New financial planning tool for afterschool programs in the COVID-19 crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the way we serve young people, forcing programs to adapt in myriad ways to ensure supports are available to students and their families. What once felt like a short-term shift is becoming the new norm, and the strain of lost revenue from program fees and contracts has left organizations wondering how they’ll weather these times and be ready to serve students when schools and businesses open back up.

We know these are difficult times for organizations, often resulting in tough decisions being made on personnel, programming, and other services. To assist organizations in planning for their financial sustainability, the Overdeck Family Foundation, in partnership with the Afterschool Alliance and Grafe Consulting, has produced a financial planning tool to assist nonprofit leaders with scenario planning during these uncertain times.

The workbook, an Excel template, allows afterschool organizations to forecast revenue, expenses, and cash, and to create multiple scenarios to evaluate financial sustainability in a fast-changing environment. Here's a brief guide on how to use the template. We hope this tool will be helpful in ensuring your organization is able to make it through these trying times and be ready to serve students in a normal capacity when we re-emerge from COVID-19.

This tool was developed by Zach Grafe at Grafe Consulting. If you have additional inquiries on how your organization can manage fiscal sustainability, reach out to Zach at zgrafe@gmail.com.

In addition to the tool above, the Wallace Foundation has partnered with Fiscal Management Associates, a national capacity-building firm that advises nonprofits on strategic financial management, to help nonprofits assess their fiscal situation and make adjustments. Additional resources are available below.

• Read this blog from Fiscal Management Associates CEO Hilda Polanco, Managing Nonprofit Finances During the Coronavirus Crisis (posted 3/25/20)
• Strongnonprofits.org – visit for free guidance on nonprofit financial management, including tools on creating a revised program budget, developing dashboards and targets for assessing health in an ongoing manner, and a cost analysis toolkit.

Interested in more information like this? Visit our COVID-19 resource pages and join the online learning community!