MAYFAIR COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION
“Having accurate numbers is huge…”

Brian Patrick King
Executive Director

Philadelphia is a city of neighborhoods, where residents’ roots often run long and deep. Even though the Mayfair community, centered around Roosevelt Boulevard, Cottman Avenue and Frankford Avenue, dates back only to the 1920s, its 26,000 neighbors are passionate about the community they call home.

This passion helped fuel the start of the Mayfair Community Development Corporation, which over the past decade has launched increasingly ambitious initiatives to improve the area’s quality of life and economic vitality. The CDC has built a 26,000-square foot community center that serves hundreds of children and seniors. It manages six cleaning machines that pick up 80,000 pounds of trash a year, has planted hundreds of trees, installs planters and park benches, rejuvenates the Frankford Avenue business corridor, rehabilitates homes and commercial buildings, and has restored the historic Devon Theater into a state-of-the-art community conference and entertainment center. The CDC works to keep what Executive Director Brian Patrick King calls “an urban oasis” safer, cleaner, more attractive, and a great place to live and work.

With its rapid growth, the CDC found its controller needs outstripped the capabilities of its part-time accountant. Each of several funding sources – city, state, federal government, lenders, donors – had its own reporting systems, closeout rules and drawdown procedures. The auditors referred them to Your Part-Time Controller for their specialization in nonprofit accounting. Associate Judy Peakes “came in here, rolled up her sleeves, and lined us up. Our past two audits have been extremely pain-free,” says King. “Our systems of checks and balances have taken a 180-degree turn.

“Being a nonprofit, we’re held to a certain standard of accountability. Having accurate numbers is a huge piece: if one grant gets flagged, it holds everything up and it puts you on radar screens you don’t want to be on. If you can open your books freely and show funders how and where you spent their money, it’s huge. Establishing your credibility, getting all your reports in, closing out your books on time, having all the numbers line up, and showing funding entities that you’re a responsible handler of tax dollars goes a long way,” he says.

King particularly likes how Peakes organized the financial information systems. “The peace of mind I get is huge when I walk into her office here and I see all the binders she’s meticulously assembled, and in an instant she can pull up specific information about grants. She knows her stuff, and she can also explain it in simple terms. I get the information I need to make decisions on the fly without having to wait. I never leave a meeting disappointed.”

But what most impresses King is the sense of security he gets. “I know when I walk out of here every day that I’m not going to be on the news about where the money’s gone.”