By Jessica Brown
When she started out on the ground floor of the nonprofit world, Lisa Stevenson couldn’t have known it would lead to her becoming a certified public accountant and owning her own accounting firm one day.
“I started out doing human resources, bookkeeping, IT and office management for a nonprofit and learned a lot along the way.”
After graduating in 1992 from SIU Carbondale, Stevenson says she moved to Phoenix, where she would stay for 27 years. The original decision to start her own business was not an easy one, but Stevenson says it was the right path because it allowed her to work from home while raising three young children.
The three co-founding CPAs behind Four Leaf Accounting are (clockwise from seated) Chief Executive Officer Jill Foley, Chief Financial Officer Lisa Stevenson and Chief Operating Officer Kristyn Kozar.
“I thought there had to be more women out there like me who are educated, hardworking and they’re smart, but their role in the home is equally important,” she comments. “I’m a mother at the beginning and end of the day. If I was going to pour my heart and soul into something, I wanted to feel what I was doing was making a real impact.”
Stevenson shares that while her children were all in school, she went on to get her CPA license. And in 2014, she founded Stevenson CPA, LLC.
“I did bookkeeping for several clients virtually, before working remotely was even a mainstream thing,” she says. The impact she was making was obvious. Working for various nonprofit groups over the next two decades, she knew this was her true life’s purpose.
In 2023, Kristyn Kozar, CPA (who had been Stevenson’s employee), became a partner, and Stevenson CPA, LLC changed to NPO Accountants. “NPO, short for Non-Profit Organization, explained what we do and who we served,” Stevenson shares.
“Eventually we started to look ahead to retirement with my existing partner and we came to a conclusion,” she says. “We could either find another partner to replace me or let our firm get acquired by a larger one.”
Intent that the core values of their firm weren’t lost by being acquired, the solution seemed clear.
“We decided to align with a similar firm,” says Stevenson. Jill Foley, fellow CPA and founder of Four Leaf Financial & Accounting, joined forces with NPO Accountants, and the three women recently formed a new firm named Four Leaf Accounting.
“We work exclusively with nonprofits and we’re women-owned and women-led,” Stevenson says. Originally from Kankakee, Stevenson returned to Illinois in 2022 to a new area near Springfield.
She now considers herself a member of her local community by volunteering for a local nonprofit and being part of a newly formed women’s consultant group. About the consultant group, Stevenson shares, “We’re mostly based in Springfield and we share ideas, thoughts and resources in the nonprofit sector.”
Four Leaf Accounting works with nonprofits instead of for-profits whose driving force may be financial in nature.
“The end goal of nonprofits is not to make a profit but they do need resources. They are publicly supported and mission focused,” she explains, adding that she feels there isn’t enough accounting information available for those who start or already run a nonprofit.
Four Leaf Accounting has begun hosting learning workshops for current and future nonprofit executives and their board members.
“From my experience, board members join nonprofits because they are passionate about a cause, but they need tools to grow into that position and be successful,” says Stevenson.
Stevenson says she and her partners are very interested in sharing details with current and future nonprofits, and plan to hold learning sessions both in-person and virtually throughout the year.
For more information about registering for learning sessions, services offered, careers and other details, visit fourleafaccounting.com.
