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Finance Committee Notes: July 07, 2004 FINCOM
CONFERENCE CALL MEETING Present: jo, jake, jeff, doug, bill, emily facilitator - jake, note taker-doug, and timer-emily Approval of minutes of June 16 and June 24 meeting We will discuss possibly changing the fiscal year at the next meeting, not this one. Introduce any new members of FinCom(if any) - none Self-introduction of people participating on the call - skip 1 Finance Committee meeting at the convention- Jake - meeting went well. Jo, Jake, Doug and Emily were there in person. Jake wrote lots of checks at the convention! Final numbers still to come. Jake feels that the convention probably broke even. Doug will complete the final numbers within the next week. We are disputing $5,700 bill with Midwest center dealing with stage hand labor = $3,600 and AV patches for one hour at $1,200. Adam is working with the hotel on this. Also awaiting the final bill from the hotel, we expect it to be close to zero. 2.Cash Flow- Income & Expenditures - Everyone. General discussion if needed. Fundom decided that might expend $20k for direct mail from reserves. JO-we have no active source of income. We have about $11k from sustainer income and a few thou in misc. income. We have only 2 months in reserve. Not enough to grow the party. Most events will be cobb events and will not be sharing events with the party. JEFF: we may not get back onto budget until after nov. BILL: maybe
we should look more at states supporting the national instead of JEFF: need more communication of the need for a national party to the states. One person is not enough. We now have a minimal staff which we shouldn't drop below. About $15k per month is what we need for minimum. Not in favor of direct mail with just national. We should make sharing programs the cornerstone of the finances. JO: we have $12k per month coming in. In favor of direct mail to find new people to prospect to. Kara is trying to solicit to new people and fundcom is discussing hiring a firm to do direct mail. DOUG: Most of this discussion should be done in fundcom with communication from fincom about our status and needs. BILL: Important to balance the budget and we need to discuss fundraising in order to make recommendations JEFF: Maybe we should volunteer to help fundcom instead of having fincom meetings for the next 30 days. BILL: With only $30k in reserves maybe we shouldn't spend money on a direct mail firm. We have expertise within the organization. We need to spend less on mailings and do smaller mailings. JO: in CA fundcom and fincom are one committee and she feels it works better. DOUG: reason that we created fincom was not to bog down fundcom with nuts and bolts items unrelated to fundraising. JEFF and BILL want to be added to fundraising committee list. Jake will do it. JEFF: maybe we need subcommittees. Nothing is more important than fundraising! 3. Comprehensive database and reporting systems update - Emily (lead person for the database working group): Megan finished database clean-up project. David will be finish importing by Monday.We will be losing David in the fall because he is going back to school for hisPHD. Setting up an import process and learning the process are going forward. Emily want to take a seminar in access or find someone local or fly David in for a long weekend to work on the db. Early to mid Aug for David to finish current work. Emily will write up a formal proposal for fincom. JAKE: favors flying in David to DC to work on the db. Wants proposal quickly. David could train the staff on how to use access and how to use the db. David lives in MI. Committee likes this idea by consensus. MOTION: FINCOM TO REQUEST FUNDS FOR A TICKET FROM SC. 4. Committee Mission Policies and Procedures update - Bill - It's been out for a while. We should approve it. Proposal to approve it - Jeff has concerns, wants to look at it some more. Proposal to have Jeff send his concerns to the group and try to approve next fincom meeting - passes. 4. Revisions to current Fiscal Policy - Rules and Procedures Update -Jake - same as #3 above. Try to approve next meeting. 5.Weekly financial reports Update - Jake - people appear happy with the weekly reports. 6. Budget Amendment Schedule- Jo Jake. Add discussion of 05 budget and two tier left over from last meeting. Discussion of Black caucus: Doug: they have a budget of $11.8k in expenses and $5k in income. No income or expenses have occurred thus far. BILL: in favor of breakeven or better tour. Reach in reserve for it. JEFF: wants to see a current plan with explicit detail with a limited budget. We don't have the money to fund a tour but will consider with a breakeven plan. JAKE: two events planned. Doesn't see either event happening. JO: we are in a spending freeze. We have extremely limited cash flow. Wants to see a breakeven plan from them and then would be in favor. JAKE: will get back to Michelle at Black caucus and ask for a new plan from them 9. Posting Fin Com minutes on our web page Bill Emily 10. CCC/ Campaign Resource Program Update JAKE: Brent has sent jake the forms. $1,000 is being donated from GPUS to the AZ campaign. Jake will send Doug the info and forms via mail. 11. Budget with two tiers: discussion only BILL: likes two tiers JEFF: two tiers is oversimplified and messy, needs work. Has concerns with it. JAKE: stay in same format for 05 as 04 for categories and portfolios. two tiers is fine however. JEFF: wants to discuss 4 and 8 year plans. Maybe we could spend August talking about big picture stuff. Lets look long-range. We need strategic planning and long range budgeting! For 05 budget lets use 04 budget. JO: agree with jeff. Take each year and paste into 4 year plan. Add more each year (10% maybe) to supporting candidates. NEXT meeting: Wed. July 21, 2004 at 7pm to 9:30pm EST. Respectively
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