As a team of outdoor enthusiasts, our client, Canalway Partners is especially dear to our hearts. Please meet Mera Cardenas, Director of Canalway Partners, the force behind the Towpath Trail in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County. If you’ve enjoyed biking or walking the Towpath Trail that winds through Cleveland, you can thank Canalway Partners, the primary fundraisers for the Towpath Trail in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County. They spearhead strategic decision-making, grant writing, and community outreach. Additionally, Canalway Partners hosts numerous events throughout the year to encourage outdoor exploration of our wonderful city.
Tell Me More About Your Business.
Canalway Partners is a non-profit cultural heritage organization and one of the founding entities of the Ohio & Erie Canalway National Heritage Area. We tell the stories of how the Canal, particularly in Cleveland, contributed to the nation's growth. We honor our industrial heritage and the natural systems connecting us to the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and communities along the Towpath Trail. We achieve this through various projects like the Towpath Trail & Canal Basin Park, programs such as the annual RiverSweep community cleanup which took place last month, and a series of running and cycling events.
What is your biggest challenge?
Being a small non-profit comes with both challenges and advantages. We get to work on a diverse range of projects, but this also means juggling many tasks simultaneously. Our small, versatile staff and board members must be generalists to accomplish everything necessary to fulfill our mission.
What Lead you to BudgetEase?
When I joined the organization, I saw the need to transition from in house accounting to using an outsourced service to improve the information that we were getting. BudgetEase was recommended by the accountant we were working with. The match is perfect. BudgetEase makes our life easier by providing the information that we need. We trust them to make sure that our financial information is accurate.
Why Do You Find Having Someone Else Do Your Bookkeeping Helpful?
Given our generalist approach, we truly need a specialist like BudgetEase. As the executive director, I rely on your team not only for regular bookkeeping but also to ensure we adhere to best practices in recognizing revenue and filing grant reports.
