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Accretive of San Diego: Corporate Savings Go to Nonprofits

Working in partnership with nonprofit organizations, Accretive of San Diego helps corporations find ways to save money and channel a portion of the savings to charitable causes.

“What happens is when a nonprofit takes us to one of their corporate supporters, if that company engages us we ask the company if they are willing to allocate a portion of the found money, whatever it may be, to that charity,” said Mark C. Neilson, managing partner of Accretive.

Typically, the nonprofit ends up with 10 percent to 20 percent of the corporation’s found money. Accretive, which is paid only from the money it is able to save for corporations, also donates a share of its pay to the charity, Neilson explained.

“We are going to give 15 percent of our share of the fee to the same nonprofit, because they brought us in.”

Typically, Accretive works out such agreements with between 20 and 25 businesses each year. Neilson said the company, which was founded in 2011, began working exclusively through nonprofits in July 2013. Currently, there are six active nonprofit partners.

A Unique Business Model

“Our business model is unique,” Neilson said. “We are ‘resultants.’ What it means is we are former executives, mostly recovering CFOs. Rather than charge for our time, we charge for results. We get paid out of the savings and only if there are any. We take all the risks.”

Neilson said what Accretive provides to corporations is a CFO-level expert who has experience in trimming expenses.

“We are not proclaiming to be the experts on cost reduction,” Neilson said. “We are facilitating the process. We provide the bandwidth in the form of a CFO-level person. We have organized the cost reduction so we don’t have to trial and error our way through it.”

While Accretive takes a broad view of company operations in order to identify areas of potential savings, it doesn’t eliminate jobs. Neilson said he and his partners don’t like the idea of getting paid from the savings that are realized when people leave the workplace.

“We don’t touch jobs,” Neilson said. “No one ever loses a job because of anything we have done.”

Kudos From the Community

One of the benefits of contributing money to nonprofits is that corporations gain status and a reputation for giving back to the community, Neilson said.

“The company writes those checks, so they get the kudos,” he said.

He noted that Accretive has been able to save Century 21 Award $150,000 so far, through improved efficiencies. A total of $17,000 of that money has been committed to Easter Seals Southern California, he said.

Neilson said cause-based businesses that work with charities are part of a growing trend. Even so, the need for charitable giving remains strong in the San Diego region.

“Everyone knows nonprofits are scrambling, looking for ways to raise new money,” he said.

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