024 Annual Conference had higher than planned registrations, sponsorships, and exhibition sales resulting in a positive variance. Likewise, the 2024 AGC/CFMA Conference had exceptional results due to record attendance and strong exhibition and sponsorship performance.
CFMA’s Education Department expanded its offerings with new Certificate Programs in WIP and contract management/legal. Both performed better than planned, with especially strong registration for the WIP Certificate Program.
Marketing and Publications combined efforts to support our Marketing, Communications & Brand platform. While engagement increased across all channels, expenses came in under budget due to better segmentation of messages and audiences.
Membership income met plan, despite a lower-than-budgeted retention rate. Only 81.5% of members renewed, in line with past performance. We are analyzing why members left to better inform future retention strategies. The negative variance reflects the flow-through of affinity partnership revenue to the chapters.
Chapter Resources demonstrated more partnership revenue passed through to chapters, but this year, we hadn’t allocated all of that revenue to this account. This will be corrected in FYE 2026 to reflect the actual distribution.

FYE 2025 Capital Variance

The capital budget for FYE 2025 was primarily focused on completing the technology transition. The goal of this initiative is to provide CFMA members with a more intuitive platform to navigate not only CFMA’s current offerings but also their past participation in one easy-to-see interface.

Software changes always come with challenges, but the efforts of CFMA staff and consultants have provided a strong platform for members to use in FYE 2026 and beyond. From a financial perspective, the transition came in with a negative variance of $17K vs. budget. We also incurred additional operational costs from running two systems, contributing to the operating loss.

CFMA also moved into a new office space. This new space is smaller but better designed, allowing for a more collaborative place to work. Staff can now collaborate more efficiently thanks to small huddle rooms, conference rooms, and a large team-building space among the office’s amenities.

Partnership Income

Partnership income increased due to the introduction of our Principal, Strategic, and new Elite Partners. The redesigned structure allows CFMA to reinvest in its members — our core customers.

That increase enabled us to deliver more engagement capacity to regional conferences and chapters, amounting to approximately $342K in FYE25. After covering local support and deliverables, the additional funds available to Operations were more limited. We retained about 8% of that additional revenue at the CFMA level.

Net Assets

With the operating results and investment portfolio gains, net assets increased to over $6M.

Looking Ahead

Like many of our member companies, CFMA reevaluated its budgeting approach. With the inflationary increase in costs across the board, CFMA reviewed how we budget for future years, and how we can ensure that the revenue sustains the programs and offerings that CFMA provides to its members.

With guidance from the Finance and Executive Committees, along with the approval of the Membership Committee, the decision to change our dues structure was presented to and approved by CFMA members.

The new dues structure allows CFMA to increase its membership dues in accordance with increasing costs, calculated using the Consumer Price Index (CPI) published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. We believe that this will allow CFMA to continue offering high-quality programs that members are accustomed to.

Conclusion

I would like to thank the members of CFMA’s Finance Committee and the Investment and Audit Subcommittees for their time and effort.

I would also like to thank CFMA’s 2023-24 Treasurer, Jennifer Murphy, for her support and Stacey Scholl, CFMA’s Vice President of Finance & Shared Services, for providing accurate and timely information throughout the year.

I look forward to the upcoming year and working with CFMA’s 2025-26 Treasurer, Bryce McDermott.