How the Elton John AIDS Foundation – a 501(c)(3) – Forecasted Cash Flow with Raftel Strategy

A 5-year forecast with revenue as a driver for headcount planning

A dynamic relationship for headcount based on various revenue streams

3 scenarios to show different strategic directions

Overview

The Elton John AIDS Foundation is in the Top 10 philanthrophic funders of AIDS/HIV grants worldwide.

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Background

At first, EJAF had a lot of data but needed to structure it. They wanted to build a model that could forecast different scenarios. Most importantly - they wanted to do capacity planning and budgeting with these models.

In addition, their headcount model wasn’t dynamic (not revenue-driven) which prevented a high-level strategy view on where the organization was headed from a staffing perspective. They needed more sophisticated and user-friendly models to forecast these different scenarios.

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Our Solution

Our team at Raftel Strategy helped EJAF transform their strategic goals into quantifiable projects. We used Causal (modeling software) to build sophisticated but easy-to-use models to forecast budget creation, cash flow, headcount and more - all with expected vs. actuals.

We asked specific questions which revealed data that helped us built a robust model vs. the old one they had been using in Excel. We encouraged EJAF to put pen-to-paper for each relevant model-driver that we wanted to forecast - hiring requirements, overhead assumptions, etc.

Lots of specific line items (think internal audit and professional fees) were items we discovered only after we asked these questions. They allowed EJAF to think and rethink what the most realistic relationships were in each scenario.

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Impact

As a result, Raftel Strategy became a key partner to EJAF’s CFO as a quick deadline was approaching.

From start to finish, we delivered sophisticated but easy-to-use models to support EJAF’s long-term strategic goals. And helped management navigate the power of Causal and its different uses - like dashboards, easy creation of graphs and comparisons of scenarios in table view.

Some of our key outputs included:

A 5-year forecast with revenue as a driver for headcount planning

A dynamic relationship for headcount based on various revenue streams

3 scenarios to show different strategic directions

We were lucky to present the results to Sir Elton John himself. It was a great pleasure to work with the Elton John AIDS Foundation.