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Last May I had the privilege of being named the first student-member of the House of Care Board of Directors. The House of Care is a small non-profit personal care home in downtown State College dedicated to serving elderly, low-income residents. The House relies on modest means: It costs at least $100/day/resident to pay for housing, meals and personal care services, but residents can only pay on average $29/day, leaving the House to raise the other $71/day. The House runs a monthly deficit of a couple thousand dollars and its cash runway (how long the organization has until it runs out of cash) is consistently around 50 days. The organization subsists until it can receive a grant or donation from community foundations.

As I approach the one-year anniversary of my term, I cannot help but feel guilty for not having done more up to this point. Granted, the Board members are local, while I am in State College only during the school year, which means I am unable to attend Board meetings when I am away on internship or co-op. Nonetheless I feel like I haven’t lived up to expectations. I had done more for the House of Care before joining its Board, having helped organize a food drive, nonprofit consultation, and pizza dinner through various student organizations. The obligations of being a Board member are minimal, only involving attending one meeting per month. The Board members and I discuss many different ideas when we meet, but often lag on implementing them.

As I was discussing the problems the House of Care faces with a friend who will likely join the Board soon, we came up with a contribution we could make that is relatively simple yet impactful. The House’s Director has many responsibilities, and one of them is preparing a financial report for our monthly meetings. He has limited knowledge of Excel and prepares the reports in Word. They are very sparse in detail, containing only aggregates of the monthly checking account balance, income, and expenses. Given our knowledge of Excel and experience in budgeting, working with the Director to add more detail to these reports could go a long way in helping Board members to understand the financial challenges the organization faces, including types of funding that need more attention and expenses that can be reduced. Maybe it was Matt Mignogna’s blog post that inspired me, but I’m tired of talking and ready to take action.