Have a Plan

Tuesday October 13, 2020 comments Tags: Budgets, CNRG Accounting Advisory, Chyla Graham, Development, Nonprofit, Training, Masterclass, Work

Any accounting business or tax advice in this podcast is not intended as a thorough in depth analysis of specific issues, nor substitute for a formal opinion, nor is it sufficient to avoid tax related penalties. If you need any help with that, please reach out.

Are you ready for another masterclass? So November 10th at 1:00 PM Mountain, we are doing the Budget Best Practices and Development Workshop. Join me so that we can go through an outline for your next budget, talk about steps for developing a budget that speaks to your priorities and timelines.

For some of you, you feel like, "Oh, my gosh, we're already midway through." Join us anyway. I want to make sure that you stay on track. And, of course, during our masterclasses, I'm here to answer questions that you have. So, if there's anything that you're like, "How do we budget for that?" Join us. If there's a piece that you're like, "How do we get some buy-in for that?" Join us. I want to support you. I want to be here for you. And I want you to go into 2021 with more clarity, with more strategic planning, with more confidence in the budget that you have. So, again, November 10th at 1:00 PM Mountain, and join me for the one-hour masterclass. Back to the episode.

Hey, it's Chyla Graham, and welcome to another episode of the Nonprofit Nuggets Podcast. It is budget season. So, at the time of recording this, I am deep in the throes of my budget season, and one of the things I realized is even in the uncertainty of all that's happening, we need to put a plan together.

COVID has taught many of us quite a few lessons: good, bad, indifferent. One of the things that has come to the forefront for many of us is that even in the face of uncertainty, we need to put a plan together. I had a whole list of all the things I wanted to accomplish this year, and so many of them did not happen because they were related to travel or related to me being around other people. And COVID did not allow for that to happen on the timeline that I wanted to go with, but it also taught me that because I had those plans, I was able to adjust a little bit better.

Personally, I'm a planner, so that's one of the things that makes me feel comfortable and reduces my own personal anxiety, is to have a plan. And even when things didn't go as I hoped, having the plan felt like a security blanket. And right now, or at least at the time I'm taping this, having that security blanket is important because it helps us know that we're not just flying by the seat of our pants. We actually had something going in. We had intentions, we had things that we wanted to get done. We are not just operating under a whim. And that's what I want you to do as you consider what your budget will be for this upcoming year for your organization, the quarter for your organization, the month for your organization.

Whatever budget process you use, be it an annual one or a quarterly one or, hey, a monthly one because you just can't think that far ahead, use your budget to consider all your intentions, the intentions that you have for your life, or for your organization, for the people that you work with.

And I say this, to do this brain dump, because that is the first part of any plan. If you haven't already checked out Passion Planners, they have a great mind map that helps you think about like, "Okay, what do I need to do? What are the next steps in this thing?" I think it's a great tool to help you flesh out some ideas.

But getting it all out on paper helps it feel less... I don't know if cranial is the word, but for me, I need to see some things down. In my head, it can feel really jumbled and like I have 51 thoughts just going at the same time. And so taking the time to say, "Okay, let me put this on paper or Google sheets. Whatever your jam is. What are the things that I want to do?" Do that before you start a budget.

This season is going to be all about budgets, or at least the first half of it is going to be about budgets. And I want you to know that my number one suggestion before creating your budget is to think about your plan. What are your intentions? What is it that you want to accomplish? Because then it'll make the final steps a lot easier. It'll help you prioritize. It'll let you know what tools you need. It'll let you know how are you keeping in alignment with your mission. So, that's your homework. Until next week, work on doing a brain dump of your intentions, aka the things you want to have done. Bye.

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