Guidelines for an Excellent Charter School Credit Profile
A credit profile is the face of your charter school to financiers and investors. Having a good credit profile is very beneficial because it will allow for more opportunities to obtain school financing you may need to expand or improve your facilities.
If you want to improve credit for your charter school and create a better credit profile, there are several ways to make this happen. See these guidelines to improve your school’s credit profile.
Top Tips for a Strong School Credit Profile
- Avoid filing bankruptcies, including personal or school bankruptcies. Neither helps your charter school credit profile.
- Make sure that your background check is clean and stays that way. There shouldn’t be any criminal record or a history of financial fraudulence to build good credit.
- Make sure your payments to lenders are always on time in the amount owed. Be sure there are no outstanding balances. This demonstrates your reliability and credibility.
- Have a positive and professional relationship with your bank, accounting firm, back office, and lenders. Your school and staff should maintain a good standing relationship with them.
- Your school must not have any major liabilities, especially tax liabilities. These certainly do not help build a terrific charter school credit profile.
- Try to continually grow your enrollment numbers, and operate at the same location for multiple years. This demonstrates reliability and stability.
- Obtain a good standing certificate from the school authorizer.
- To improve credit for your charter school, it’s important to have or select an executive director with over three years of experience in a leadership role at a charter school.
- Your charter school should have an independent board of directors. They need to work productively as a team and make informed decisions.
Have proof that you have a good financial track record and that your charter school credit profile is important to you. If there are any issues with any of the funding or payments, fix them immediately. If there is any fraudulent activity, report it as soon as you notice it. This shows you are on top of your finances, dependable, and aware of what’s going on with your financials.
Improving Your Charter School’s Credit Profile Takes Time
If your school has a clean background with no bankruptcies or tax liabilities, stay on top of your payments and fix any errors immediately.
A great standing relationship with your business partners (including your accounting firm and back office) and an experienced director with at least three years of experience will also help you boost your charter school credit profile. This will become very helpful in the upcoming years of your charter school.
Ask us today to talk with a charter school funding expert. Charter Asset Management has helped fund more than 250 charter schools nationwide.