As I've often discussed here, and there, and everywhere- much of our attention has been focused on our finances and investments this past year with the economic turmoil. After a spirited discussion at our last Board meeting, we set up a Futures Task Force and charged it with creating a 'sustainable' revenue and expense model that can enable us to continue to serve both our fundholders and the community as well as we have over recent years.
Not an easy task.
So, an internal team of staff has been meeting several times to crunch numbers, look at some historical data, and to pose some questions for the broader task force, which includes several leaders on our Board, to tackle. Our first meeting was held recently. I must say, it was one of those meetings that made me feel grateful to be around such intellect and committment for the Foundation.
Half of our revenue comes from administrative fees on funds, other income is from interest (21%), fundraising (10%), strategic reserve (8%) and several funds set up to support us (11%).
The question is: is this model sustainable over the next few years? Does our current fee structure provide enough support for the community work we are undertaking? Not easy questions to ask of ourselves. We are lucky that community foundations are glad to share information and we can benchmark against others- thereby learning that yes, our fees could be raised since they are rather low in comparison.
But, are there other ways for us to pay for community programs? And what about donor services?
As we have been working with nonprofits in our Economic Response Initiative, we have been talking to them about taking a hard look at their budgets and operations. We are now doing the same. The Task Force is taking this work seriously, and will be deliberating for the next several months.
Let me know what you think..
