HIGHER EDUCATION · FOCUS AREA
Building
Financial Sustainability
You can close this year’s gap. You are less sure what happens the year after.
We work alongside presidents, chief financial officers, and boards facing structural financial challenges that cannot be solved through another round of cuts. Together, we assess the institution’s financial realities, priorities, and resources to understand where difficult decisions are needed and what must be protected. We help leaders evaluate options, build alignment, and chart a sustainable path forward without compromising what makes their institution valuable to students.
ON A CAMPUS
Where does the work need to happen?
A third consecutive year of across-the-board cuts, with morale lower after each one.
A deficit too large to trim away, and no one willing to name what should go.
Reserves covering operations, and a board asking how long that can continue.
ACROSS THE INSTITUTION
What this work looks like for the whole institution.
A multi-year fiscal strategy: the structural gap, the asset base, and the pivot that ends the cycle of annual reductions.
INSIDE A DIVISION OR UNIT
What it looks like for a single division.
A division asked to absorb a cut, deciding what to stop doing rather than spreading the reduction thinly across everything.
HOW WE WORK
We listen, evaluate, and build.
01
Listen
We begin by understanding the institution’s financial realities, strategic priorities, culture, and the decisions leaders are facing.
02
Evaluate
Financial decisions affect far more than the budget. We examine how resources, programs, people, and institutional priorities connect, including the potential consequences of different choices.
03
Build
We help leaders work through difficult tradeoffs, evaluate options, and build alignment around decisions that reflect the institution’s priorities and circumstances.
04
Support
We help translate financial decisions into a practical path forward, with clear priorities, ownership, and a process for evaluating progress.
FROM THE RESOURCE HUB
Advancing Higher Education
Turning strategy into an integrated way of operating
University of Montana
Advancing Higher Education
From institutional strategy to execution
Montana State University + University of Montana
Advancing Higher Education
Building strategy through university-wide engagement and alignment
Montana State University + Northern Arizona University