TBKC: The Next Leader in New York City’s Workforce Development Community

December 21, 2011 by Leave a comment

Dear Friends,

The last value in our year-long series is Leadership. How important is the concept of leadership? Competent leadership strengthens a nation. Effective leadership helps businesses be successful. And visionary leadership helps a nonprofit organization achieve its mission.

Without leadership, resources are wasted. An organization’s momentum stalls and the implementation of thoughtful decisions are delayed. As a result, that organization is prevented from being successful.

My role at TBKC is one of leadership. Since coming on board, together with the staff and the board of directors, I have been able to develop our organization’s vision, refine our mission and create a strategy to accomplish our goals.

As you learned in my letter from April, TBKC’s vision is to someday be a key member in the New York City Workforce Development Community. In other words, eventually, we will be a leader in this community.

Our mission is to empower talented individuals to find meaningful employment by providing affordable, specialized financial trainings, job readiness assistance and work experience. When we say ‘meaningful’ employment, we are referring to a career. As opposed to a job, a career is a profession one uses to build one’s life around. With hard work and dedication to that profession, an individual can become a leader in his or her field. Through our work, we hope to guide the individuals in our community onto the right path of pursuing their passion: a career in bookkeeping and/or financial administration.

TBKC’s strategy to accomplish our mission is laid out in our strategic plan and our approach is directly related to our vision statements that I provided in my November letter. We have implemented our plans and are progressing confidently towards our goals.

The business community needs leaders as well. In this perilous economic climate, business owners need financial peace of mind. That peace of mind comes from a competent bookkeeper who will handle the financial recording, reporting, and analyses. A bookkeeper is a leader for a company’s financial accuracy. Enroll in our program to start your career in bookkeeping or volunteer at our organization to help us realize our goals and to build opportunity for tomorrow’s leaders.

If you would to explore available opportunities, please contact our Communications Associate, Lolita Wong at lolita@tbkc.org.

Thanks for your time and interest in TBKC. Best wishes for a safe and happy holiday season.

Sincerely,
Thomas P. Graham IV
Executive Director
The Bookkeeping Center

Filed under Announcements, Values, Volunteers Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dedication in Action at The Bookkeeping Center

April 25, 2011 by Leave a comment

Dear Friends,

For April, we focus on the value of Dedication. Dedication is a principle that we, at The Bookkeeping Center (TBKC), hold dearly. We require that our participants dedicate themselves to our program and we expect the people in our organization to be dedicated to its mission.

Dedication is one’s commitment to achieving one’s goals. People come to us looking for a new or better job. They endeavor to learn a new skill set and capitalize on that skill in the job market. By enrolling in DISCOVERBOOKKEEPING (DB), an eleven-month program, our participants demonstrate a level of commitment to their long-term goals that is admirable.

Dedication pays off when participants receive their Certificate of Completion

Once accepted, participants demonstrate their dedication by:

  • Attending all classes dressed in professional attire
  • Meeting with the instructor or a mentor to ensure that they understand the classroom lessons
  • Utilizing group study sessions and lab hours to improve comprehension
  • Taking good notes and being accountable for each session’s coursework
  • Attending all job readiness workshops to learn how to be a well-rounded job applicant
  • Asking questions

Our intensive program demands commitment from the participants. Without it, they would have trouble passing the challenging ‘Terminology’ and ‘Chart of Accounts’ exams given within the first month of DB’s Manual Bookkeeping semester! From the skills learned on the first day of DISCOVERBOOKKEEPING to the last, our dedicated participants move closer and closer to career sustainability.

Organizationally, we are committed to the mission: to empower talented individuals to find meaningful employment by providing affordable, specialized financial administration, job-readiness assistance and work experience. Additionally, we’ve completed our first strategic plan, which will keep our dedicated staff on a path towards fulfilling our vision.

Our plan covers the next three years and keeps us focused on becoming a key member in the New York City workforce development community that has:

  • An organizational orientation towards accountability and results
  • A strong, engaged, forward-thinking board of directors
  • Enriching support services complimenting a solid curriculum to lead to successful, long-term placements
  • A mobilized corps of volunteers to support all aspects of the organization
  • Continued to fully embrace and utilize social media
  • Ensured a clear and consistent communications strategy for all audiences
  • The ability to attract new and diverse funding sources
  • On-going, two-way partnerships to access opportunities

We have put our Strategic Plan into action and we are on our way to achieving these goals. We are already tracking programmatic results and increasing the quality and quantity of job readiness workshops. We are building a stronger board (please see last month’s newsletter) and we have hired a volunteer coordinator to increase our human capacity. Finally, we are exploring ways to improve our communications and fundraising strategies. Our dedication to TBKC should lead to a more effective program, which helps us to better accomplish our mission and have a positive impact on the people of New York City.

If you have any questions about our Strategic Plan, please feel free to contact us. Your input reflects a dedication to the people participating in DISCOVERBOOKKEEPING, and we are always excited to hear from you.

Sincerely,
Thomas P. Graham IV
Executive Director
The Bookkeeping Center

Filed under Students, Values Tagged with , , , , ,

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