Operating Strategy
- Home
- / Operating Strategy
Five year operating projection
The CRA New Construction Assistance Program will not accept an application without one. Neither will a lender. This page shows how the facility is expected to pay for itself once it opens, which is a separate question from how we pay to build it.
Every figure below is an assumption, published openly so it can be argued with and corrected. Ten inputs still need real numbers. They are marked and listed at the bottom of this page.
Two decisions shape everything here. Scholarship housing is modeled at a deeply subsidized $300 a month, because that is the point of it. And a 200 member dues base is modeled as the floor under operations, because rental income alone is too thin to carry a building.
What this document has to prove
Three audiences read an operating projection and each one is asking a different question.
The CRA wants to know the building will still be open and active in year five, because a vacant building on Magnolia is worse for the district than the vacant lot it replaced. A lender wants to know that revenue covers debt service with room to spare, typically 1.20 times or better. The state and Blueprint want to see activity and jobs, because that is the basis on which public money gets justified.
All three are answered by the same model. The point is not to show a large profit. The point is to show that the facility is self‑sustaining without an annual rescue from the alumni base.
Revenue
Three earning streams and one that earns nothing on purpose. The hall carries the model. An assembly hall with a commercial kitchen and thirty parking spaces is a rentable event venue in a part of town that has almost none. The rental floor is set at $1,000 per event, and that floor holds regardless of who is asking.
| Revenue | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scholarship residence | |||||
| Rooms occupied (of 4) | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Subsidized rent, per room per month | $300 | $300 | $300 | $300 | $300 |
| Months billed (academic year) | 9 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
| Residence subtotal | $8,100 | $12,000 | $12,000 | $12,000 | $12,000 |
| Event and assembly hall rental confirm | |||||
| Paid events per year | 24 | 40 | 52 | 60 | 65 |
| Average net rental fee, $1,000 minimum | $1,000 | $1,000 | $1,050 | $1,075 | $1,100 |
| Hall subtotal | $24,000 | $40,000 | $54,600 | $64,500 | $71,500 |
| Program and sponsorship | |||||
| Program sponsorships | $10,000 | $15,000 | $20,000 | $22,500 | $25,000 |
| Annual fund, unrestricted | $20,000 | $22,000 | $24,000 | $26,000 | $28,000 |
| Chapter and other use | |||||
| Chapter occupancy contribution | $3,600 | $3,600 | $3,900 | $3,900 | $4,200 |
| Total revenue | $65,700 | $92,600 | $114,500 | $128,900 | $140,700 |
Scroll the table sideways on a phone.
The residence is subsidized, not free, and not a profit center
Residents pay $300 a month, well under half of what a comparable room near campus costs. The rate is held flat across all five years on purpose. Escalating a subsidy defeats it, and a student who can plan on the same number for four years is exactly the point of the program. The subsidy itself is real money, roughly $18,000 a year of forgone rent at market, and that figure should be reported to the CRA and to foundations because it is the clearest community benefit number this facility produces.
If the Board later waives rent for a resident in hardship, the model absorbs it. Each room waived costs $3,000 a year against these figures.
Why the hall is the engine
The rental minimum is $1,000. Discounts below that floor, including for brothers and for chapter affiliated events, should require Board approval and be recorded as a donated use rather than quietly absorbed, because a venue that negotiates against itself cannot hold a rate card. Every $100 of average rate is worth roughly $6,500 a year at 65 events.
There is limited affordable event space on this side of Tallahassee with parking attached. Repasts, receptions, church overflow, graduation gatherings, small conferences, community meetings. At 52 events a year the hall is in use once a week, which is a modest assumption for a venue of this kind, not an aggressive one. It is also the line most sensitive to how the kitchen is licensed, so the health department and licensing path needs to be settled during design rather than after opening.
Operating expenses
Understating expenses is the fastest way to lose credibility with a lender. Reserves and maintenance are in the model from year one rather than deferred, and a part time facility manager is budgeted because a building booked once a week does not run itself on volunteer labor. Accounting, technology and marketing are carried at or near zero because brothers with those skills are donating the work.
| Expense | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Facility manager, part time confirm | $24,000 | $26,000 | $32,000 | $33,000 | $34,000 |
| Utilities confirm | $14,000 | $14,700 | $15,400 | $16,200 | $17,000 |
| Property and liability insurance tbd | $8,000 | $8,400 | $8,800 | $9,200 | $9,700 |
| Repairs and maintenance | $6,000 | $7,500 | $9,000 | $10,000 | $11,000 |
| Janitorial, volunteer hybrid | $9,600 | $9,900 | $10,200 | $10,500 | $10,800 |
| Capital reserve, 2% of asset value confirm | $12,000 | $12,000 | $12,000 | $12,000 | $12,000 |
| Accounting and legal, largely in kind | $1,000 | $1,000 | $1,000 | $1,000 | $1,000 |
| Marketing and booking, in house | $1,000 | $1,000 | $1,500 | $1,500 | $2,000 |
| Technology, security and software, in kind | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Supplies and event consumables | $2,000 | $2,800 | $3,400 | $3,800 | $4,100 |
| Total operating expense | $77,600 | $83,300 | $93,300 | $97,200 | $101,600 |
Property taxes
A 501(c)(3) owning and operating a facility for its exempt purpose is generally exempt from Florida ad valorem tax, but income producing rental use can make part of the property taxable on a proportional basis. This needs an opinion from counsel and a conversation with the Leon County Property Appraiser before submission. If a portion is taxable, it lands in this table and it materially changes the bottom line.
Net operating income and debt service
Year one runs negative, which is normal for a venue filling its calendar for the first season. What matters is the trajectory and how the early gap gets covered. The membership plan below is the answer to the gap, and it is a better answer than an annual emergency appeal.
| Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total revenue | $65,700 | $92,600 | $114,500 | $128,900 | $140,700 |
| Total operating expense | $77,600 | $83,300 | $93,300 | $97,200 | $101,600 |
| Net operating income | ($11,900) | $9,300 | $21,200 | $31,700 | $39,100 |
| Annual debt service confirm | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Cash flow after debt service | ($11,900) | $9,300 | $21,200 | $31,700 | $39,100 |
Read this before anyone quotes the coverage ratio
Debt service is modeled at zero because no loan amount, rate or term exists yet. That makes these numbers a best case and it is the single largest gap in this document. The moment the Florida Community Loan Fund conversation produces indicative terms, this table gets rebuilt with real debt service and a real coverage ratio, and the results will be materially different. A lender who sees a zero here will ask about it in the first five minutes, so we should raise it first.
What happens if we are wrong
Stress testing the model is what separates a projection from a wish. Year five net operating income under three cases.
| Case | Events per year | Sponsorship and annual fund | Year 5 NOI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | 40 | $50,000 | $400 |
| Base | 65 | $57,200 | $39,100 |
| Strong | 85 | $64,000 | $67,900 |
The base case clears comfortably and even the conservative case, at 40 events a year, lands at break even. That is the honest headline. This facility does not need to be a commercial success, but it does need a floor under it that does not depend on how many weddings book in a given year. Nothing here survives debt service, which is the argument for funding as much of construction as possible with campaign dollars, grants and public money rather than with a loan. And nothing here is safe on rental income alone, which is the argument for the membership plan.
The membership floor
The question worth answering: if 200 brothers paid dues into the association, what would each man have to pay for those dues alone to cover every operating expense in the building, every month, with no rental income counted at all?
| Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total operating expense | $77,600 | $83,300 | $93,300 | $97,200 | $101,600 |
| Divided by 200 members | $388 | $417 | $467 | $486 | $508 |
| Monthly dues per member | $33 | $35 | $39 | $41 | $43 |
Set dues at $40 a month, or $480 a year, and 200 paying members cover the building outright through roughly year four. Every dollar of hall rental, sponsorship and annual fund income then stops being survival money and becomes what it should be: reserve, endowment seed, program expansion, more students housed.
What the number does at other membership counts
Year three operating expense of $93,300, covered by dues alone.
| Paying members | Monthly dues | Annual dues | Assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | $78 | $933 | A real financial commitment. Hard to sustain at scale. |
| 150 | $52 | $622 | Workable, roughly a car payment’s worth per year. |
| 200 | $39 | $467 | The target. Comfortable for most brothers. |
| 300 | $26 | $311 | Easy yes territory, and it starts funding reserves on top. |
Is 200 realistic
206 brothers have already given to this campaign, and current database participation runs at 58 percent. So a 200 member dues base is not a leap into the unknown. It is asking the men who already give to convert a one time act into a standing one. The difference matters enormously for the CRA and for a lender, because recurring committed revenue underwrites a building in a way that episodic fundraising never does.
The risk is honest and should be stated: dues attrition is real, and a plan built on 200 members needs to be recruiting toward 250 to hold at 200. Dues are best set up as automatic monthly billing rather than an annual invoice, since annual renewals are where this kind of program bleeds out.
Dues are not gifts
Membership dues that carry personal benefits are not fully deductible the way a gift is. The deductible portion is the amount above the fair market value of what the member receives. If dues are structured with meaningful benefits, the association has to disclose the non deductible portion on every receipt. This needs to be settled with counsel before the program launches, and it is another reason to keep membership benefits light.
Endowment, the long term answer
Dues are the floor and rental income is the engine, but neither one is permanent. An endowment is what eventually takes both of them off the critical path, and it is the condition this organization should be building toward once the building is open.
At a conventional 4.5 percent annual draw, an endowment of roughly $2.3 million would generate enough to cover the full year five operating cost of the facility in perpetuity. A separate and smaller scholarship housing endowment, sized to cover the true cost of keeping four rooms occupied and free, is the piece that guarantees a student never loses a bed because a fundraising year came up short.
This is a future condition, not part of the capital campaign, and it should not be presented as one. Naming it now matters for a different reason: it tells a major donor, a family, or a foundation that there is a second act worth being part of, and some of them will prefer endowing a program in perpetuity to putting their name on a room.
The ten inputs we still need
Until these are real, this document is a framework rather than a pro forma. Most of them are a phone call, not a study.
1. Construction cost estimate
2. Loan amount, rate and term
3. Utility load estimate
4. Insurance quotes
5. Local venue rate survey
6. Scholarship housing policy
7. Property tax determination
8. Facility manager scope
9. Final floodplain and site engineering sign off
10. Kitchen licensing path
Tap any item to expand.
Sequence
Cost estimate first, because six of the ten depend on it. Insurance quotes and the venue rate survey can run in parallel and require nothing but phone calls. The loan conversation comes after the cost estimate but before the CRA application, since the CRA requires a lender letter to submit.
None of this happens without the building
Every figure on this page describes a facility that does not exist yet. The operating model works, the membership floor is reachable, and the community benefit is real. What is missing is the construction money.