Built by operators who've actually sat in your seat.
We're not a big accounting firm and we're not a generic consultancy. We're a small, operator-led team that exists to solve one specific problem:the financial complexity that shows up right after a nonprofit wins a large grant.
"I've sat in your seat. Not watched it from a spreadsheet, run it, from inside the organization, trying to make it all work while still delivering on the mission."
Rob spent over a decade in nonprofit leadership, including running complex programs, funding, and reporting as Executive Director of Zenger Farm, a nationally recognized food justice nonprofit in Portland. He's felt the pressure of stretching every grant dollar and passing every audit, because he's lived it from the inside, not just advised from the outside.
That experience, plus a background in corporate finance at Johnson & Johnson, shapes how he runs Black Cato Consulting: fractional CFO support, grant compliance, and HR systems built for organizations that can't afford to get this wrong.
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Mike spent years in public accounting, then put that discipline to work scaling real businesses. As the force behind Pacific Counter's multi-unit expansion and path toward franchising, he built the budgets and cash flow systems that made sustainable growth possible. He previously led growth marketing at Bite Squad, helping scale it to over 100 markets on the way to acquisition and a public listing.
That mix of finance and operational experience now shapes how he advises clients: budgeting, forecasting, digital performance strategy, and the hands-on decision-making that startups and growing businesses actually need.
Winning the grant was the easy part.
Once you sign, you're expected to project expenses, reconcile advances, track everything at the project level, allocate payroll correctly, and report back cleanly. Most systems just aren't built for that yet.
What changes once your setup is right.
Not because your team isn't strong. Because this is a different level of complexity than most systems are set up to handle.
What this can look like in practice.
A nonprofit receives a six-figure grant but doesn't yet have project-level tracking in place. Black Cato maps the award budget, cleans up payroll allocation, builds the reconciliation workflow, and prepares the organization for its first reporting cycle.
Most options force a trade-off. This one doesn't.
Figure it out yourself
- No cost upfront
- Slow, learned under pressure
- Mistakes show up in reporting
Big accounting firm
- Technically qualified
- Generic, not grant-specific
- Slow to respond, billed by the hour
Hire a full-time CFO
- Deep, dedicated capacity
- Expensive and slow to hire
- Often more than you need right now
Operator-led, fractional
- Run by someone who's done this from the inside
- Specific to grant compliance and reporting
- Fast to start, no permanent overhead
Let’s take a look at your organization.
Tell us where your finance, grant, or HR systems are creating pressure. We’ll follow up to schedule a practical consultation.
Request a Free Consultation
Share a few details so we can understand your organization before we follow up.
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