{"id":1202,"date":"2008-09-02T08:37:17","date_gmt":"2008-09-02T15:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2008\/09\/cash_flow_or_lack_thereof_1\/"},"modified":"2008-09-02T08:37:17","modified_gmt":"2008-09-02T15:37:17","slug":"cash_flow_or_lack_thereof_1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/cash_flow_or_lack_thereof_1.php","title":{"rendered":"Cash flow, or lack thereof"},"content":{"rendered":"

Texas Ballet Theater, along with many other arts nonprofits, is quickly discovering the difference<\/a> between a balance sheet<\/a> and a cash flow statement<\/a>. The major ballet company finds itself $500,000 shy of the cash it needs to pay current debts, and $2 million short of its annual needs. Says board chairwoman Robin Arena:<\/p>\n

“Up until last year, we had a balanced budget…. But having
\na balanced budget on paper is not the same as being financially stable.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Arena has offered to step down if it would help the organization reach its emergency fundraising goals. And she blames the board and leadership team (herself included) for allowing the gulf between income and expense (or between current liabilities and available cash) to grow so large. Says Arena again:<\/p>\n

\n

“I don’t want to put other people down, because the finger could be
\npointed at me, too, but there are some huge staff weaknesses [when it
\ncomes to] not putting budgets together or not approving them
\ncorrectly…. Ultimately, [the budget] would be the managing director’s job, but we didn’t believe he had the skill set in that job.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So, essentially, the administrative leadership and the board would have to say ”no” to all three of the CEO questions I posted last week<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It’s yet another indicator that the financial health of the cultural nonprofit world was clouded quite a bit by the economic growth of the past decade. And the story offers more proof that every<\/i> significant nonprofit should map and adjust their cash flow projections, even if they’ve passed a balanced budget. <\/p>\n

The budget shows you the beginning and end of the roller coaster ride, but it shows nothing of the nail-biting ride in between.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Texas Ballet Theater, along with many other arts nonprofits, is quickly discovering the difference between a balance sheet and a cash flow statement. The major ballet company finds itself $500,000 shy of the cash it needs to pay current debts, and $2 million short of its annual needs. Says board chairwoman Robin Arena: “Up until […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1202","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1202\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}