Wondering how to start a financial training plan for your business, cooperative, or non-profit?

This is part #3 of a 3 part training plan that will prompt you to get started with democratizing your financials!

#3 – Innovate 

This step involves empowering members to train themselves, track their progress, and compare to previous periods so the past can inform the future.

Start with a convening and question prompts like the below in small groups or individually to get people thinking about financials. It’s good to have an outside facilitator as things can come up and be tough to navigate without a 3rd party. 

Specific Questions to ask your group:

+ How should we budget our training time to bring the best return? The worst? What’s the most fun thing we did? What’s the least fun (that’s also useful)?

+ Do we spend too much or too little time talking about our financials & what would you change?

+ How often do we need to adjust our goals and projections? Who’s job is that?   

Techniques and Resources

These techniques and resources are designed to track and innovate our collective knowledge. Feel free to use at least 3 techniques to get a broad picture of where folks are at with their financial knowledge.

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TECHNIQUES & RESOURCES

Patronage Excel Template (via Arizmendi Association)

“More Engaging Financials Report Template” (via DAWI)

Large organization Financial Budget Template (via NDWA)

ICA Patronage Digital Download

Sample Bookkeeping Manual and Monthly/Quarterly/Yearly Checklist (via ABC)

Fiscal Policies Template (for non-profits but can be adapted to cooperatives)

Open Book Management Resources (linked in website)

Conferences and trainings from USFWC, DAWI, and School for Democratic Management

These are just a few of the games and resources you could engage with. What else can you make up?

Want a customized training plan or more information? Contact Rye