Financial Advice from Monty Python

07/19/2002

Financial Advice from Monty Python

"A peacefulness follows any decision, even the wrong one." -Rita Mae Brown

FINANCIAL ADVICE FROM MONTY PYTHON

This is an excerpt for the article "Surviving Tight Times" by Roger Neugebauer, in the January 2002 issue of Child Care Information Exhange:

"Neighborhood Child Care Center was broke. Director Jones, assuring everyone that this was just a temporary shortfall, whipped up enthusiasm for a major fundraising effort to pay off all the center's debts. Much to everyone's surprise, three months later Director Jones was again rounding up support for another fundraiser to help the center over another temporary crisis.

"The reason that Director Jones' solutions failed is that she never grasped what the real problem was. If she had taken the time to analyze the situation, she would have found that the center's enrollment had been gradually, yet steadily, declining over the past six months. To solve the problem, Director Jones needed to focus her energy on building enrollments, not on organizing one-shot fundraisers.

"....One of my favorite Monty Python skits is "The Changemakers." In this skit a banker explains their popular new program of providing customers with $1.05 in change for $1. When asked how the bank could possibly make money on this arrangement, he replied,'Oh, that's simple -- volume.'

"When your center is running on empty, it is critical to find out why. You need to know if you are spending $1.05 for every $1 you take in."

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