Exercise 8: Details, Sustainability, and Financials
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Method Initiative Exercise 8 – Details, Sustainability, Financials
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16JAmnYVaV4rvUKzmoloRTKnbFr9V9aP7VbWdFZ2z2e4/edit?usp=sharing
Main Assumptions
– Participants: Find two willing participants per month, ask each participant to find a buddy to do the exercise with them
– Fee for participating: $100/round, or $50/month/person
– Each ‘cohort’ or ‘round’ lasts two months
– Meeting frequency – at least once per month, support provided as needed
– First month – sharing and SMART goals + execution of goals
– Second month – sharing of observations and reflections, asking if they want to continue and/or who else could benefit from said program
– Office Rental: I can repurpose/utilize one of the offices that I cowork at
– Refreshments: Overestimate to make participation a little more fun
– Participant Sharing: inviting others to share their experiences – $25 incentive for individual to come share
– Initial investment needed: affordable office space/meeting space. Could potentially use my home and save on the office rent portion of the model. Not sure if I would include a portion of the mortgage as cost for the space though.
– I am not paid as part of the costs, I’d be paid by the profit
– Participant quantity: based on the office space size, I think I could accommodate 16 people max and still have it be relatively efficient. I could divide the group into two of 8 at the max.Checklist
– I documented all of the assumptions
– If all the assumptions are met, we could be profitable early on. Sustainability would be determined when a volunteer or a member could run it without me being there.
– My rough investment needs are relatively low since I already have an established possible meeting space and a backup space to meet. In case I do this virtually, I can even save on that cost as well.Reflection:
• Do you feel you understand your project’s operations better now?
Yes, I feel like the financials force us to get out of our head and put things on paper. It makes us confront our assumptions• How much did you revise your project during the exercise?
I don’t think I revised it as much as I had to walk through fleshing out the project. However, the time spent on the project and the time spent preparing and doing pre-work is not necessarily accounted for.• Did you find potentially problematic areas? If so, what did you do about them?
The only majorly problematic area that I’m seeing is that there is an unlimited amount of time spent on executing or preparing for the project that is not necessarily accounted for. I guess this is something that needs to be fleshed out that I’m still pondering. I kind of pulled the participation fee out of thin air, but I’m not sure what people might pay for the accountability and assistance that I would be providing.• How did the exercise change your motivation to talk to others about your project?
This exercise gives me a new framework through which to ask people more specific questions. i.e. what would someone be willing to pay? What frequency would be reasonable to meet? How motivated would someone who participated before be willing to share for free vs. for a small fee? -
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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.
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#8 24 month cost/revenue spreadsheet Assumptions and Reflections
This scenario of my problem-solution is tailored to Nutrien to specifically generate internal engagement that supports and builds on adjacent programs. I now realize I should build an engagement program model that can be customized to different organization needs, goals and current state of sophistication.
Assumptions
• Need to start small to make it attractive to company and get the ball rolling without generating large costs.
• YEAR 1 Plan: Bite sized pilot scale focused internal sustainability training, awareness, idea generation and development, enough to get people started.
• Offer regular meeting structure in small groups, 1 per quarter, to generate sustainability ambassadors
• Align with adjacent programs within the company such as community volunteering, and with company Initiatives and targets
• Needs a part time program coordinator and subject matter experts to keep it energized
• Access internal company experts to provide training on sustainability principles, understanding of activities, projects, targets, all geared toward participants generating ideas that could be projects in their own department
• Access internal knowledge expertise (in kind)
• Access external Non profit and consulting to hold 1/month overview sessions (paid or donation to cause)
• Will need an idea review and approval mechanism to access internal grant money (current program provides funding but no guidance or support in sustainability principles)
• Attract people from the Nutrien work pool who already want to take action
• Assume all in person sessions happen at Nutrien office (free space)
• Participants attend training sessions on company time, homework is on their time
• YEAR 1 will be a start up with partial costs, Y2 = full year costs.Reflection
1. Do I understand my project’s operations better?
Yes and no. Better identification of cost and revenue elements but that comes with a realization that much more refinement of estimates is needed.
Better understanding that I need to start smaller and leverage existing programs.
I do have a clearer vision of how far I think I can take this solution if I build a model that includes a master listing of subject matter topics, structures and processes that I can customize to fit the needs of different organizations.2. How much did I revise the project?
Significantly reduced scope to focus on the awareness and personal activation elements to get people started.
Defined the delivery mechanism much more clearly.3. Did you find problems and do something about them?
Thought about scanning externally to engage local expertise rather than relying on internal which there isn’t much of.
Conversations I’ve had identified many problems I wasn’t thinking of so I think I came to this part of the process with a robust understanding of the key elements.
Timing is always a problem in a start up project so I’ve started to sequence the timing of costs and want to build a content structure next to further define what has to happen first and what can happen later.4. How did this exercise change my motivation to talk to others?
Need to talk to a lot more people to fill in the many gaps at this stage.-
new link to revised spreadsheet
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Here is my spreadsheet
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yTRnqxkT5Srhx-dqnmfO1KaFrRS1nNYciaZTDUq41qY/edit?usp=sharing
I have no intentions of generating revenue through my project, nor any assumptions that there will be costs involved. If there are costs, I would anticipate they would be very small and I’m okay with not being profitable. For the purpose of this exercise, I could apply for funding, ask for food donations, or require a small membership fee for participants. Perhaps this would be something to do in the future if the group grew substantially. For now, I get free food because I have food SNAPS. I can also host meetings at my workplace which will not cost anything. The only costs I can see right now are my own time and effort. I believe that the rewards (fulfillment, friendship, new perspectives, experience organizing, etc) for my time and effort will greatly outweigh the “costs.”
I do feel I understand my project a little bit better and I’m beginning to consider the potential for complexities that may arise. The only revisions I made were to host it in a different location and consider how to pay for food in the future. I’m sure I have some blindspots, so please reply if you see them. I foresee potential problems if I let this project consume too much of my time, thereby taking away too much from other profitable work to sustain my life. Also, if I plan to continue this once I move out of New York state, I will have to pay for food out of pocket. However, others will also bring food for the potluck and thus I think the cost would balance out with the free food I’d be eating from others. If necessary, I can ask for a small participation fee and/or apply for funding to pay for food and space. It’d be nice to talk with Johannes again about organizing this sort of meeting to get an understanding of how he managed the logistics.
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Hi
I suspect that valuing your time at zero is missing something, even if you don’t account for it through money. That is, even activities you find rewarding you can’t do all of them. What limits you from doing all the things you’d find rewarding but don’t?
Do you expect to do this activity for the rest of your life? Every day? If not, why not?
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Method Initiative Exercise 8: Spreadsheet
Project ASSUMPTIONS
I don’t really have a 2 year plan. My goal is to find a community with which I can launch one clean up event from which I can learn in order to replicate with the same community or grow it to other communities. In order to do that, I only need a few supplies that I believe I already have. We will need water and trash free snacks which I am hoping to generate as donations either from the community itself or a business partner. I think the longer range plan will be directed from the initial experience.
In this plan, I assumed I could get a number of business partners. I think I could work out a plan to generate $100 per month from one of them each month in order to supply what is needed for the clean up. In order to do this I will need more specific numbers as to the actual costs.
I spent at least 4 or 5 hours looking up costs but what I know at this point isn’t sufficient to really know what be needed down the road. Part of my vision is that getting people from the church or school to form a “steering committee” and that the vision of the event will come from that group. Thus, the monetary needs will be driven by that plan.
I can’t really say this felt motivating to talk to others about my plan beyond what I am already involved in doing. It made me aware that I don’t want to be the sole driver of it. I want this to belong to the people who are doing it and so I want the plan to be driven by that. Thus, those are the people I want to talk to first.
REFLECTIONS
This exercise made me consider what the costs would be and how I imagine covering them. I don’t see this as a “profit generating” project. It is a community building project that will need some supplies and refreshments for participants (at least at the beginning. It may evolve to include other items requiring money but I don’t know what those will be yet) I don’t think much will be needed at the beginning and I think with the contacts I have already made and with donations those things can be covered.
I need more time and some assistance to figure out how to develop a web presence that could be used to advertise beforehand and to celebrate after. I need to find someone who could help me think that through. Again, I can have the idea about how to do that and do it with the people who will be participating in the project.
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