Funding Craft Training

My colleague in class works for a foundation that uses an endowment to continue to operate. She was comparing that to my last post on contracting and funding of projects. 

In regards to my own contracting story, I will say that in my case, I mentioned that I would present the idea as if budget was not an issue, then I would have to convince my bosses of the need for funds to make it a reality. 

In most cases, it was that discussion of funding where I would have to prove that it was either cost neutral, or had a positive impact on the overall health of the organization. 

One example I remember dealt with training and a craft skills training program (I've inserted a pic of that training above). To get that funded I had to track retention of our workers based on the fact/hope that by providing more training they would be less likely to leave. Employees staying around had a very positive impact on our recruiting and HR budgets. 

Regardless, having this open ended arrangement was nice especially when I think about having a limited budget that came from an endowment. Ours was a constantly moving target that was based on how well the organization did each quarter and the forecast for work in the coming quarter. 

Now, however I work in a less dynamic organization and is much closer to the one you describe in your post. I have to consider budgetary constraints in each of my projects and it would be less responsible to not keep them foremost in mind.