[Dana-B-Forum-Moderator]

As a Board Treasurer and nonprofit consultant, I certainly understand the importance of having the right team/resources to manage to reserve funds to effectively manage risk and maximize returns, and that doing this often does require some type of professional help or expertise as noted above (particularly if you don’t already have it in-house or on your board). And while I’ve come across many money managers to help support this on some level, in my experience it’s been much more challenging to find professional support to help effectively ensure the alignment of your organizational values and investment strategy with the emphasis usually being on returns and the right type of diversification. Even as someone who operates with financial sustainability at the fore, I also believe that it’s important to make sure that investment choices don’t directly contradict an organization’s mission and values, particularly for organizations that are focused on achieving equity within their respective communities, teams and across the global landscape.

I’d love to hear from folks who’ve encountered and worked to address issues around values alignment within investment strategies. Have you found effective professional support around this area? Have you and your teams determined where your organization definitely will NOT invest it’s funds from a values perspective? Do you have experience developing criteria for ethical investment strategy? Any and all thoughts welcome!

[Dana-B-Forum-Moderator]

Hi Elisabeth – In terms of potential arguments, I think it might just help to be very clear on how each of the staff investments that you’re proposing could contribute to further advancing the mission, improving operating performance and/or securing/generating/maintaining new and current revenue sources to further build sustainability. Depending on your current operating and financial position and needs, there’s a possibility that some portion of reserves may be needed to fund other short or long-term needs (investments in fixed assets, short-term cash flow shortages, etc.), but I think anything you could do to link your proposed staff investments to your strategies for sustainability could be helpful here.

Curious to hear other’s thoughts. Let us know what you think!

[Dana-B-Forum-Moderator]

Thanks for the insights, Michael. Regarding the changeability of business models, there was a lot of interest and questions around this during today’s webinar. For example, for an organization that’s looking to reduce dependency on government contracts and is seeking to increase individual and foundation contributions, what are some “case studies” and examples of organizations who have done this and how?

Would love to hear more from anyone who has experiences with pushing forward any big changes to your business model. What worked well? What challenges did you face (or continue to face)? What have you learned?