Da Camera
"To have such a resource is tremendous…."
Da Camera was founded in Houston in 1987 to produce a series of thematically programmed concerts that would attract new listeners to the concert hall. By bringing together prominent local, American and international musicians specifically selected for each program, Da Camera concerts offer a broad range of repertoire and musical styles while ensuring outstanding musical excellence in performances, enriching the community and enhancing the musical lives of artists in the Houston area. Da Camera offers a subscription series of performances, extensive education and outreach activities, professional development of young artists, recordings, and touring initiatives. Each season, Da Camera’s roster of artists includes over 60 musicians who strive to connect music with other art forms and make great music accessible to all.
Executive Director Toni Capra was aware of Your Part-Time Controller even before she assumed her current position in 2018 through her own consulting work and experience with other arts organizations in the Houston area. YPTC was brought in during a time of significant transition with Da Camera changing its organizational leadership structure, and changing its bank, while also overhauling antiquated bookkeeping and accounting systems.
“Knowing I had a partner in YPTC Associate Teresa Henderson was hugely comforting,” she explains. “I came in with a lot of stuff to clean up. It’s a lot of detail work. Her expertise with similar transitions in other organizations was invaluable. For an organization our size to have such a resource is tremendous.”
Henderson comes to Da Camera twice a week, helping to reconcile bank accounts and sales reports, working with the box office and marketing teams, and making sure that the development department’s gifts are all properly accounted for and applied correctly. “She’s helped us to establish internal controls so that we have enough eyes and hands on things to keep the auditors happy. She’s helped us clean things up so when we get to the audit each year the process is clean,” Capra adds.
Henderson also attends quarterly board and endowment board meetings. “The professionalism and expertise that she brings on the intricacies of nonprofit accounting lends itself well to the credibility of reports we put in front of our board,” Capra says.
“YPTC has clearly found a great model and a great niche – kudos to them. They provide exceptional service. I have found everyone from leadership on down is lovely to work with and they clearly have a strong organizational culture. There are no exceptions to the exceptional staff. It’s a tricky job to insert yourself on an irregular basis into another organization, but they’ve really knocked it out of the park.”
Capra has recommended YPTC to numerous other nonprofits. “What they offer is so valuable,” she says.