In the mid-1970s a few Business Managers, a School Head, and two CPAs from local accounting firms formed ISBMA. (Independent Schools Business Managers Association.)
At that time we met on a monthly basis usually at Town School in San Francisco, with a jug of wine (or two), some cheese and crackers and a lot of conversation. After our monthly meeting, we would all go to dinner at a nearby restaurant and continue sharing ideas, often late into the evening. Primarily we were an idea-sharing and social group. Over time we changed our name, dropping the “M” and replacing it with an “O” for officer.
Membership has grown to over 200 schools state-wide today.
In the early 1980s at one of our gatherings, we thought it would be great to find a way to share with each other statistical information about our respective schools. We decided that we would create a report by requesting data on tuitions, salaries, budgets, et cetera from each member school. The group of volunteer Business Managers would come together and package all the collected information into a single report that would then be distributed at a general meeting to all the schools who participated in the survey. ISBOA STATS was born…
Today we have the “Cal-ISBOA Annual Report,” which is managed by a third party to maintain confidentiality.
Cal-ISBOA has since established professional programs, held state-wide conferences, sponsored meetings where we have engaged speakers who presented to us on a wide range of topics from technology to the economy, all in an effort to better us professionally, while maintaining the same social spirit we had in the mid 1970s at Town School in San Francisco.
