Financial Management, Visibility, and Structures That Sustain Care

This week’s focus on budget development and financial management helped me think more practically about what it takes to sustain the SweetGrass Wellness Collective. I often think about SweetGrass through the lens of vision, community care, cultural rootedness, and reproductive justice, but this week reminded me that values need infrastructure. If the work is going to continue, then the budget has to reflect the mission.

For SweetGrass, financial management is not just about tracking money. It is about making visible what the work actually costs and making intentional decisions about where limited resources should go. Community-based maternal health work is often treated as if it should run on love, volunteer labor, and personal sacrifice. While SweetGrass is deeply rooted in care, the work also requires software, insurance, supplies, outreach materials, documentation systems, program coordination, facilitator compensation, and direct support for families. A budget helps name those needs clearly instead of allowing the labor to remain invisible.

This connects directly to this week’s collaborative leadership competency, “Structures and Processes.” Leadership Learning Community (2015) explains that complex community problems require new structures and processes to support collaboration, coordination, aligned activities, and trust-building. In that sense, the SweetGrass budget is part of our leadership structure. It determines whether the organization can coordinate programs, support members, protect client information, compensate labor, and build trust with funders and community partners.

The Chaminade/Hogan Entrepreneurial Leadership Program and American Savings Bank Nonprofit Business Plan Competition was an important learning experience in this area. SweetGrass was selected as a finalist and received $1,000, which affirmed the strength and relevance of the work. At the same time, the process made me think more critically about how nonprofit and entrepreneurial spaces define “readiness,” “professionalism,” and “success.”

After the competition, someone approached me and suggested that SweetGrass should put more money into marketing. I understood the intention behind the feedback, but I also felt myself push back internally. SweetGrass does not struggle because people do not care about the work. We have built strong community visibility through relationships, programming, word of mouth, and trust. With limited funding, I do not believe that spending more money on business cards or traditional marketing materials would necessarily elevate the work, especially if those tools do not reflect the communities we are actually trying to reach.

That conversation helped me think about the difference between marketing and meaningful outreach. For SweetGrass, visibility has to be relational, not performative. The families we aim to serve may not be reached through polished business materials alone. They may be reached through trusted providers, community events, parent circles, mutual aid networks, culturally specific spaces, direct referrals, and consistent presence. Financial management requires deciding which forms of visibility are worth investing in and which ones simply reflect dominant expectations of what a “professional” organization should look like.

After that conversation, I followed up with questions about how to communicate the urgency of birth equity to investors in a way that is impactful but not extractive. I also asked how to translate the depth and relational nature of midwifery care across different audiences, and how to balance authenticity with the visibility often required to access resources. This was an important leadership moment for me because I was not only thinking about how to raise money, but how to do so without becoming performative or disconnected from the mission.

Integrity is foundational to both my personal values and the mission of SweetGrass. In nonprofit and entrepreneurial spaces, I have often seen women, especially women of color, feel pressure to perform success in ways that align with dominant expectations. That may include over-polishing the message, softening the urgency, making the work more palatable, or focusing on aesthetics instead of community accountability. I do not want SweetGrass to lose its authenticity in order to be seen as fundable.

A few weeks later, the lead judge shared written feedback from the competition. The judges described the business plan as compelling and community-centered, and they recognized the culturally responsive perinatal care model, the team’s credentials, and the clear need for the services. Some judges even noted that they personally could have benefited from services like those SweetGrass is proposing. That feedback affirmed that the core issue is not that SweetGrass lacks legitimacy, expertise, or community relevance.

The judges also raised concerns about long-term sustainability, especially succession planning for the founder. This feedback felt important because it echoed something I had already been reflecting on. If SweetGrass is going to become a long-term community resource, it cannot depend only on my energy, unpaid labor, personal relationships, or ability to keep applying for funding. It needs financial systems, shared leadership, documentation, and a clearer pathway for leadership continuity.

The judges also recommended expanding and formalizing a more permanent network of on-island resources and partnerships, especially in communities with significant need such as Kuhio Park Terrace and Micronesian communities. This feedback helped me separate helpful sustainability guidance from less useful marketing advice. More business cards may not be the answer, but deeper community-specific outreach and stronger on-island partnerships are aligned with the mission.

The Community Birth Fund is one of the clearest examples of how budgeting connects to equity. Families may want midwifery care, doula support, lactation care, childbirth education, or postpartum support, but cost can make those services inaccessible. A birth fund requires more than good intentions. It needs eligibility guidelines, a transparent distribution process, tracking, accountability, and enough funding to support both families and providers. Without those structures, the fund could unintentionally become confusing, inconsistent, or unfair.

This week, I connected with someone familiar with SweetGrass and asked them to reflect on the financial direction of the project. Their feedback was that the budget should stay simple, transparent, and tied to actual program priorities. That helped me think about organizing the budget around a few clear categories: infrastructure, direct family support, provider/member compensation, outreach, evaluation, and sustainability. Their feedback also reminded me that a budget should be understandable to the people who are affected by it, not just funders or administrators.

The MCH Evidence Strategy Planning Tool connects to this reflection because it encourages leaders to identify goals, strategies, partners, resources, and measures of progress. For SweetGrass, this means financial planning should be connected to outcomes. If we fund Casebook, what will it help us track? If we fund the Community Birth Fund, how many families can receive support? If we compensate facilitators, how does that affect program quality and retention? If we invest in outreach, are we reaching the communities with the greatest barriers, or are we simply making the organization look more polished?

This week helped me understand that financial management is a form of accountability. It forces me to ask whether the organization’s spending matches its stated values. If SweetGrass says it values equity, then the budget should reduce barriers for families. If SweetGrass values community care, then the budget should support the people providing that care. If SweetGrass values sustainability, then the budget must include infrastructure and not only direct services.

Budgeting is not the most romantic part of community work, but it may be one of the most protective. A clear budget can prevent burnout, reduce confusion, support transparency, and make the work easier to share. For SweetGrass, financial management is not about becoming corporate. It is about building the structures and processes needed to make community care real, sustainable, and accountable.

References

Leadership Learning Community. (2015, June). Leadership & large-scale change: How to accelerate learning and deepen impact. https://leadershiplearning.org/publications/leadership-large-scale-change/

MCH Evidence Center. (n.d.). Strategy planning tool. https://www.mchevidence.org/tools/strategy-planning-tool.php