Chief Financial Officer

Position description

Splash is a global nonprofit organization founded in 2007, headquartered in Seattle, Washington, USA. Since 2007, we have completed more than 2,500 projects that serve over 1.2 million children each day. Currently focused on cities in East Africa, Splash delivers the clean water, clean toilets, and dignified menstrual health resources that every child deserves through comprehensive water, sanitation, hygiene, and menstrual health (WASH-M) services and behavior change programs across 100% of a city’s public schools. 

Our distinctive model transforms entire cities, starting at the school water fountain, by shifting systems, infrastructure, and behaviors in partnership with local governments and communities. We start by building relationships with the local stakeholders responsible for education, health, and water management, and we negotiate financial commitments that support a full transition of operations and maintenance to local leadership. 

Our vision is global impact without Splash, made possible through partnerships with national governments, co-creation with local communities, and replication far beyond our day-to-day involvement. 

In 2019, we began testing and refining Project WISE (WASH in Schools for Everyone), a cost-effective and replicable blueprint designed to reach 100% of public schools in fast-growing, complex cities in partnership with local governments and community leaders. In five years, we achieved our goals in Ethiopia and India, and we began our next phase of expansion in East Africa in 2025. 

Our core values guide everything we do, including every hiring decision we make. They are: 

•   People – People first. People second. People third. 

•   Quality – Beautiful products that function and last. 

•   Honesty – No drama, no surprises, no BS. 

•   Joy – Kids at heart, seeing potential everywhere. 

•   Mistakes – Make them, don’t repeat them. 

Splash values the unique skills and experiences everyone brings to the organization, and we are committed to creating and maintaining an inclusive and accessible environment for everyone. We provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and qualified applicants for employment. To learn more, please visit splash.org. 

The Job

Full-time remote position based in the US. 

Position Overview

Splash is seeking a Chief Financial Officer to lead the organization’s financial strategy, global financial management, compliance, risk oversight, and long-term financial stability and sustainability. 

The CFO will serve as a key member of the global management team and a strategic partner to the CEO, Board Treasurer, Finance Committee, Development team, and country leadership. The role requires strong technical accounting and finance skills, excellent judgment, experience operating across international settings, and the ability to translate financial complexity into clear decisions that strengthen program implementation, donor confidence, government partnership, and long-term organizational sustainability. 

As Splash enters a new phase of multi-country growth, the CFO role will become increasingly important to building the financial architecture required to support government-partnered scale, donor-funded infrastructure delivery, government co-financing, VAT and tax exposure, multi-currency risk, and a broader blended-finance approach to scaling impact. 

The CFO does not need to personally lead all external financing work. In support of the Development team, however, they must understand enough of the capital landscape to help Splash think holistically about how different types of funding can support different parts of the work, including infrastructure, technical assistance, government systems strengthening, operations and maintenance, and long-term sustainability. 

A key part of the role will be translating that complexity into clear guidance for non-finance audiences. The CFO should be able to explain the benefits, limitations, risks, tradeoffs, and appropriate uses of different financing approaches for the CEO, Board, Development team, country leaders, and other organizational stakeholders. 

Roles & Responsibilities

Financial Strategy, Sustainability, and Blended Finance 

• Lead the development of Splash’s long-term financial strategy in alignment with organizational growth, government partnership, and impact goals. 

• Help Splash build a more sophisticated capital strategy that distinguishes between philanthropic funding, catalytic capital, government co-financing, donor-funded infrastructure, technical assistance, and long-term public ownership. 

• Partner with the CEO, Development team, and program leadership to assess how different funding sources can support different needs across the organization. 

• Support financial modeling for government co-financing, donor match requirements, phased implementation, working capital needs, and long-term sustainability. 

• Advise the CEO and Board on tradeoffs related to scale, risk, unrestricted reserves, cost recovery, donor restrictions, and country-level financial exposure. 

• Lead scenario planning and financial modeling for multi-year growth, including delayed disbursements, foreign exchange exposure, government payment timing, implementation shifts, and funding gaps. 

• Build financial models that incorporate inflation, foreign exchange exposure, country-specific cost assumptions, and implementation timing so multi-year budgets are realistic and decision-useful.  

Global Financial Management & Reporting  

• Oversee global budgeting, forecasting, cash flow management, and financial reporting across Splash’s US and international operations. 

• Ensure timely, accurate, and decision-useful reporting for the CEO, management team, Board, Finance Committee, donors, and country teams. 

• Strengthen financial dashboards and analysis so country, regional, and global teams can track burn rates against activities, deliverables, restricted donor budgets, and implementation progress in real time or near-real time. 

• Manage organizational cash flow, reserves, restricted and unrestricted funding, and liquidity planning. 

• Partner with program and Development teams to ensure budgets, forecasts, and donor reports accurately reflect implementation realities. 

• Support budget modeling for new opportunities, including overall project budgets, donor-specific restricted budgets, match or co-financing assumptions, cost recovery, and implementation timelines. 

• Ensure grant budgets, cost recovery, indirect cost allocation, and donor reporting are disciplined, transparent, and aligned with Splash’s operating model. 

Government Co-Financing and Public Finance 

• Support the design and financial oversight of government co-financing arrangements, including contribution models, annual workplans, budget alignment, and fund-flow options. 

• Help assess the financial implications of government-funded implementation, direct government procurement, contractor payments, cost-share commitments, and delayed public disbursements.

• Partner with country teams to ensure government co-financing commitments are financially realistic, well documented, appropriately accounted for, and monitored. 

• Support financial analysis related to public-sector ownership, operations and maintenance, and the long-term transition of responsibility to government systems. 

• Bring practical understanding of the risks and realities of operating in low-income settings, including public finance cycles, procurement constraints, documentation gaps, currency exposure, and varying local accounting capacity. 

International Compliance, VAT, Tax, and Risk 

• Ensure compliance with US nonprofit requirements, donor regulations, accounting and audit standards, and relevant international financial regulations. 

• Oversee financial operations across multiple countries and entities, including registration, statutory compliance, local audit requirements, payroll, tax, banking, and accounting practices. 

• Manage VAT, withholding tax, recoverability, exemptions, and other country-level tax issues that affect donor budgets, infrastructure delivery, and local contracting. 

• Lead the annual audit process and manage relationships with external auditors, tax advisors, legal advisors, and other technical consultants. 

• Maintain strong risk management practices across global financial operations, including internal controls, segregation of duties, fraud prevention, procurement controls, and documentation standards. 

Systems, Controls, and Operational Discipline 

• Build and maintain strong financial systems, policies, processes, and internal controls that support a growing global organization. 

• Strengthen financial technology, reporting tools, data integrity, and cross-country accounting processes. 

• Build and enforce the accounting and reporting architecture needed to track restricted funds by donor, project, activity, deliverable, country, budget line, and spending status. 

• Strengthen budgeting, forecasting, financial controls, cost documentation, and approval processes so they are clear, efficient, and scalable. 

• Ensure finance processes support procurement, contracting, and implementation without making finance a bottleneck. 

• Drive a culture of financial accountability, transparency, and timely decision-making. 

Team Leadership and Cross-Functional Partnership 

• Lead, mentor, and strengthen Splash’s global finance team. 

• Build financial capacity across country teams and non-finance leaders so budget ownership is distributed and disciplined. 

• Partner closely with Program, Development, Operations, and country leadership to align financial resources with program delivery and organizational priorities. 

• Translate complex financial issues into clear, practical guidance for colleagues who are not finance specialists. 

• Serve as a trusted partner to the CEO, Treasurer, Finance Committee, and Board. 

Qualifications

• Minimum of 15 years of progressively senior financial leadership experience. 

• Significant experience in global financial management, preferably in an international nonprofit, NGO, foundation-funded organization, development finance institution, or mission-driven organization operating across multiple countries. 

• Experience with international accounting standards and practices, including IFRS and/or IPSAS where relevant, donor compliance, grants management, restricted funding, audits, internal controls, and multi-entity financial operations. 

• Demonstrated ability to lead financial strategy in complex operating environments. 

• Experience with low-income or lower-middle-income country contexts strongly preferred. 

• Practical understanding of VAT, tax, multi-currency exposure, statutory compliance, procurement, and financial risk in international settings. 

• Experience supporting government co-financing, public-sector partnerships, infrastructure financing, development finance, or blended finance strongly preferred. 

• Strong financial modeling, scenario planning, forecasting, and analytical skills. 

• Demonstrated experience building multi-year, multi-country budgets, donor-specific restricted budgets, and burn-rate analysis. 

• Experience working with Boards, Finance Committees, Treasurers, CEOs, and senior leadership teams. 

• Master’s degree in finance, accounting, business, public administration, or related field preferred. CPA, MBA, or equivalent experience strongly valued. 

• Advanced proficiency with Excel and financial reporting systems. Experience with financial dashboards, accounting platforms, grant management tools, and reporting analytics is an asset. 

The Ideal Candidate

The ideal candidate is both technically strong and strategically curious. They can manage audits, budgets, compliance, and controls, but they are also energized by the larger question: what financial architecture will allow Splash’s model to scale, transition, and endure? 

They will bring: 

• Strong judgment in complex, ambiguous, multi-country environments. 

• A practical understanding of how money actually moves across donors, governments, contractors, country teams, and local partners. 

• Comfort working across philanthropy, government co-financing, restricted grants, catalytic capital, and other forms of mission-aligned finance. 

• The instincts of an operator, builder, and strategist, with the ability to create standards, systems, and financial tools that are useful across teams. 

• Ability to identify financial risks early and communicate them clearly without slowing the organization unnecessarily. 

• A systems mindset, with the ability to build processes that are disciplined, useful, and agile. 

• Strong partnership orientation with program, Development, operations, and country leaders. 

• High standards for transparency, accountability, and follow-through. 

• Excellent written, verbal, and interpersonal communication skills. 

• Ability to operate across time zones and cultures with humility, clarity, and respect. 

• Commitment to Splash’s values: People, Quality, Honesty, Joy, and Mistakes. 

Compensation & Benefits

The compensation for this role is $170,000 - $200,000, in line with experience. At Splash, we prioritize our mission by offering benefits to support our employees and their families. 

• Splash operates across time zones with flexible work schedules. Team members can set standard hours within their time zone but should be available for occasional off-hours work. This is balanced by a self-managed schedule allowing personal time. 

• Benefits include 18 days of paid time off, increasing by 2 days each year up to 28 days, 11 paid holidays, and Wellness Fridays (reduced hours on Fridays). Additionally, we offer two weeks of paid time off mid-year during July 4th week and the last week of the year. 

• Medical, dental, vision insurance, and a 401K plan with a 3% match. 

Application instructions

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