Since our early exploratory meetings, both the Pennsylvania Association of Nonprofit Organizations and Creating the Future staff have been clear about our mutual goals for the joint conference we are planning for April of this year.
We have seen the conference as one among many first steps towards the goal of accelerating and supporting a movement that is already happening in communities all around us…
• a movement to build stronger relationships and trust
• to build more participation within communities
• to identify and build upon the strengths that already exist
• all towards the shared vision we all have for the future of our communities
We have been as intentional as possible to incorporate those ends into every aspect of the conference planning, from the breakout sessions to encouraging fuller participation by “vendors” (and our desire to find a less transactional word for those partners!); from the plenary and networking sessions to the way the conference is evaluated for success.
Now it is time for us to walk the talk in how we budget for this event.
Does Budgeting Have to be Where Values and Vision Go to Die?
Somehow we have all come to believe – nonprofits and for-profit businesses alike – that the only way we can incorporate vision and values into the way we resource our work is to adopt an “ethics policy.” Because we have not been shown another way to think about all those budget line items, we think the only way to budget is the way we’ve always done it – that vision and values may apply to the products and services we provide, but not to the cold hard reality of budgeting.
The truth is just the opposite. Budgeting and resourcing our work can look very different from what we know. They can absolutely incorporate all our vision, all our values, as tools for identifying, building upon and nurturing our existing strengths.
At its August and September 2013 board meetings, Creating the Future’s board committed to find ways for our budgeting to both build upon and nurture the assets we already have.
Both those activities are vital to walking the talk of the world we all want to see – building upon our assets, AND nurturing and growing them. Do any of us want to see a world where we use up our assets and have nothing left, operating from scarcity year after year?
In the financial world, smart investors wouldn’t dream of spending down their principal and using it up. The smart investor finds ways to build her life upon the income that principal generates (using the money for what she needs) while also finding ways to grow that asset (growing it while she uses it).
That is what Asset-Based Budgeting and Resourcing is all about.
Tenets
There are 3 basic tenets to Asset-Based Budgeting and Resourcing:
- Walk the talk of your vision and values in your budgeting and planning for resources
- Build on what you already have: Identify assets that are needed, and who might already have those assets.
- Make every effort to nurture and grow assets vs. using them up
In our experience, this is not just an approach to developing resources for community organizations. This approach to resource development is what creates strong businesses as well.
Example: PANO / Creating the Future Conference
Common budgets contain a list of line items, then cash in /out, then totals.
When we are focused on assets, though, we must look beyond just cash, to consider the things we really want. We don’t want money, we want a hotel room. And we don’t even really want a hotel room, we want a warm, cozy, inviting place to stay.
In most budgets, that warm cozy place to stay is identified as follows: $200. That is transactional thinking.
When we look beyond that $200, and instead seek that warm, cozy, inviting place to stay, the possibilities expand exponentially.
As an example, we have had partners put us up in some of the most beautiful homes we could have imagined.
In some cases, the owner was away, and we had the whole house to ourselves. In other cases, the owner made us feel like kings.
In one case, the homeowner not only shared her home and made us a breakfast we will never forget; she also came to the event. As a local business woman who had never really gotten involved in community work before, this was huge… because that one evening led her to deep involvement with that effort long after we left!
That’s what it means to Walk the talk of your vision and values in your budgeting and planning for resources.
The following is one way to approach this, using one small aspect of our joint PANO / Creating the Future conference: 3 days of Creating the Future training for the conference planning team, condensing our 5-day immersion into 3 jam-packed days. (We encourage you to share other tools you have found for accomplishing this same result.)
Columns #2, #3 and #4 on the chart below describe everything a budget might include for this training, broken down to make clear that whether they belong to someone in the room or someone in the community outside the room, these items are all assets – real tangible things that we ignore when we identify them only by their cash value. (For reference, Column #5 is what it would cost if this were a cash-only budget.)
To see a full page pdf of this chart, click here.
Now the question: How can we identify and grow these assets while using them? Here are just some ideas (we’d love to know your own ideas!). All these ideas are rooted in a view of partnership that is about learning together, applying what we learn to our individual work, and putting what we have into the pot – the concept of Collective Enoughness.
Mission:
• Creating the Future receive vital feedback to help us create more condensed trainings like this, and share that openly (as we are doing here), so that everyone learns together.
• Creating the Future, Community Foundation and PANO gather data to further other aspects of each of our work individually, and our work collectively.
Lodging:
• Can we work with the conference hotel? Nurture relationships with other hotels? Help them and their staff get them more involved with other community-minded businesses in their community?
• Is someone going to be out of town for that time period, who wants to lend their home? Can we include them in the conference in some way, or otherwise help them achieve their own goals?
Airfare and Rental Car:
• Airline miles?
• Credit card points?
Meals not included in event:
• Build relationships with local restaurants (Get them involved in the conference? Convene them with other businesses trying to do good? Perhaps the hotel!)
TrainingVenue:
• Is there a training facility, large conference space, empty storefront (with heat!)?
• Does United Way or a local community foundation have space to share? Can we include them in the conference or other efforts that will help them achieve their own mission?
Meals (for the event):
• Is there a local group whose mission is to help parolees learn culinary skills?
• Perhaps a group that trains the developmentally disabled in kitchen arts or catering?
• Could we engage them in the capacity building work we are doing, so they benefit beyond our cash support?
By looking at functions as things to be accomplished (vs. line items), we can think more creatively about using the assets that already exist all around us. And by being aware to go beyond just USING those assets, but to also GROW those assets, we can think beyond transactional relationships, and start to build the trust and participation this event is all about.
Many organizations already do this naturally. What this system does is to help them with the mechanics, and to do so from a position of shared strength – the position of collective enoughness that says, “Together we have everything we need.”
When we stop thinking only of ourselves and our needs, and begin to look out to the community as a whole, we realize that scarcity only exists when we are alone. When we link arms together, we indeed have everything we need. And when we nurture those links, they bloom and grow.
Which holds true for any activity that must be budgeted, nonprofit or for-profit, anywhere in the world.
We hope you will share your own experience with this approach, as well as your ideas, in the comments below, or at any of our meetings as we plan this conference. You can find our past meetings online here. And subscribe to our Walking the Talk blog to be notified of upcoming meetings!