Every Expense Counts: Matt’s Vision for Smarter Nonprofit Finance

Read time: 3 min

👋🏾 Hey! I’m Sid and this is The Philanthropy Futurist, a weekly advice column preparing you for the future of the nonprofit sector. Each Friday, I tackle reader questions about measuring impact, driving growth, and managing your nonprofit.

This Week’s Newsletter at a glance:

• Every Expense Counts: Matt’s Vision for Smarter Nonprofit Finance

• Philanthropy News From This Week

• Sid’s Book Recommendation

Every Expense Counts: Matt’s Vision for Smarter Nonprofit Finance

I recently had the opportunity to meet a founder who raised $2 million to change the way Nonprofits manage expenses and stay compliant. I sent him a message on LinkedIn because I wanted to learn more about his work and how he came to build what I now know as Givefront, his company.

Meet Matt.

Matt Tengtrakool is the founder and CEO of Givefront, and he brings a unique blend of nonprofit experience and tech savvy to the table. Before Givefront… he founded a company to help loan-recipients in Nigeria, led two national Nonprofits, and studied computer science at Harvard. Through years of firsthand experience, Matt saw how outdated financial tools were holding orgs back. He knew there had to be a better way— one that truly fits the unique challenges Nonprofits face, today.

As some of you may already know, Nonprofits operate under intense compliance, transparency, and audit demands that most traditional expense systems and corporate cards aren’t built to handle. On top of that, inefficient spend management tends to drain precious time and resources when dealing with reimbursable grants, audits, tax filings, budget tracking, etc.

For years, Nonprofits have been stuck juggling spreadsheets, manual approvals, and delayed reimbursements. And what Matt and his team have built is completely changing that!

Givefront’s primary goal is to make Nonprofit spend management simple, fast, and more transparent.

If you ask me, I think Matt’s solution here is pretty brilliant.

He built a smart spend management platform that naturally pairs with a nonprofit-focused corporate card.

It’s designed to save teams time and money by streamlining the entire process… everything from:

• Spend Controls across all corporate cards with custom limits, restrictions, and real-time tracking

• Automated Compliance that follows IRS 990, grant restrictions, and donor policies with built-in safeguards

• Effortless Receipt Tracking that lets you submit receipts via text while AI categorizes and matches expenses, keeping your records audit-ready

• And Easy Budget Tracking allowing you to set spending rules for grants, programs, and departments… with real-time visibility into every dollar spent, and this list goes on and on

Simply said, the team’s goal is not to be the first corporate card your Nonprofit uses… it’s to be the last one your org ever needs.

And let’s not forget the recent July 4th tax bill, which added new reporting requirements and compliance layers for Nonprofits… only making tools like Givefront that much more critical.

Take Maine Immigrant and Refugee Services, for example— delayed reimbursements and manual processes created pressure for this 13-person team, but since switching to Givefront— they’ve simplified reimbursements, streamlined reconciliation, and introduced real-time spend controls all in one single platform. Check out the full story.

As we look ahead, Matt sees a future where spend management technology can not only keep Nonprofits compliant but also empower them to focus more time on their missions instead of paperwork.

Matt said, “the Nonprofits that will thrive over the next decade are the ones that turn financial clarity into a strategic advantage,” and… “with the level of scrutiny Nonprofits are under today, you can’t afford to be guessing where your money went. Our job is to make sure orgs can see exactly where every dollar is going, without losing a single one to inefficiency.”

If you are a Nonprofit that is ready to level up how you manage spending, you’ll probably want to check out Givefront and consider signing up because it’s free for organizations.

It might just be the last corporate card your organization ever needs.

To continue following Matt and his work, you can connect with him on LinkedIn and Twitter/X. I’m excited to see how his work reshapes the way Nonprofits think about financial management.

Until next week y’all! ✌🏾

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Philanthropy News From This Week

• Why Big Gifts Dropped in 2025 and Will Soon Rise

• Case Study: Low Costs, Organic Growth, Repeat Gifts From Philanthropy

• Can AI Raise Money and Not Replace Humans? 8 Lessons So Far

• Foundation invests $70M over 10 years to restore wild sheep population

Sid’s Book Recommendation

Each week, I recommend a book or film that has impacted my life in a positive way. My recommendation this week is:

SCORE by Amol Maheshwari & Shweta Jhajharia

This book is a guide to help you master the fundamentals of finance, to propel you towards unprecedented success. It's divided into 3 digestible sections, and when combined, each serves as a solid foundation for building a financially successful business. It’s an easy read. Learn more.

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