Kate Barr wrote:
but the director, Jackie, saw only doom and failure.

And almost everybody in the room voted with her. What else do we see in the case that helps us understand how the financial summary fits in?

I think that people tend to think that nonprofits close because they run out of money. In my mind, that's similar to the conclusion that people die because of lack of oxygen to the brain. While that's technically true, it doesn't tell us much. There's almost always some reason (among hundreds!) why we're in that condition. Same with nonprofits. Lack of money is just a final state. There's a hundred different things that conspire to bring an organization to that condition, and that's where the real story is.

I'm hoping for a discussion about how the financials fit into the larger picture. Through the history of this case, I've always been struck that the board didn't really care about the financial summary. They either didn't understand it, or weren't engaged enough to try to make sense of it. OR maybe they understood all too well, and the organizations was legitimately ready to fold. The financials are just part of the story, but I think that seeing how they fit in is an important part of the case.

Mark