About Us
Enthusiastic, Passionate, Whole-Hearted, Fierce
Our Vision
Melanie has always been analytical and poetic. A lover of spreadsheets and wanting to change the world.
Ardent Bookkeeping was started with this in mind. A desire to journey with the small business owner. The non profit. The social entrepreneurs and ministry leaders. Those who started what they started with dreams and hopes for impact and purpose.
By allowing us to handle the details and the bookkeeping and the analysis, you can be free to do that.
Your mission is worth pursuing. You need financial information that is easy to understand. Letting the numbers be not the focus, but a part of telling your story well.
Our Story
I have a high value for connectedness. I remember reading Strength Finders and it said that “people with this value will eat their cereal in the morning and wonder about the people who made it”.
And I thought- I do that!
So if that’s your make up, keep reading. Otherwise feel free to move on to other parts of the website!
My undergraduate degree is in Math and Economics. After working at a mutual fund company in Boston for four years after college, I moved to go to grad school. I graduated with my MBA in Finance in 1995 from Indiana University.
From there I moved to Minnesota and worked as a financial analyst at a medical device company. I met my husband during this time. As we began a family, I was a contract bookkeeper. After 8 years in Minnesota we moved to Seattle where my husband graduated from seminary. While we lived in the pacific northwest, I worked at a non profit as a grant writer, supervisor of volunteers and director of operations.
We now call Western PA home. Two children have joined our family via adoption. In more recent years I have worked with a missional business that helps empower women out of poverty by partnering with them in selling their fair trade goods.
This thread of business and social impact weaved throughout. And of course between these lines I have written there are many stories to be told.
Maybe someday we can have coffee (well actually chai for me) or a video chat and we can share our stories.
Melanie Gillgrist, MBA
Owner
First Name
Team Member
