An organization’s financial health is tied inextricably to the community’s overall health and resilience and vice versa. And, both require a laser like focus on priorities! We must decide what is most integral and essential to our work and mission and pursue those priorities with unrelenting fervor. Furthermore, we must be resolute in our commitment to funding those priorities with financial, social, cultural, and human capital. If we do that— and assuming we have the right priorities— our organizational resilience and financial resilience will mutually support one another.
In the current pandemic, schools have to make tough, gut-wrenching decisions about priorities. My guess is that those schools that prove to be the most resilient will be those that successfully focus their resources on those purposes most dear to their core missions— people and program! Ultimately, committed and careful stewardship of mission and finances will make organizational resilience and sustainability all the more likely.
If our resources get fragmented and are not fully focused on what is key to our organization’s mission— our reason for existence— we shall compromise our philosophical and financial sustainability.
Billy Peebles
June 8, 2020