How Thrive Nonprofit Partners transform nonprofit finance with Ramp

Bringing visibility, accountability, and vision to nonprofit finance

With more than 25 years of experience, Terisa Clark brings deep nonprofit expertise to the finance table. After starting her career as a CPA auditing nonprofits and later serving as CFO of a multifaceted organization—including churches, schools, clinics, and outreach programs—Terisa founded Thrive Nonprofit Partners to fill a critical gap: strategic financial leadership for mission-driven organizations.

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“I launched my consulting practice in 2020,” she explains. “I realized the things that were in my heart were really about serving others. There were so many nonprofits that needed what I had, and that’s when I got out of my comfort zone.” Now operating as a fractional CFO for a variety of churches, Christian schools, and community-focused nonprofits, Terisa provides the financial guidance many organizations lack, especially when it comes to strategic planning, risk management, and operational scale. “You can't make things happen in the nonprofit world unless you have resources,” she says. “And with limited resources, nonprofits need creativity and ingenuity about how to grow.”

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Nonprofits uniquely grapple with challenges that extend far beyond the numbers. Many operate with minimal resources and outdated financial systems, forcing teams to spend countless hours chasing receipts, reconciling expenses, and compiling delayed financial reports. This manual approach not only diverts critical human resources from mission-driven work but also leaves organizations vulnerable to errors and fraud. With the pressure to demonstrate accountability to donors and regulatory bodies, every inefficiency can undermine both trust and impact. In many cases, nonprofit leaders find themselves caught between the urgent need to maintain rigorous financial oversight and the realities of operating with lean teams.

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Ramp helps Terisa’s clients turn that pain into progress. “One of my clients went from closing books on the 15th of the month to the 5th—just from switching to Ramp,” she says. “It gave us data that was accurate, complete, and timely.” For clients with limited staff and outdated tools, this kind of transformation enables faster reporting, less back-and-forth, and more time spent on what matters. “In the nonprofit world, we have a responsibility to steward our limited resources effectively. When a tool can do what people used to do, we're wasting resources to keep doing it the old way.”

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That kind of operational clarity has helped Terisa’s clients make better long-term decisions. In one case, a nonprofit was preparing to launch a major building campaign. Terisa stepped in to model different financial scenarios and helped the team pause and reevaluate. “Often, banks will give nonprofits more money than they can actually pay back,” she says. “My job isn’t to push for one decision—I just want them to know really well what each of these possibilities might look like, given what we know.” She also supports clients looking to innovate. One nonprofit she advises is exploring the idea of turning their unused land into a solar farm to generate ongoing revenue. “That’s some of the fun forward-looking stuff I get to do,” she says. “I call it being a ‘nonpreneur’—a nonprofit entrepreneur.”

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Terisa often supports Ramp implementation personally. “Ramp doesn’t require a heavy lift for the average user,” she says. “But when the setup is more complicated—multiple organizations, fund accounting, etc.—Ramp’s implementation tech has been phenomenal.” She’s seen firsthand how automation through Ramp has allowed clients to reduce AP workloads and reassign staff. “One of my clients now uses Ramp for credit cards and AP. They had a part-time person managing AP, and they’re repurposing her to do something else now.”

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“For one client, I had to spend around an extra six hours dealing with credit cards, and after implementing Ramp, it literally took 10 minutes for me to reconcile everything!"

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To ease the change management process of adopting a new solution like Ramp, Terisa often encourages clients to start small. “Start with two people. Let the business person try it—especially if they have a lot of recurring transactions. They quickly go, ‘Man, this is so easy.’ And then it just grows from there.” As one finance director client recently shared with Terisa, he felt a renewed sense of relief and support after implementing Ramp—no longer the only one overseeing every transaction, but now backed by a system that enabled greater visibility across the organization without adding unnecessary complexity.

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Beyond the technical benefits, Terisa credits the strength of Ramp’s people for making her work easier. Her partner manager, Frank Chiodo, has become an integral part of her process. “Frank’s there, and it’s not just a big corporate company filling out forms online—it’s a real human relationship that adds credibility,” she says. “He knows the kind of people I serve, and he always adds value. One time, he dropped some ideas that literally inspired me to try AI tools in areas I hadn’t before.” Even when smaller clients run into roadblocks—like credit limits that don’t reflect their needs—Frank is ready to help and just a phone call or email away. 

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As she prepares to rebrand and expand her firm, Terisa is excited to continue building with Ramp—both as a trusted solution and as a strategic ally. “Ramp helps my clients move from fragmented, manual systems to unified, modern workflows,” she says. “That clarity gives nonprofit leaders the confidence to focus on what matters most: their mission.”

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