While we're away on vacation, we're recycling some of the best Corners. This one first appeared on December 10, 2003.

Proctor is, at the same time, many things. The Admission team wants the world to think of us as an innovative prep school rather than--say--a tree farm (which we are, too). We are also a 501(c)3: a not-for-profit corporation with an annual budget of ten million dollars. Like any other organization, we attain goals by optimally utilizing our assets, and we maintain a running account of assets and performance in a variety of ways, including financial accounting. Consider the importance of a truly complete accounting system to our decision making!

In an article entitled Intangible Assets and Organizational Health, mathematician, musician and analytical theorist Lee Humphries, President of ThinkingApplied.com points out that an organization's financial condition at any given moment in time is a function of its management of intangible assets (such as imagination and goodwill) in the past. How very true this is of Proctor! The millions of dollars we have raised and invested in physical improvements in recent years are the product of very special, intangible assets--relationships between people--that existed here in recent decades.

This realization leads to some exhilarating conclusions. How shall we leverage existing assets to realize dreams? Humphries writes, "It behooves (organizations) to pinpoint the people who supply imagination and goodwill and to foster symbiotic relationships with those people."

Consider teachers...teachers whose commitment to the school and its students stems from Proctor's treatment of them both as professionals and as human beings.

Thus seen, it is the quality of our best relationships that generates capital. Does anybody doubt our ability to attain our dreams if we look beyond financial accounting systems to recognize our intangible assets?