It’s Budget time at the church. Which means sorting and resorting through line-item printouts and seeing what areas need more money, and which areas might need less than the year before. When I got here in Lubbock the budget process was almost finished, so I inherited a setup that I’ve had to work with all year. As with most things inherited, I had to make the best of something that I didn’t necessarily create. (Which could be a long blog post all on it’s own…) This time around I get to change everything, and I’m tearing it up. I’m renaming line items, and creating some new things for our next ‘Budget’ year.
At Trinity, we use the Logic Model method to help set our budgets. Logic Models force every department to plan out the year’s events, and then justify those events by outlining the purpose and vision for each event; then we have to plan out how we will quantify whether the event is a success or not. (We consider Sunday Morning ministry an event.) So we have to create our 2008/2009 Logic Model first, then we can start crunching numbers.
It’s messy, but so pretty when it’s all finished. I can’t say enough how refreshing it is to have every number on my budget accountable to something I’m supposed to have planned out 12 months in advance. Maybe it fits my personality perfectly, but I like being forced to be future oriented!
