How to Align Budgeting with Your School’s Mission
Years ago, in graduate school, one of my professors made a provocative claim. He said, “If you really want to understand whether a school’s mission is a top priority, look no further than the budget.” By that, he meant that a school’s financial decisions reveal what it truly values. Although every school has unavoidable costs just to keep the doors open and meet basic needs, there is something wise and profound in his statement. Our financial priorities often speak louder than words, revealing the extent to which the mission really shapes what we do. Aligning financial planning with mission is a powerful way to ensure that a school’s mission remains the top priority.
Using the Mission as a Financial Filter
A school’s mission is more than just a statement—it’s a guide that shapes every aspect of the institution, including financial decisions. When budget choices reflect a school’s mission, that mission becomes visible and tangible in daily operations. If a school’s mission emphasizes academic excellence or faith formation, then it makes sense to prioritize resources for programs, personnel, or facilities that support those goals. The mission serves as a “filter” for these decisions, helping school leaders decide where funds should go to best reflect the school’s core values.
Aligning Financial Stability and Mission Priorities
One challenge many schools face is that financial strength and stability are often placed on the shoulders of a single financial officer. This individual’s primary responsibility is to keep the school financially sound, so decisions are often made with stability in mind. While this focus on stability is essential—especially in challenging times—it can also mean that decisions are sometimes made without fully balancing competing priorities or considering multiple implications on the mission, a task that usually calls for collaboration across multiple people.
What’s needed, then, is an approach that involves a broader perspective and input from various leadership voices. This encourages the financial decision-maker to collaborate with others who understand different expressions of the mission with greater depth, allowing for decisions that are not only financially prudent but also aligned with the school’s values and priorities. Achieving this balance is not always straightforward; it requires grappling with challenging questions, brainstorming, and thinking creatively about how to align financial and mission goals in a way that amplifies positive results in both areas. This often means gathering in a room, sometimes frequently, to engage in deep discussions, ask tough questions, and challenge each other in positive ways.
Recognizing the Path is a Work in Progress
It’s also important to recognize that aligning financial planning with mission isn’t an overnight transformation. Most schools are not starting with a blank slate; they already have established financial practices, models, and commitments that may take years or even a decade to fully align with their mission. This process is ongoing and involves a willingness to review, adapt, and make incremental changes over time. By seeing this as a work in progress, leaders can take realistic steps, gradually building a financial model that better serves both the school’s mission and long-term health, and doing it without unnecessarily putting the school in jeopardy through rash decisions.
Setting Priorities with Mission in Mind
With the mission clearly in focus, it’s vital to set priorities that directly align with it. This step involves identifying what’s essential for fulfilling the mission and distinguishing those elements from less mission-critical expenses. If a school is committed to fostering a deeply rooted Christian education, then investments in faith-centered curriculum, faculty development, or student discipleship programs may become top priorities. By involving school leadership and stakeholders in identifying these priorities, budgeting decisions become a reflection of the community’s shared vision and values. The goal is not simply to cut costs but to direct resources toward areas that best support the mission. In the process, it is a tremendous opportunity to model mission-minded decision-making, and to build shared commitment around key decisions.
Making Adjustments Along the Way
Aligning financial practices with the mission isn’t a one-time task; it requires regular reflection and adjustment. As needs change, so should the budget—but without losing sight of the mission. Periodic reviews allow leaders to assess whether financial decisions continue to reflect the mission, and small adjustments can be made as necessary. If new programs emerge that better support the school’s goals, resources can be reallocated to make room for those initiatives. Likewise, if certain expenses are found to detract from the mission, scaling them back may be wise. These ongoing adjustments keep financial practices mission-focused and responsive to change.
Steps to Begin Mission-Aligned Financial Planning
To start aligning your financial decisions with your mission, begin with a few practical steps. Start by gathering your leadership team and scheduling regular, focused meetings to evaluate how current spending supports your mission. Review each budget line item with a critical eye, asking whether it serves your school’s core values and goals. Next, identify two or three priority areas that directly reflect your mission, and commit to strengthening funding in those areas. Finally, consider setting up a simple feedback loop. Invite faculty and staff to share insights on how budget adjustments impact their work and the school’s mission. Through these practical steps, you create a financial plan that not only ensures stability but also builds a shared understanding of how individual decisions, including financial ways, have the power to amplify the impact of your mission.
If this captures your interest, consider subscribing to the Faithful and Flourishing Christian SchoolsSubstack publication. Not only will you be informed about future articles, but I will keep you updated about my forthcoming book on this topic, scheduled for a summer 2025 release.
Disclaimer: Do you use AI to write the articles on Substack? The ethical use of AI is an important topic. When new technologies emerge, they often evolve faster than our ability to make sense of the ethical implications. As such, I offer this disclaimer to provide a transparent picture of my own journey and approach. I’ve already made mistakes, even embarrassing ones, but I will strive to quickly learn from them and provide a transparent view of my present approach. As such, this disclaimer will be updated over time.
The full initial draft (in writing or as an audio dictation), words, and ideas for my Substack articles always come from me. From there, I often use AI for editing Substack articles. I regularly use Grammarly and/or Microsoft Word’s built-in Spellcheck or Grammar Check (both of which are a form of AI) to aid in proofreading and editing my work on Substack. In instances where I use AI for something other than background research or editing my original work, you can expect that I will cite or note it in the article.
I also regularly use DALL-E to generate the images for many articles. In addition, I sometimes use royalty free images. If credit is required by law, requested by the creator, or simply the courteous thing to do, you can expect to see the credits right below the image.
I continue to evolve in my experimentation with the use of ChatGPT, Grok, CoPilot (and various other ChatBot technologies) to serve as an editor for my Substack publications.
What does this mean? There are three common scenarios, though I hope to experiment with others in the future (and I will update this accordingly):
I write a full first draft in Word, Grammarly, or a word processor, and then submit it to the ChatBot, asking it to serve as an editor, akin to how I have one or more people edit almost anything that is published in my formal capacity. This is also similar to how editors review my manuscripts when they are submitted to a journal, newspaper, or book publisher. By the way, when I write for any of these partners, I never use AI beyond the basic spellcheck / grammar check available in Microsoft Word—not even to use and then cite it.
I record myself speaking on a topic and then place the recording in a ChatBot to transcribe, remove disfluencies, and provide a draft transcript that I can refine before publishing it. This is where I’ve made the most past mistakes. Because the ChatBot is transcribing, it adds its own grammatical interpretations and even takes liberty with sub-titles, organization, corrections, and adding clarifying language. As such, I’m still learning to use prompts that ensure my words, voice, style, and intent dominate—while also achieving a quality, personal, but streamlined approach to sharing ideas. Because this is an evolving practice for me, and also because it sometimes creates a final draft that can be flagged as AI-generated content, expect that when I use this approach, it will be noted at the beginning or end of the article.
I use ChatBots to conduct background research related to topics that I’m writing about, akin to an interactive and advanced search engine. If there are quotes or unique ideas that I include in the article, you can expect that I will give some sort of citation or in-text credit.