By the time of the September GAC meeting, most of the development costs had already been incurred. A decision to stop development at that point would have foreclosed the opportunity to recoup any of the costs through curriculum sales. The GAC believed that moving ahead was a financially responsible decision under the circumstances. Initial response to the new curriculum has been very positive. Curriculum development, under any circumstances, is a costly enterprise.
Denominational curriculum competes in a much larger market today than ever before.
Many decisions must yet be made about our future curriculum, including how it will be funded and what management systems need to part of the development process. Our goal was to have 30,000 youth and young adults at this event in Indianapolis last December. We needed significantly fewer to break even. When Y2K fears reduced the actual attendance to only around 2,000, however, we found ourselves in a serious financial situation. When it became apparent last fall that attendance would likely fall short of our needs and expectations, several contracts for facilities were canceled in order to reduce our costs.