As it started its journey as a customer-funded organization, the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency (NC3A) needed to adopt operational and financial planning practices normally found in the commercial world. Customizing and implementing such an approach in an international governmental organization presented several challenges to those who were called to make it work. This paper provides the background, defines the problem, presents the approach to reconciling requirements and constraints in a customer-funding regime, and analyses the experience in the first years of its implementation.