Matibabu Mental Health Foundation Budget
Issue: The need for Reliability and Consistency.
The reliability and reliability of the sources for the budget play a significant role in fiscal transparency, which, in turn, affects the credibility of the budget. The current financial sourcing forecast is satisfactory. However, the sourcing forecast is not accompanied by a suitable financial policy to ensure reliability and consistency in the financing and utilization of the funds. An elaborate financial policy enables the financers of a given program to have a clear picture of where they are channeling their funds.
Despite the prime significance of reliability and consistency in an organizational setting, most of the structured planning for financial sourcing does not reflect any policies for regularly monitoring the transparent and consistent availability and flow of funds. The most important thing is to ensure that all the major stakeholders at the hospital are kept abreast of information on sourcing and financing.
The major benefit of reliability and consistency in fiscal planning is that it would provide the organization and the stakeholders with a clear focus on the priorities that will enable Matibabu hospital to grow. It also provides the organization’s leadership to identify potential financial challenges before they actualize. The best way to show reliability and consistency would be by i) developing strong financial policies. These financial policies should provide basic rules of the road and a set of standard performance indicators against which the community and the financers can gauge the efficacy in the utilization of the finances at the hospital. ii) Producing reliable information. The government, financing organizations, individual donors, and even the insurance companies rely on information from the finance departments to make decisions for subsequent donations. The information provided by the institution must be highly accurate and omission proof or free from misstatements. The information must also be objective enough to be taken as a sound financial ground on which to base decisions. iii) Ensure that the information is provided on a timely bases. Handling the flow of finances is easier when there are clear expectations of when the work will commence and be accomplished. Well-documented time-frames enable the stakeholders to live up to some expectations. Also, timely dissemination of financial information allows for timely decision making. The factor of time is also important as a reference point for reviewing continuous improvements and anticipating challenges.
Budget Revision based on the Issue
There is a need for the organization to include financial policies governing each category of the funding sources, or an umbrella policy for all the sources of funding. Non-profit institutions at all levels forecast major sources of revenue along and provide a comprehensive policy guide to ensure that the chances of defaulting or misappropriations of funds are kept at a bare minimum. The funding sources, along with the funding policies, will further allow for improved decision-making in delivering the essential community services at Matibabu hospital.
An example of a budgeting policy would look like the one below:
Policy 001- Before accepting a donation, Matibabu hospital must provide the donor with the following: an outline of the changes it intends to make with the funding, potential recipients of the changes, the financial and operational goals of the year, key performance indicators for the attainment of these goals, anticipated problems, and any forecasted operational changes.