Reply To: Exercise 8: Details, Sustainability, and Financials
Exercise 8: 24-Month Projection
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1phqPChEiDdWCPgrAmrzmjurL58QCx1t5NIYr2tbOwao/edit?gid=0#gid=0
Reflection:
As someone who has until the very recent past considered spreadsheets to be frightening linear monuments erected in honor of my own inadequacies, I found this exercise to be refreshingly enjoyable. The numbers tell a story, and once I jumped over (some of) the hurdles to spreadsheet mastery, I began to recognize the story-telling power of spreadsheets. For example, I divided my project into 6-month intervals, if only for my own organization and vision. I figured I was confident in growing so much every half a year that it was truly enlightening to see that if that (what feels to be) very doable rate of growth persists over 2 years, I could very well be on my way to making a livelihood out of this project.
Another thought I had in this exercise: what if I can find 18 clients? I’m defining a client at this point as an organization who pays for my service as a program for their own populations. I’m thinking senior centers, universities, half-way houses, private companies, jails/ prisons, etc. In learning how to format an out-of-grid key I discovered how to revise the story (of the future!) with numbers. For example, if every client pays full price and remains a client, I wouldn’t need to secure grant funding… perhaps ever? However, the service could be offered in an entirely different way if clients weren’t charged a penny and the whole project was grant-funded.
If the only thing I learned from this is that spreadsheets can be a form of narrative expression, I’m counting that as a win.