We know there is a gap, but how do we solve that problem?

Expanding on Phase I

The Overview produced in Phase I is built on reserve study replacement costs and high-level allowances for discretionary items. The numbers provide an indispensable baseline but do not normally represent the full cost to the club for a major item.

Phase II drills down—adding real-world costs, considering prioritization and sequencing, and evaluating the member impact.  The result, predictably, is that the spending number goes up. Often substantially. This is not bad news. It is the real number — and a plan built on the real number is a plan that can actually be executed. 

The gap gets larger as the picture gets clearer. The goal of Phase II is not to minimize the gap. It is to understand it — thoroughly and clearly, and to enable strategic decision making.

What Projects Actually Cost at a Private Club

Consider a tennis court. The reserve study allocates $250,000 and that is what was included in the Phase I Overview.  That is not what a tennis court replacement costs at a private club.  By the time the lights (which don’t work well), the furniture (which is worn) and the fence, landscaping, and irrigation are all added to the project, the cost will easily approach $500,000.  A club with a budget of only $250,000 may be in trouble.

This pattern is not unique to tennis courts. It is the reality of capital work at a private facility that has standards to maintain and members to manage. Phase II begins quantifying the real cost and enables decision making based on data not emotions.

The Spending Plan: Building from a Baseline

Phase II begins on the spending side by establishing a minimum baseline: what the club must spend to maintain its physical plant and fulfill its obligations to members under a conservative, no-enhancements scenario. This is the floor. It is not aspirational. It reflects the real cost of keeping the club operational and in reasonable condition over the planning horizon.

The baseline is important because it gives the board an anchor. Every spending scenario above the baseline represents a choice — a decision to invest beyond minimum maintenance, with a corresponding funding requirement. When the board understands the baseline, the tradeoffs become visible: what does adding the fitness expansion cost, in terms of annual funding requirements? What does accelerating the pool complex renovation do to the reserve trajectory?

Are we maintaining the club, or making it better? Are we adding fitness, or staying with our traditional offerings? What would it take to fund the ‘full vision’ plan? What is the funding plan for the minimum baseline? These are the questions Phase II is designed to answer.

From the baseline, Provident works with the board to develop two or three realistic spending scenarios — typically a maintenance plan, a moderate investment plan, and a more ambitious plan — each with a clearly documented scope and budget. These become the options for the board to evaluate .   This is not a ‘good-better-best’ budget for a specific project. It is a decision about the overall Capital Strategy– maintain the status quo, make minimal investments in upgrades, or pursue excellence across the board.

Matching Funding to Spending

Most boards have never explicitly chosen a capital funding strategy. They set regular annual assessments at whatever amount precedent and membership tolerance suggest, and hope it is enough. Phase II replaces hope with data.

For each spending scenario, Phase II models the funding plan required to support it: what combination of funding mechanisms would be required to keep the reserve balance above an acceptable floor over the full planning horizon.

At the end of Phase II, the board knows what it is going to cost to run the club at three different service levels, and has a funding scenario for each.  That is not a report.  It is a decision-making tool.

The output is a set of paired scenarios: each spending plan with a corresponding funding plan. Each option is viable, with different implications for dues levels, assessment levels, club marketability, and member experience. The choice is a governance decision.  No one can tell your board the right option, but we can give you the tools to make informed, data driven decisions that you can confidently communicated to the members.

Enabling Confident Communication

One of the most important outcomes of Phase II is not a spreadsheet. It is the ability to have a credible, confident, comprehensive conversation with the membership.

A board that can explain its capital plan in three minutes has done the work. A board that cannot has not.

That communication builds confidence precisely because it demonstrates that the board has done the work — not just inherited a number from a reserve study and hoped for the best.

What Phase II Delivers

1. A spending forecast reflecting realistic project budgets for anticipated and discretionary capital items over the planning period.

2. A minimum baseline scenario and two or three 'investment' scenarios, each with documented scope, assumptions, and timeline.

3. Funding plans modeled for each scenario, with annual contribution requirements, assessment timing, and projected reserve balances.

4. An updated Overview for each scenario— the same familiar framework from Phase I, now grounded in real numbers and supported by details and backup materials.

5. A formal board decision (should your board desire): “We are proceeding with Plan x Here is why. Here is what comes next”.

The Transition to Phase III

The decision made at the end of Phase II is a commitment to a direction and process, not a static plan that is set in stone. The spending forecast is accurate at a budgetary level. The funding plan looks to be viable. The board has chosen a path. The members are in the loop.  But the major items on that path — the pool complex, the dining room renovation, the fitness expansion — are still concepts, not projects.

Phase III is where those concepts become real. It is where the plan moves from the model to the field. Boards change. GMs change. Priorities shift. Without someone helping your club carry the plan forward through those transitions, it is likely to end up in a drawer like many reports that came before.