Heber City-based nonprofit accountant Carol Sonnenberg was sifting through the finances of an AIDS nonprofit in San Diego on the day of Magic Johnson’s November 1991 press conference. The nonprofit’s staff members and volunteers huddled around a TV in the conference room as the basketball star announced to the world that he’d contracted HIV.
“There were people in the building who were really sick and had lost their jobs and lost their homes,” Sonnenberg said. “He gave a very positive message, and it helped turn the tide on how people looked at (HIV and) AIDS because he publicly owned it.”
That same year, she saw the AIDS-focused nonprofits she was auditing be hit with a “fire hose” of funding as the federal government distributed $220 million in grants through the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act.
Being a Certified Public Accountant, or CPA, in the nonprofit sector has allowed Sonnenberg to watch life unfold from the unique perspective of a number cruncher.
Her involvement in nonprofits has also been invaluable in her personal life. For example, when her nephew was born with a heart defect and needed a blood transfusion, she knew how to handle the situation and whom to contact because she had been audit committee chair of the San Diego Blood Bank.
“I knew how to form the family blood bank, and my blood went into my nephew. I would have never been able to do that if I wasn’t on the blood bank board,” she said. “You never know when you’re going to need a nonprofit.”
Sonnenberg’s involvement in nonprofits began with becoming a Girl Scout at 6 years old. It was at a Girl Scout camp where she learned horseback riding, one of her lifelong passions. She later served as the leader of her younger sisters’ and daughter’s troop and audited Girl Scouts San Diego.
That experience, along with participating in her local Special Olympics with her brother, who has Down syndrome, as a teenager, formed the basis of Sonnenberg’s passion for nonprofit organizations.
Sonnenberg graduated from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona with a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1988. She began her studies as an equine science major before realizing just how cutthroat and expensive the industry was. But it turned out that auditing was very similar to wrangling horses.
“Being not just an accountant, but a consultant and a partner to my clients, you have to be brave, and you have to be kind. So, both at the same time,” she said. “If I’m hard with my clients, they’re not going to want to listen. If I’m hard with the horses, they’re not going to want to listen.”
After graduating college, Sonnenberg began working at her father’s CPA firm, which had “hundreds of homeowners associations” and only five nonprofit organizations as clients. But the nonprofits provided Sonnenberg with a greater sense of purpose in her work.
“I’m like, ‘My people!’ So, I would audit those, and I’m like, ‘Can we get more of these?’” she said. “Within 10 years, we had over 100.”
That’s in large part because Sonnenberg began teaching classes at Nonprofit Solutions in San Diego in 1992. The organization, which had launched a year prior, has now taught over 110,000 practitioners how to more effectively run their nonprofit organizations.
Sonnenberg’s involvement began when she drove to their headquarters and asked to teach a class: “How to Save $1,000 on Your Audit.”
“They said, ‘Sure, but we also need someone to teach nonprofit budgeting and nonprofit tax, and we’re not going to pay you.’ And I’m like, ‘What a good deal!’” she said.
Teaching was an opportunity for Sonnenberg to provide advice to nonprofits before she audited them. Nonprofits were typically “ill prepared” for audits.
“It’s like movers showing up on moving day and your boxes aren’t even packed,” she said.
Volunteer teaching in the sector she was most interested in was not only a smart business move, allowing her to make connections with potential clients, but enjoyable for the same reasons being a Girl Scout troop leader was. Sonnenberg later taught courses about nonprofit finance at University of San Diego as an adjunct professor between 2004 and 2013.
Putting together audit reports isn’t all “checklists and forms,” but also involves meetings with the nonprofit’s accountant and CEO, culminating in a brief presentation to the board of directors followed by advice and a Q and A.
“Now that I’ve already visited 100 other nonprofits and I’ve seen best practices and I’ve seen challenges, I say, ‘You know what I saw somewhere else? I think you guys should try this,’” Sonnenberg said. “Speaking in front of people when you mean it, when you care, when you want them to grow and do better is so easy. People don’t want to look at their audit. I get it. … But this is a tool they use to get bigger.”
Some audit findings, like financial oversights or improper internal controls, require that Sonnenberg create a corrective action plan for the organization to execute by its next audit.
“Sometimes, I get called in in a crisis. Emergency CFO. I’ve had it where someone’s died and they need a replacement, or someone’s committed fraud and they want a limited investigation,” she said.
Then, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, Sonnenberg confessed that financial crisis response gigs are the most “fun.” She thinks that’s because her outdoorsy interests have prepared her for all sorts of survival scenarios, even financial ones.
Sonnenberg now lives in Heber City with her golden retriever, Daphne, and three horses: mama Zeta, her daughter, April — also known as Wink because of her missing eye — and “mean girl” Lucy, short for Lucifer. Whenever Sonnenberg has a bad day or difficult meeting, her solution is to “hug a horse.”
Sonnenberg started her own CPA firm in 2016 and moved to Heber City in 2021 to be closer to her sisters and daughter, who was attending the University of Utah at the time.
Some Utah nonprofits she’s audited include Wasatch Immigration Project in Park City, Friends of the Bear River Refuge in Brigham City and Utah Nurse Practitioners. She’s also the founding treasurer of Outdoor Access Project, a nonprofit committed to accessible outdoor recreation statewide.
Sonnenberg’s advice to those wanting to start a nonprofit is, in most cases, not to.
There are about 1.9 million nonprofits in the United States, and over 12,000 of them in Utah, according to Candid, a nonprofit focused on nonprofit data. Chances are, there is already a local nonprofit that meets a particular need, Sonnenberg said.
“I really encourage people before they start one, ‘Do you know one that’s nearby, or now, even remote, that you can join and make better?’” she said. “If you want to start one, then let’s do the accounting right. … If not me, get another accountant. But don’t waste your time on your computer doing your own accounting and finance and banking when you need to do your mission and purpose.”