Beyond the Numbers: Giving Back to Our Communities
by Cameron D. Kolb, CPA, CMA, Senior Associate
Posted on October 26, 2026
As many of you have worked with our firm for a while, there is a good chance that you have heard an HMer talk about volunteering with the firm, spotted a LinkedIn post detailing an event, or even scoured the ‘community involvement’ tab of the firm website. But perhaps you did not realize quite how much of Heinfeld Meech’s time and resources are spent volunteering and supporting organizations with good goals. Since the firm’s inception, volunteering has been a core pillar of our culture, and the idea of giving back to our communities is engrained in the hearts of all HMers.
It is an annual tradition in the Flagstaff office to volunteer at the Flagstaff Family Food Center, packing produce boxes and bringing packed boxes to cars of community members. The FFFC, opened in 1991 by a Flagstaff local, has a goal of providing hunger relief and hope to individuals through “neighbors feeding neighbors, every day”. During the past year, the FFFC served 8.2 million pounds of food throughout the community. Though our day of volunteering was just a small portion of that food, it is impactful to know how, exactly, our efforts combined with the rest of our community can result in such an impact.
Our Scottsdale office also has a tradition of supporting Girls on the Run, an organization dedicated to supporting young girls in both their physical and mental health. Established in 1996, their mission is to inspire confidence, connection, and community in girls across the country. The firm has been supporting Girls on the Run as a sponsor since 2018, with our very own Sara Kirk on the board (and Jill Shaw and Kristen Conway having previously been board members as well), and it has not only been a great volunteer project, but a fantastic way for the women of the Scottsdale office to connect and bond in a way that fieldworks and remote calls do not often afford.
The firm also offers sixteen hours (or two full days) of community service per year per employee, to allow them to participate in volunteer initiatives they are passionate about. I am rather fond of volunteering in the kitchen of the Family Food Center to prepare dinners for families who come in each evening, and Sophie Madison, one of our Flagstaff consultants, volunteers monthly at La Fonda to provide similar dinner services. Makenzi and a group of other Tucsonans chose to volunteer at Tucson Village Farm, helping weed, put up fences, and even plant some squash! These are just a few examples of things employees of the firm have gone out of their way to help with in their own free time, and the list keeps growing.
As a tangential point, the firm will also match donations up to a certain amount to nonprofit organizations the employees are passionate about, as well, and help sponsor organizations such as Habitat for Humanity of Northern Arizona and Encircle Arizona. Employees can track wellness activities whenever they enter their time, which are converted into donations to local food banks. Through this initiative, the firm has donated nearly $50,000 to local food banks!
Our philanthropy is not limited to full-time employees, however. Every year, for our externship program, we volunteer with at Feed My Starving Children, a nonprofit dedicated to providing nutritious meals to children around the world who may have otherwise not gotten a good, square meal as easily. They have both donation and volunteer-based initiatives, the latter of which we do for our externship. It shows off our firm culture to the externs, allows them to give back to their community in an accessible way, and opens the door (and their minds) to more volunteer opportunities.
This is just a scratch at the surface of the volunteering and community initiatives that HeinfeldMeech employees participate in. Next time you are in the middle of an audit, or working with your consultant, go ahead and ask them what kind of volunteering they have done lately; you just might be delighted and surprised at the answer! 😊
