Financial Audit

North Side Learning Center (NSLC) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Syracuse, NY serving immigrant, refugee, and underserved community members through K–12 academic tutoring, adult education and literacy, ESL instruction, and workforce development programs. Our annual budget falls in the $500K–$2M range, and we are approaching financial thresholds that require a formal independent audit for the first time for fiscal year 2025.

We are seeking a CPA volunteer to conduct or guide a financial audit of our organization's FY2025 records. Specifically, we are looking for support with the following tasks:

Review of financial statements — including income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements for FY2025
Tax compliance review — verification that our Form 990 filings and any state charitable registration reports are accurate and complete
Internal controls assessment — identifying any gaps or weaknesses in our current financial policies, procedures, and controls
Risk and compliance check — flagging any areas of concern related to grant fund usage, restricted vs. unrestricted funds, and regulatory obligations under NYS Charities Bureau requirements
Audit report preparation — a concise written summary of findings, identified risks or compliance issues, and clear recommended next steps

The ideal deliverable is a clear, written audit report that NSLC's leadership and board can act on — one that positions us for compliance, strengthens funder confidence, and prepares us for the larger government and foundation grants we are actively pursuing (including federal WIOA, ORR, and 21st CCLC funding streams, all of which require audited financials).
We are a small but growing organization with a dedicated staff and an engaged board. We will have all financial records, bank statements, grant agreements, and prior Form 990s organized and ready for the volunteer from day one. We are committed to being responsive and prepared to make the most of every hour our volunteer shares with us.

North Side Learning Center is a refugee-founded, community-based education center on Syracuse's North Side — one of the city's highest-need neighborhoods. We serve over 400 individuals annually through four core programs: ESL and English literacy classes for adult immigrants and refugees, K-12 tutoring and academic support, workforce development and job readiness training, and family literacy programming that brings parents and children into learning together.
Our participants are primarily Somali, Congolese, Arabic-speaking, and Burmese refugees and immigrants — many of whom arrived with significant trauma histories and face systemic barriers to economic stability. For them, education is not a luxury. It is the path to a job, to helping their child with homework, to speaking up at a parent-teacher conference, to becoming a citizen. Every program we run is designed to unlock that potential.
This audit is a critical step in our organizational growth. We are at an inflection point: our programs are working, our community need is growing, and major funders — including federal refugee resettlement programs, New York State education grants, and national foundations — are ready to invest in organizations like ours. But they require audited financial statements before they will. Without this audit, we cannot access the funding needed to expand our ESL classes, hire additional tutors, or serve the numerous families currently on our waitlist.
By volunteering your time for this audit, you are not just reviewing a set of financials — you are directly helping a refugee grandmother learn to read in her new country, a young man from Congo get his first job, and a child from Somalia stay on grade level. Your expertise will help unlock the doors to transformational funding, so that NSLC can grow from a scrappy, community-rooted organization into a sustainable anchor institution for one of Syracuse's most underserved communities.
We would be honored to have you as a partner in that work.

North Side Learning Center has full organizational buy-in for this audit. Our Executive Director is leading this project directly and is committed to being a responsive, prepared partner from day one. Our board has been briefed on the need for a formal financial audit as we cross key funding thresholds, and they are actively supporting this initiative — including designating a board member with financial oversight experience to serve as an internal liaison throughout the engagement.
We have already begun gathering the materials a volunteer auditor will need:

FY2025 bank statements and reconciliations
QuickBooks records (our books are current and maintained by a dedicated staff member)
Prior year Form 990 filings
Grant award letters, budgets, and financial reports for all active funding streams
Payroll records and documentation
A summary of our revenue sources broken down by restricted and unrestricted funds

We understand that the volunteer's time is valuable and that our preparation directly determines the quality of the outcome. We are committed to meeting every deadline, responding to requests within 24–48 hours, and providing a single, organized point of contact so the volunteer never has to chase information. We have also set aside dedicated staff time during the audit period specifically to support this engagement.
The audit deliverable will be immediately implemented: findings and the audited financial statements will be presented to our board of directors, incorporated into our FY2026 budget planning process, and used to support applications to government funders (including NYS OTDA refugee programs and federal WIOA Title II funding) that require audited financials as part of their eligibility documentation.