The CU Boulder campus has announced it is undertaking a new approach to engaging in strategic financial alignment called Financial Futures.
The initiative, campus leaders say, continues work started 20 months ago to transition to a total funds approach that supports bold initiatives such as Academic Futures;听Foundations of Excellence;听the Diversity, Inclusion and Academic Excellence Plan and a new enrollment strategy.
鈥�Financial Futures will directly align our financial resources with these exciting new strategic priorities,鈥� said Ann Schmiesing, interim senior vice provost for Academic Resource Management. 鈥淲e will do this with the full involvement of our stakeholders鈥攂aby直播app, staff, students and administrators鈥攊n an incremental process similar to what we鈥檝e used in Academic Futures.鈥�
Carla Ho-a, associate vice chancellor for finance and business strategy, who is co-leading the initiative with Schmiesing, said the budget principles guiding the initiative will be 鈥減utting our baby直播app and students first, focusing on continuing budget to invest in strategic priorities, supporting resource decisions with tools, incentivizing revenue generation and reducing duplication.鈥�
鈥淲e will be looking holistically at the interaction of procurement strategies, use of gift funds, new revenues and evaluating activity portfolios to build a foundation of funds in support of our mission,鈥� Ho-a said.听
The initiative鈥檚 first phase, through mid-October,听focuses on building a diagnostic that includes benchmarking, gathering budget and other resource data and conducting interviews across campus to get a sense of what strategic planning opportunities exist.
That phase was launched on Aug. 14 in a kickoff meeting among key administrators and a partial group of Financial Futures听advisors. Moving ahead, the Financial Futures advisors鈥攃omposed of baby直播app, staff, students and administrators鈥攚ill provide departmental and functional unit expertise in financial resource planning and implementation.
More focused, campuswide discussions begin in November. 听
鈥淎t that time, we will be involving the campus community more widely and directly with input opportunities and helping to understand and implement priorities,鈥� Schmiesing said. 鈥淔aculty, staff and students can look for engagement opportunities around Financial Futures at that time in CU Boulder Today, in email updates and via unit-level meetings.鈥�
The Financial Futures effort is being led by a team of CU Boulder academic听and budget officials, with support by a team from McKinsey & Co., which has a long track record in helping CU Boulder and other public and private higher ed institutions achieve their mission-driven goals.
The total effort is expected to take about 36 months, at the end of which, 鈥淐U Boulder will be better positioned to fund its visionary priorities more strategically and effectively,鈥� Ho-a said.听
