In the winter of 2023 HMI offered an online Holistic Financial Planning Course taught by HMI Professional Certified Educator Phil Metzger from New York. In this course participants learn the 9 steps to Holistic Financial Planning and how to complete a gross profit analysis on one of their enterprises as well as identifying their profit margin and the best areas of investing in their businesses to get maximum ROI. There were 15 participants from 3 countries influencing 42,144 acres. Evaluations showed that 100% of the participants were satisfied with the quality of the course and would recommend the course to others.
HMI works hard to find scholarship support for those interested in taking these online courses who wouldn’t necessarily afford all the registration fee for these courses. Hear what Ethon, one of our scholarship recipients, said about what he got out of the course.
Ethon Pawlaczyk
Holland, Ohio
Course taken: Holistic Financial Planning
"I am a fifth-generation farmer, but a first-generation grazer. I started helping my family row crop farm when I was 10 years old. Over time we lost rented land to housing development and fewer family members were involved in the farm until it was just my grandpa and I who were farming. He got in a bad car accident and then it was only me farming and I started to see the financial books. After realizing how much money we were losing I started looking for other options for farming that could at least break even. I learned that there was a way to farm other than conventional row crop and feedlot cattle and then jumped into regenerative agriculture and Holistic Management. After seeing Allan Savory's TED talk, I learned about Holistic Management and read his book to start my knowledge base for how to manage with the whole in mind. I then looked into additional learning and training options to continue to learn more about how to apply Holistic Management. Currently we focus on producing high quality pasture raised foods that help regenerate soils, restore ecological function, and is enjoyable to eat. Holistic Management has been a tool to help us achieve our goals while also improving our land that we manage on.
Through the financial planning training I learned to set your goal profit that you would like to earn ahead of time and then plan out your possible and available expenses from what is remaining. Previously I had always just looked at profit as what you have left after spending whatever you needed to get through the year. However, by determining how much profit you'd like ahead of time, with discipline, you can maintain your margin while being judicious and creative on if you really need to purchase an input since you can see it will pull from your planned profit. I will be implementing this in my business and personal life to better manage money so we can maintain a viable and profitable business."
Thanks to the L&L Nippert Foundation for funding the Regenerative Agriculture Scholarship Fund that helps people like Ethon, as well as our other funders who provide scholarship support!