Budgeting

A budget is a plan expressed in dollar amounts that acts as a road map to carry out an organization’s objectives, strategies and assumptions. In the case of non-profits, it should be used as a guideline to determine what sort of yearly revenue will be required to reach at least a breakeven point.

Yes, there is a difference between businesses making a profit and those that are non-profit. However being a non-profit doesn’t mean that you can’t make money. You should think about how much in reserve your group should maintain in case any events you hold fail to make a profit for a period of time.

This will vary per group and per kingdom. Rule of thumb should be a minimum of 18 months to 2 years reserve. For some groups they are comfortable with 12 months, or others they want a larger cushion.

Kingdoms should probably have a larger cushion since for a majority of the kingdoms, your main ways of raising revenue is either from direct donations (fundraisers) and profit splits from the local group hosting a kingdom level event. There is at least one kingdom that collects $1 per person per event that goes into the kingdom fund. There is nothing against this. Just make sure that folks within your kingdom are okay doing this.

What are some of the things that you should consider when creating a budget?

1.Officer budgets – yearly amount that each officer can spend on their office. Make sure to specific whether it is just for office supplies, phone calls, etc. This would be part of the group’s policy.

2.Storage rentals, meeting space rentals, etc

3.Travel budget for Royalty. There has been some discussion in the past about territorial baron/ness getting travel allowance – as usual there are differences in opinion.

4.Publications

5.Web hosting

6.Anything else your group might pay out on a monthly-yearly basis.

Once you know what your general operating budget is, you can use that to determine what sort of profit you need to make from your events, fundraising, etc. to meet this goal.

What is the best way to determine how much to charge for an event?

  1. How many actually stop and think about for any particular event we need to make $x amount of dollars to help cover general operating expenses. Mostly folks think about the breakeven point and little beyond that.
  2. There is no one way to calculate how much to charge for an event
  3. Some factors to consider
  4. Number of attendees from your previous events
  5. Go back several years and make sure to notate any irregularities such as it snowed and pretty much shut down all traffic
  6. Don’t include children in the count
  7. How is the site fee determined? Is it a flat fee or based per person or a combination of fees?
  8. Expenses
  9. While you don’t have to break it down to the penny you should make sure that it spells out what reimbursements will be allowed. For example – Your group rents a trailer to tow supplies to the site. Does the budget also allow for reimbursement of the gasoline for the person towing the trailer?
  10. Who is allowed to turn in receipts for reimbursement – make a list and give it to the exchequer.
  11. Include a cushion – anywhere between $1-$3 per person for incidentals. While we always hope we can stay on budget you never know when you need to get some emergency supplies, such as the site’s ice machine breaks down and you need 20 bags of ice.
  12. Whatever your group’s process is for accepting bids (which should always include a budget) is followed and that a copy of the budget is given to the groups’ exchequer so he/she knows what expenses are allowed.
  13. Make sure that the people running the event know that if they need to go over the budget that it has to be approved by the financial committee.

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