Gambling

For the record, I am NOT a gambler. I like to be sure about things and I hate making mistakes, so I try to be prepared before I make any decisions.

Today I made a choice and as I made it, I said, "this is me learning things the hard way." I am HOPING that everything works out. But I am 100% sure that I am going to look back and say, "oh boy! I would do that SO different next time." And I HATE that. Because I don't want to mess things up.

I'm in the midst of applying for a $30,000 grant. As in, it's like 99.9% done and I probably could have hit "send" today, but it's not due until Friday and so I am waiting until the morning to look at it again. This isn't a typical grant, because I am pretty sure, mostly sure, kinda sure, that I am going to get it. I've spoken with the woman at the organization giving it several times and she has basically told me it is mine to lose.

Unrelated to the grant, a few weeks ago, we decided to cancel the July 4 camp session. Our last two weeks of the summer are FULL and have waitlists, but we only had 11 kids registered and it didn't look like we'd get enough in the next few weeks to run it. So we cancelled. We managed to move all of the kids, so it was fine, but we have out of state staff who will still be here and all of the staff were counting on working that week, so it's a bummer. It's actually a huge headache, but I'm trying not to let it stress me out.

So back to this grant- based on the criteria and several conversations with the granting organization and my board, this money will be used to send kids to camp. There are other things we could have possibly proposed, but this is the best option. We could wait until next year to use it, but registration isn't quite where I want it for this summer (I had an aggressive goal for this year) and so we want to use it to bring kids THIS summer.

Since the last two (and almost the last 3) sessions are full, what better week to target than that stupid July 4 week. Except that it is in 3 weeks. Which is a SHORT turn around to register kids.

After I spoke to the grant woman on Monday, I made literally 30 phone calls to try to figure out where I could find 50 kids to come to camp in 3 weeks. It's free camp, but still, it's in 3 weeks. Well, I found my source. And several people who are EXCITED to help me spread the word. And they've eagerly been calling me. And I've been avoiding their calls because I am thrilled that they want to get a bunch of kids to camp on such short notice and I appreciate their support and I really appreciate their sense of urgency. But I don't actually have the grant yet.

So, if kids are going to sign up for camp in 3 weeks, they need to be doing so NOW. The grant is due Friday and the committee is meeting early next week. But by the time I find out about the grant, it will be too late to get kids registered.

The CORRECT answer is to add a session on at the end of the summer in August or to wait until next summer. BUT, that is not what I WANT to do. I want to run camp during the empty week, which will utilize my staff, fill a week that otherwise would just be wasted and rock my numbers (and budget) for the summer.

And so today I decided to gamble. I opened registration and sent out the information to the people who are going to help me get campers. And within an hour, I had 5 registrations. And with every registration that popped up, I got a little more nervous.

And now I am FREAKING out. I DO NOT have a backup plan if we do not get the grant. I can't cancel 50 kids who are expecting free camp. I can't run a week of camp for FREE. I NEED to get the grant, there is NO option for failure.

I am FULLY aware that I created this problem and I should have been practical and logical and smart about this. DO NOT SPEND MONEY YOU DON'T HAVE OR EVEN KNOW IF YOU WILL GET! Ugh. This could be SUCH an expensive lesson.

It could work out... and be awesome...

But it could also be a disaster....

We'll just have to wait and see.