YIKES! It's Budget Time :: Understanding Budgeting in Uncertain Times
You are all doing incredible work , finding ways to continue to provide vital services AND maintain viability even when confronting the reality that the current fiscal year’s budget is gaining greater irrelevance under the extraordinarily ‘abnormal’ operating conditions of the COVID-19 response. The current reality of what predictable expenses and revenue are, is not only different, but wholly unimagined. So then, what does a healthy & realistic budget process look like given that many of you are approaching the close of your fiscal year and the demands of drafting and approving next year’s budget in a time of so much ‘unknown.’ I want to start with an observation … Your organization is not the organization’s budget. The organization is the day-to-day operations that put assets to work creating benefit in the world, not the prediction that was made several months ago about the sources and allocation of money for a given 12 month period (aka your budget) - nor are you the predictio