Cultural attraction chief financial officer job description
A cultural attraction CFO manages the budget, cash, monthly close and yearly audit for a nonprofit or public zoo, museum or garden. The CFO tracks restricted gifts and grants by fund, works with the auditor on Form 990, and reports to the board's finance and audit committees.
By the HireBus team · Updated · Pay data: BLS, May 2025
Median pay, museums, zoos and gardens · BLS, May 2025
Our CFO keeps the finances of a nonprofit attraction in order. You run the budget, cash flow, and monthly close; track restricted gifts and grants; lead the annual audit and work with our auditor on the Form 990; and report to the board's finance and audit committees. You also supervise the Bookkeeper.
2. Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Build the annual budget with the CEO and department heads from attendance, membership, and fundraising forecasts.
Track restricted gifts and grants by fund, release restrictions when conditions are met, and report spending to funders.
Lead the annual audit and work with your auditor to prepare the Form 990.
Manage cash flow from the slow months through the summer peak, including any line of credit.
Report monthly to the CEO and the board's finance committee on results against budget and the year-end forecast.
Oversee endowment and investment reporting under the board's spending and investment policies.
Set internal controls for cash handling, ticketing, gift shop sales, and purchasing, and manage insurance renewals.
3. Key Tasks / Daily Activities
Review cash balances and the deposits from admissions, the gift shop, and events.
Approve payables, payroll, and purchases over [your approval limit].
Answer budget questions from managers and check their spending against plan.
Work with development so gifts, pledges, and grant budgets match in both sets of records.
Prepare schedules for the board, the auditor, or [city or county partners].
4. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Monthly close on time: [your target].
Days cash on hand: [your target].
Audit adjustments: [your target].
Budget variance by department: [your target].
Grant financial reports filed on time: [your target].
5. Required Qualifications and Skills
Bachelor's degree in accounting or finance; [CPA license or master's degree].
[7+] years of finance leadership, including nonprofit fund accounting.
Experience leading audits and working with auditors on the Form 990.
Experience tracking restricted gifts, pledges, and government grants.
Writes financial reports that board members without finance training can follow.
6. Preferred Experience
Finance experience at a zoo, aquarium, museum, garden, or other attraction with earned revenue.
Experience with a single audit, when your federal awards require one.
Experience with endowments, capital campaign pledges, or municipal operating agreements.
Has used [your accounting system] alongside ticketing and donor databases.
7. Physical Requirements
Desk work with long stretches at a computer.
Walk the site for meetings and events.
With or without reasonable accommodation.
8. Work Environment and Schedule
Full-time office role on site, with [hybrid days if your policy allows].
Longer hours at month-end, year-end, and during audit fieldwork.
Some evening board and committee meetings.
9. Compensation and Benefits
Pay: [range and hourly or salary basis].
Additional pay: [overtime, bonus or incentive terms, or none].
Benefits: [health, dental, vision, retirement, paid time off, and when they start].
10. Company Culture and Overview
[Two or three sentences on what your company does, the area you serve, and the support a new chief financial officer gets in the first 90 days.]
11. How to Apply
[Apply link or email]. Our process: [phone interview, in-person interview, and next steps]. Contact [hiring contact] if you need an accommodation during the application process.
Need help filling this role? HireBus posts the ad, Iris interviews every applicant by phone before you do, and you decide who to hire. Start hiring now
What makes finance at a cultural attraction different
In a company, finance follows the profit. Here much of the money arrives with a donor's conditions, federal and state rules can call for extra audits, and the collection may not be on the balance sheet at all.
Donor restrictions run the books
Donors can limit a gift by time or by purpose. Some give endowment money that must be invested to pay out income for good. Form 990 splits net assets into two groups: with donor restrictions and without them. A reserve the board set aside on its own still counts as unrestricted, so keep board choices and donor conditions apart in every report. Source: IRS: Instructions for Form 990.
Your state may require an audit
Some states require charities above a set size to have an independent audit. California requires it once gross revenue reaches two million dollars in a year, not counting government grants and contracts that call for their own accounting. A corporation that size also needs an audit committee, and staff, including the CEO and CFO, can't sit on it. The audited statements must be open to the public on request. Check your own state's charity office. Source: California Attorney General: Guide for Charities.
The collection may stay off the balance sheet
Museums can choose not to record their collections as assets. Since FASB's 2019 update, they can keep that choice and still spend money from selling objects on direct care of the collection, if their policy allows it. The notes to the financial statements must then describe that policy and say what the museum counts as direct care. Expect the auditor to ask for it. Source: FASB: Accounting Standards Update 2019-03, updating the definition of collections.
Federal grants can add a single audit
Spend a million dollars or more in federal awards in one fiscal year, and federal rules call for a single audit for that year. Federal money that reaches you through a state agency or another group counts too. A few conservation, education or building grants in one year can cross that line, so track federal spending by award all year. Source: 2 CFR 200.501: Audit requirements (Cornell LII).
Pledges pay out over years
A capital campaign gift is often a pledge paid over several years, and an endowment pays out only what the board's spending policy allows. So the gift shows up long before the cash does. The CFO tracks every pledge by due date, sends reminders with development, and plans building costs around the cash that has actually come in.
How much cultural attraction chief financial officers make
The closest BLS group for cultural attraction chief financial officers is chief executives. Chief executives who work for museums, zoos, gardens, and historic sites earned a median of $164,070 a year ($78.88 an hour) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s below the $213,990 median for chief executives in all industries. About 850 of the 204,350 chief executives in that survey work for museums, zoos and gardens.
Salary, sometimes with a bonus the CEO and board tie to a clean audit and a year that ends on budget.
Museums, zoos and gardens
$164,070$164,070 median Middle half $109,470–$280,000 10th–90th $84,990–$400,460
All industries
$213,990$213,990 median Middle half $129,540–$356,200 10th–90th $75,700–$507,730
10th–90th percentileMiddle halfMedianAnnual pay, May 2025. Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics.
Annual pay by percentile
Group
10th
25th
Median
75th
90th
Museums, zoos and gardens
$84,990
$109,470
$164,070
$280,000
$400,460
All industries
$75,700
$129,540
$213,990
$356,200
$507,730
BLS groups museums, zoos, botanical gardens and historic sites together. Post a real range for your market in the ad.
Skills to hire for, and what you can teach
Hire for these
Nonprofit fund accounting, including releasing a restriction when the donor's condition is met
Has led an audit from planning through the auditor's letter to the board
Explains a budget gap to a board member who has never read a balance sheet
Sets cash controls for gates, registers and event deposits that busy staff will follow
Builds a budget from attendance and membership forecasts, not last year plus a bit
Teach these on the job
How your ticketing and point-of-sale reports post to the ledger
Your gift acceptance policy and how development codes gifts
Your city or county agreement and its reporting dates
Your endowment spending policy and investment reports
Which revenue lines your auditor has flagged for a closer tax look
Finance teams at attractions often run fund accounting software such as Sage Intacct, Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT or MIP Fund Accounting, fed by the ticketing system and the donor database. Tying ticket sales and gifts back to the ledger is much of the monthly close, so a candidate who has done it in your systems starts ahead.
Cultural attraction chief financial officer interview questions
They have their own page: 6 questions that test this job, what strong and weak answers sound like, and a work exercise to run with your finalists.
The finance committee and the CFO should agree each target in the first month, working from the close calendar, cash history and last audit.
Monthly close on time
On the close calendar, log the date the ledger closed and the finance committee packet went out next to the target date. Write down why any close ran late, for example event deposits that came in slow or gifts missing a grant code.
Days cash on hand
Unrestricted cash and investments the board can use, divided by average daily operating expenses. Track it monthly, and watch the low point in late winter before admissions pick up.
Audit adjustments
Number and size of the entries the auditor proposes after fieldwork, from the auditor's summary. Fewer, smaller adjustments mean the monthly books were right all year.
Budget variance by department
Compare each department with its budget for that same month, not a twelfth of the year, since summer brings in most of the gate and shop revenue. Ask managers to explain big gaps before the finance committee meets.
Grant financial reports filed on time
Every grant's report dates in one shared calendar, checked monthly. Count reports filed by the funder's deadline, and note any the funder questioned or sent back.
Career path
Senior accountant for grants and restricted fundsTracks restrictions and files grant reports at a nonprofit.
Director of finance at a smaller museum or zooRuns the whole finance office, often with one bookkeeper.
Chief Financial OfficerOwns the budget, the audit and the board's finance reports.
By the 15th day of the fifth month after the fiscal year ends, which is May 15 for a calendar year. Form 8868 gets an automatic extension. The return has to be filed electronically, and the form asks whether every voting board member got a full copy before filing, so build board review into the timeline.
How much does a cultural attraction chief financial officer make?
Chief executives who work for museums, zoos, gardens, and historic sites earned a median of $164,070 a year ($78.88 an hour) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The middle half earned between $109,470 and $280,000 a year. Pay also depends on your local market, experience and bonus terms.
How should the CFO and development keep gift records in step?
Match the donor database to the general ledger every month, gift by gift, before the books close. Agree on codes for restricted gifts, pledges, event tickets and sponsorships, and on who records a pledge when it's signed. When the two sets of numbers drift, the audit finds it, so fix the differences while the people who made them still remember why.
Can restricted money cover operating costs?
Only for what the donor named. When you spend on that purpose, or a time limit passes, the money is released to unrestricted. To use it for something else, ask the donor in writing to change the terms and keep the answer in the gift file. Borrowing from a restricted fund to make payroll should go to the board first, with a plan to pay it back.
What should a new CFO already know on day one?
Fund accounting, because restrictions, pledges and grant reports run through every close here. A strong corporate CFO without it can spend the first year learning them. Ticketing and gift shop reports, your city agreement and your endowment policy are things you can teach in the first months. The template offers a CPA license or a master's degree as a choice, so pick the one that fits your audit and grant load.
