Creating a financial strategy for your organization can often seem the most daunting part of the job. Yet when you understand factors such as the underlying capital structure of your operations, how to use budgets as tools for achieving mission, the importance of pricing, and the need for shared financial understanding with your governing board, you can affect both the perceived and actual sustainability of your organization.
Financing the Future is taught by:
-
Sharon Oster, Ph.D.
Yale School of Management -
Dennis R. Young, Ph.D.
Georgia State University
Key Learning
Financing the Future is a two-day seminar that helps you develop a clear understanding of the strategic issues around all aspects of your organization's finances. During this seminar you learn frameworks to ensure:
- operating funds are available when needed
- cash flow is not a crippling problem, and
- revenues are accurately predicted.
Seminar Sessions
Day One
Session 1: Strategic Financial Thinking
In this introductory session, you define the essential strategic thinking behind operating budgeting, capital budgeting, and the overall financial results for an arts or cultural organization.
Session 2: Product Choice
You explore a set of frameworks that help orgaizations think about the connections across their various programs and services, and how the connections affect both revenue and mission.
Session 3: Pricing
Pricing is a powerful tool that is rarely used to full advantage. In this session you discuss the economics and the politics of pricing.
Session 4: Earned Income Ventures
Earned income ventures introduce additional risk and complexity to the financial leadership of a cultural organization. In this session, the faculty lead an in-depth class discussion of a complex case study to explore these issues.
Day Two
Session 1: Major Sources of Revenues
To begin the second day, you look closely at the roles that different sources of revenue, such as charitable contributions and investment income, can play in supporting arts and cultural programming.
Session 2: Revenue Portfolios
Building on earlier sessions, you now focus on strategies for combining different sources of operating revenue, and the management of overall revenue portfolios.
Session 3: Issues of Implementation
Implementation is as big a challenge as decision making. This session focuses on challenges and strategies for implementing financial decisions.
Session 4: Wrap Up Case and Exercise
In this closing session, you look at another case study and complete a team exercise to pull together and practice the concepts from the two day seminar.
Recommended Team
Financing the Future is intended for senior managers and board members involved in strategic decisions for your arts or cultural organization. This seminar does not require any specialized financial training. In putting together your team for this seminar, we recommend that you consider:
- Senior management team members who are involved in strategic decision making and who have responsibility for budgetary control as well as design.
- Board members who are particularly interested in helping position the organization for the future
We strongly recommend a team of three or more people; large organizations should consider sending larger teams.
