Controller brings vast experience, passion for nonprofits

ProAct’s new controller, Melissa Munce, is a veteran finance professional with nonprofit experience and time spent in operations and human resources.

“I’ve always had a heart for non-profits,” said Munce. “I started working with non-profits very, very early in my career, even in public accounting I specialized in auditing nonprofits.”

Mission oriented

She likes to get behind the mission of organizations, behind the service, more than the debits and credits of the banking world. An organization’s strategies naturally flow from the mission, and Munce said she’s always had a much broader focus in the positions she’s held.

The new controller comes to ProAct from the Veterinary Hospitals Association, where she served as director of finance and operations for eight years. This involved accounting, but also human resources and even managing the nonprofit’s IT vendor.

The member organization is a different type of nonprofit which distributes products at a discount to veterinarians and picks up euthanized animals.

Other experiences

Prior to the association, she served as a controller with two other companies and as a chief financial officer, and earlier worked for a CPA firm as an accountant and business consultant in the late 1990s.

Munce was director of finance and human resources for the College of Visual Arts and began her career as an auditor with two different firms.

“It’s just taking a different look at everything. It’s not just the numbers,” she said. “It’s how does this affect production or how does this affect our employees?”

Her role at ProAct

She’s learning the systems at ProAct and one of her primary responsibilities will be to produce reconciled, full accrual financial statements for the CEO and board of director s to review each month. Leaders can then stay informed about the nonprofit’s financial performance for the previous month and make decisions based on that data.

Munce said she’s excited to be a reliable resource for President and CEO Judie Foster-Lupkin and assure that everyone has trust in the controller’s office. Others have shared this excitement with one staff member thanking Munce every day for coming in.

“I think they (ProAct) have had to adapt in some ways that are going to also translate really well into the future,” Munce said. “The pandemic forced them to think outside the box and now that box is bigger.”

While she is based in Eagan, Munce said she’s looking forward to visiting ProAct’s sites in Red Wing, Shakopee and Hudson.

The new controller grew up in Illinois but considers herself a Minnesotan. She is married, has two grown children and a 15-year-old toy poodle dog.