Judgement Day
by Laura Chalus, CEO, Tulsa Garden Center at Woodward Park
“Only when our clever brain and our human heart work together in harmony can we achieve our true potential.” These enlightened words from world-renowned primatologist and anthropologist, Jane Goodall, are brilliantly successful in summarizing the everyday work of a not-for-profit organization.
Led by a business-minded board of directors, and guided by a forwardthinking 5-year strategic plan, our “boots on the ground” team of staff works each day to help make our customers’ lives healthier and more meaningful. But how do we know when we’re on the right track to successfully fulfilling our mission of serving as Tulsa’s horticultural hub?
How do you know when programs and initiatives need to be updated or tweaked? When is it prudent to consider completely new programming? And when is it the right time to begrudgingly throw an idea out with the rubbish and start fresh? Annual report metrics are just one of the many tools we use to illustrate our successes or failures, and to communicate how those results collectively inform future decisions and programs.
Balancing both facets of Jane’s succinct thoughts above, the Tulsa Garden Center team has put together a set of statistics which we hope each of our stakeholder groups will find informative and relevant. As we take time each year to look back at the preceding 12 month’s score card, we ask ourselves - did we make par as we had hoped, was it a double bogey kind of day, or did we blow it out of the water with an eagle or albatross?
We have donned our pom-pommed caps and hand-me-down knickers, steadied our mismatched clubs, and are teed up for the next swing. Hit or miss? You be the judge…