{"id":1817,"date":"2013-06-19T17:12:59","date_gmt":"2013-06-20T00:12:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/?p=1817"},"modified":"2013-06-19T17:12:59","modified_gmt":"2013-06-20T00:12:59","slug":"please-sir-i-want-some-more-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/2013\/06\/please-sir-i-want-some-more-budget\/","title":{"rendered":"Please Sir, I want some more&#8230; Budget"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1819\" alt=\"Oliver\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Oliver-300x180.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"180\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Oliver-300x180.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Oliver.jpg 460w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><strong><em>Moooooore? \u00a0You want more?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s face it, there are moments when the typical nonprofit budget process can descend to Dickensian depths of oppressiveness, misery and hopelessness.<\/p>\n<p>So let&#8217;s take a moment to dream up a DIFFERENT story &#8230;<strong> something joyous<\/strong> &#8230; one in which all of the<strong> other<\/strong> parameters of your organization&#8217;s budget remain the stable, AND&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The reply to your request is, <em style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\"><strong>&#8220;Why, yes! \u00a0Gladly. \u00a0Here you go! \u00a0Here&#8217;s an increase to your organization&#8217;s budget of 10 percent!&#8221;\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>What would YOU do with the money?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Pay down debt?<\/li>\n<li>Commission a new work?<\/li>\n<li>Give (or take) a raise?<\/li>\n<li>Save it for a rainy day?<\/li>\n<li>Purchase some needed equipment?<\/li>\n<li>Hire a new staff position?<\/li>\n<li>Increase your advertising?<\/li>\n<li>Invest in staff training?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>My experience is that it&#8217;s pretty easy to spread whatever amount might be allocated &#8211; if not to pursue some new ambition, then to relieve some of the risk of core operations.<\/p>\n<p>So, what happens if we\u00a0adjust the question to ask: \u00a0&#8220;What would you do with the money <em style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\"><strong>to pursue JUST ONE of your organization&#8217;s most profound challenges?&#8221;<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Since you&#8217;re reading this blog, I imagine (or at least hope) that &#8220;audience building&#8221; figures high on your list of profound challenges. \u00a0Please let me invite you to <strong>LEAVE A REPLY<\/strong> to this blog post &#8211; and share whether that really is your organization&#8217;s TOP priority &#8211; and\/or with what other top priorities it competes.<\/p>\n<p>What stops you from actually dedicating a full 10% (or any other significant amount) to doing precisely that? \u00a0I\u00a0know, I know &#8211; a balanced budget is a fragile thing. \u00a0Finding ANY extra money is always a challenge.<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, I frequently wonder whether nonprofit organizations might better manage their budget processes by routinely building in something like a 10% <em><strong>un-allocated<\/strong><\/em> cash reserve &#8211; with the understanding that must be spent to pursue one of that organization&#8217;s MOST PROFOUND challenges. \u00a0I&#8217;m not talking about a rainy-day fund. \u00a0I&#8217;m talking about money that is INTENDED to be spent &#8211; but with a purpose ON TOP OF whatever that year&#8217;s operation depends.<\/p>\n<p>Wouldn&#8217;t it be fun &amp; productive to build your budget process around a protected capacity to return to your hard-working staff <em>after &amp; outside of the regular budget process<\/em> to say,<strong> &#8220;But wait, there&#8217;s more!&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>And give your organization a second-helping of budget capacity.<\/p>\n<p># # #<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Moooooore? \u00a0You want more? Let&#8217;s face it, there are moments when the typical nonprofit budget process can descend to Dickensian depths of oppressiveness, misery and hopelessness. So let&#8217;s take a moment to dream up a DIFFERENT story &#8230; something joyous &#8230; one in which all of the other parameters of your organization&#8217;s budget remain the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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":[28,21,26,7,4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1817","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-budget","7":"category-capitalization","8":"category-innovation","9":"category-morale","10":"category-strategy","11":"entry","12":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1817\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}