As a CFO of our company, I have the responsibility to make sure our company stays alive all the way through. We have a product that will save us, but not until two years later. In the meantime, need to raise money to keep our company running, while waiting for our new product to be fully implemented. The limited amount of cash flow that we have should be kept for regular expenses. On top of that, we will have to find ways to add money to our company. There are a few ways that we can consider for fundraising funds for our company. As a CFO, I would first propose to take about 30% of my annual salary and the same scale for top management to be utilized on other financial usage for now. In addition, I would also propose offering convertible notes and crowdfunding projects (Gerbers, 2014) to raise money, while keeping our stakeholders happy in our situation, rather than just borrowing loans from banks or requesting VC (venture capitals).

The essential problem we have to solve in our situation is to make sure we have enough cash to pay basic expenses to keep the company running, such as paying employees, insurance, utility bills, and other regular monthly expenses, etc. Besides using the limited cash we have, I am willing to take 30% of my annual salary to help as well. I would propose this plan at the board meeting to request the same for top management to do the same. That amount of salary collection alone from all top management can definitely ease the burden temporarily.

To convince the others to do the same as I do with our salary, the Company will give us 5% bonus on every 10% of contribution of the salary contribution. Let’s say one earns $ 800,000 a year. 30% of $800,000 is $240,000. So $240,000 will be contributed to the Company’s financial needs. When the Company returns the contribution to this person, he will not only get his $800,000 annual salary back, but also have an additional three times of 5% of the bonus that year. This can be open to other employees who are not in the top management level. The percentage of contribution is up to the individual’s affordability. The addition 5% of the bonus offer stays the same. I know the amount collected in total can help the Company survive at the baseline.

Moreover, having the convertible notes are like setting “open conditions like, ‘We want to raise $500,000,’ and [we] give investors conditions on the minimum investment and the prices for [our] stock” (Gerber, 2014). The investors have the option to lend us the money and we will return them later. On the other hand, they can choose to convert the amount into a partial share of our company when the amount is rather large. Either way, our company gets a chance to run like normal and more importantly, our stakeholders would be happy as well. (Gerber, 2014)

Another way to raise money for our company in this critical period is to have crowdfunding projects. That means we get the funding through pre-orders of our new projects, such as our new product that we have created but needs two more years to finalize it. Other rewards like discounted coupons can be accepted in exchange of the donations. (Gerber, 2014) Either way, we can raise money for our company immediately.

In conclusion, there are many ways to raise money in business. In our situation and as a CFO, we may choose to offer convertible notes and crowdfunding projects, instead of borrowing loans from banks. The two proposed solutions do not increase our financial burden on top of our difficult situation. In addition, the contribution of 30% of top management annual salary, plus possible voluntary contribution from our employees will also help strengthen our Company as a whole.