On 3 March 2010 20:53, Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk wrote:
mid-2007 - - - - - $1m end-2007 - - - - - $2.3m - - - - - $0.21m - - - - - 11 mos. mid-2008 - - - - - $3m - - - - - ($0.32m) - - - - - 9 mos. end-2008 - - - - - $6.7m - - - - - $0.43m - - - - - 15 mos. mid-2009 - - - - - $6.2m - - - - - ($0.54m) - - - - - 11 mos. end-2009 - - - - - $12.5m - - - - - $0.65m - - - - - 19 mos.
It occurs to me this morning that there's a major problem with that last column - it's x months reserves *at the previous six month's averaged operating costs*. Costs are increasing all the time. (Fun fact: the WMF's operating costs seem to have increased linearly, at a steady $18ish-k/month, over the past few years)
Adjusting for that, we end up with... hmm, something like
end-2007 - - - - - 7 mos. mid-2008 - - - - - 6 mos. end-2008 - - - - - 11 mos. mid-2009 - - - - - 9 mos. end-2009 - - - - - 15 mos.
Still pretty good (after the last two fundraisers), but not quite as comfortable as it originally looked - and, presumably, it gets a little tighter right before the fundraisers. That said, it suggests that purely from a "safe margin" perspective, we could safely lower the target amount for the late-2010 fundraiser - we did very well last year, after all.
On the other hand, William's suggestion about treating this as the nucleus of an endowment rather than as an operating margin is an interesting one. Hrm. Further research, as they say...