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Financial Questions Every College Leader Should Ask
Manage episode 482496515 series 3436398
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Sarah Holtan, PhD sits down with Bruce Hoeker, CFO at the Association of Business Administrators of Christian Colleges (ABACC), to cut through the confusion on college finances. If you think understanding your institution’s business operations is just for the CFO, Bruce wants you to think again—and shows why the financial future of your college depends on broad, strategic awareness at every leadership level.
Too often, faculty and department heads are promoted into roles where financial savvy is assumed, but training is missing. The result? Strategic priorities get underfunded, and warning signs go ignored. Are you sure you know which questions will protect your school from the next crisis?
Ever wondered how to spot financial red flags before it’s too late—or what separates a true CFO from a bookkeeper? This episode gives straightforward answers and real-world resources for non-financial professionals.
Episode Highlights:
03:36 - There's a lot you should be asking and a lot you should know. How is the institution doing? Are we healthy? If not, why, and what are we doing to fix it? You want to ask how the strategic plan is being funded. Do the resources allocated align to the highest priorities of the strategic plan? You want to ask about financial trends. What do they say about the institution's future? And you want to make sure you have the data you need to make informed financial decisions for your department. You also might want to know what departments are generating enough revenue to cover their expenses and what departments are not.
12:45 - I would say we need to understand that a CFO is a strategist, not a bookkeeper. And, unfortunately, many colleges have a bookkeeper in the role of a CFO. So to understand the difference, the CFO is a strategist. The true CFO, the real CFO, is responsible for financial planning, both long and short term. They're responsible for projecting financial needs to aid in strategic decision making. They're responsible for interpreting financial data and trends. For management use, looking at the story behind the numbers, not just the numbers.
19:32 - Do we have the data we need to make decisions? That's key. If you don't have the data, get the data. We need to be asking, are the resources we are allocating to various areas, are those the areas of greatest importance? And that can be found in your strategic plan. So are we allocating resources to the most important areas? Are we investing in the right areas to drive long-term growth? We want to ask, "Are we performing against targets and budgets? Are we living within our means?" We want to, again, talk about our biggest threats. What are we doing about them? That's a very important board conversation. We want to talk about how dependent is our institution on its various revenue sources, and what are we doing to protect and grow those resources. We want to be asking things, like, "What do our trend lines say about such things as donor revenue?"
Sarah Holtan, PhD
Bruce Hoeker, CFO
53 episodes
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