About

I’ve been on every side of the nonprofit balance sheet.

After years in municipal planning, I ventured into public accounting. Advancing to the position of Senior Accountant on the audit team, where I also worked on 990s, GAAP compilations and reviews, and financial statement analyses supporting business valuations. I attained my MBA while I was there.

Then I crossed the table.

Director of Development and Communications at the Children’s Center in Augusta, where I also took on the role of Human Resources. President and CEO of United Way of Mid-Maine for five years – the whole operation, from community impact to resource development, accountable to a board and a region. Director of Philanthropy and Community Engagement at Maine Children’s Home. Development and Grant Manager at Unity Environmental University.

Twenty years of nonprofit work, and the whole time I could see the same thing going wrong.

What I kept seeing

Organizations doing genuinely good work, run by people who care, with financial systems that couldn’t answer basic questions.

Not because anyone was careless. Because the books were set up by a well-meaning volunteer, or a bookkeeper who’d never handled a restricted grant, or a software default nobody revisited. The chart of accounts was never mapped to the 990. Functional expense allocation was a guess made once and copied forward. Restricted funds went into the same bucket as everything else and could not be traced back out.

So the ED makes decisions on instinct. The board asks a question the reports can’t answer. The auditor finds things. Everyone works harder and the picture doesn’t get clearer.

That’s a structural problem, not an accounting one. It’s fixable.

How I work

I help leaders move from reactive financial management to proactive financial clarity – without the fear-based urgency that burns people and missions out.

The numbers matter. So does the culture built around them. An organization running on scarcity will make bad financial decisions no matter how clean the books are, and I’ve watched good organizations exhaust their best people that way. I work on both, because they aren’t actually separable.

What that looks like in practice: I tell you what I find, including when it’s bad. I explain the reasoning rather than handing down conclusions, because you’re the one who has to defend the budget in the board meeting. And I build systems you can run without me.

From clients:

“Elizabeth’s professionalism is matched by her warm, approachable nature. She communicates clearly, responds promptly, and ensures that I always feel confident about the state of our organization’s finances. Beyond her technical skill, she brings a sense of calm and reassurance that makes working with her a true pleasure.” – CEO, nonprofit serving children’s educational programs

“I’ve been asking for dashboard reports like this for YEARS, and fulltime CFOs couldn’t make them happen. I appreciate having the numbers presented this way!” – ED, nonprofit providing human services programs

Credentials

Elizabeth Barron, MBA, Founder, Green Lux Consulting, LLC

MBA, Thomas College
Nearly five years in public accounting, including audit team, 990s, GAAP compilations and reviews, working in QuickBooks
15+ years in nonprofit development, grant management, and executive leadership
Former nonprofit President and CEO
Former Board Member of multiple nonprofits (Chair, Vice Chair, Treasurer, Secretary, Grant Writer, member)
AIPB membership
AFP membership
AICPA affiliate membership

Based in Maine. Working with organizations across Maine and New England, remotely and in person.

The work underneath

Alongside this practice, I run A Joyful Uprising, where I work with people one-on-one and in small immersions on the same problem from the inside – what happens when the thing you built stops feeding you.

The two aren’t separate. Twenty-five years of that work is why I don’t run financial rebuilds on urgency and fear, and why the strategic planning I facilitate tends to surface what a board actually wants rather than what it can defend.

If that’s the part that interests you: ajoyfuluprising.com