Event:2015/12/28 Fundraising

Omni Fundraising WG Meeting Monday December 28, 2015

=Attendees= Laura, Robb, Remote Jenny, remote Matt S, yar, MAtt G

=fundraisng letter= Laura: I will get started tomorrow with fillin in the names from the spreadsheet Jenny made of all the evebts and sending - if you give me the ok on the text.

Dear (name of rental contact),

Some time in the past year and a half, you or your organization held an event at the Omni Commons. Maybe it was a party, a fundraiser, a meeting, or a conference. Whatever it was, you were able to have an event in a conveniently located, inspiring, historic space that shares your political values for much less than other spaces charge. Your contribution went toward keeping the Omni available for everyone. We are grateful to have you in our community.

2016 will be a very important year for the Omni Commons. We have a good chance of being able to buy our building in the early part of the year and preserve it as place for mutual liberation and translating ideas and dreams into action. Our monthly expenses will be reduced and we will be able to operate without certain restrictions in our lease. At the same time, we still have upgrades to the building we need to do to be fully operational and self-sustaining. We really need you to support our transition from renting to owning by donating.

As much as we need financial support, we need people power!

The Omni is run by volunteers. Help us with booking and producing events, building construction and maintenance, welcoming visitors, administrative tasks. See a list of all the working groups here. Email us at info@omnicommons.org with specific questions about how to get involved.
 * Come to one one of our work days.
 * Check out our wish list.
 * Join one of our member collectives.
 * Start a new collective. We have space available for organizations that are interested in sharing the resources of the building.
 * Have another event here or come to an event.
 * Share this email with the people in your group and anyone else who might be interested.
 * Join our email list to hear about major events, work days, volunteer  opportunities, special announcements.

…whatever you are interested in or like to do, there is probably a way to do that at the Omni Commons. With gentrification and the extreme rise in the cost of real estate and rentals, accessible spaces for political and creative projects are becoming scarce. With our community working together the Omni Commons can remain a permanent outpost for collective liberation and creativity. Please contribute today. With our best wishes for the new year,
 * - Names of people from WG who want to sign for the Fundraising Working Group


 * We are discussiing how to send these from an omni email address. Yar says to send her the text, w the name and emaeil address for each letter and she can figure out a script to automatically merge and send. Yay Yar!
 * Matt S:I had a quick question about the letter above -- curious about the number of people we're sending to, since personalizing messages can sometimes make a big difference, but wanted to get a quick scale check.
 * OVer a hundred
 * Matt: Hrm, cool, so at this point seems good just to send something.
 * I am gong to use their names or the name of the org inn the greeting but not change the text.

=Broccoli follow-up=
 * Matt: No response from Broccoli that I know of. Assuming we will hear after the new year, possibly before.
 * Yar: Do we need to discuss a Plan B?
 * Laura: A credit union loan?
 * Matt: I'm not sure. I was under the impression (perhaps falsely) that Credit Unions are unable to help us with the purchase (perhaps we could get small business loans, but even that is nearly impossible), here's a relevant link about that: http://blog.archive.org/2015/11/24/difficult-times-at-our-credit-union/
 * Matt: I definitely think we should prepare and plan to proceed with meeting with banks for traditional mortgages or other viable options (which might include credit unions) ASAP, especially if we're looking for a short-term loan to make rent this month, we need to pull off the purchase next or the following preferably.
 * Laura: The best quotes DK got were from credit unions
 * Matt: Now I'm confused. About the credit unions. I've talked to credit unions and so did Marcus, and I was informed by Western Federal and Patelco that it's rare for credit unions to give mortgages or large loans. Marcus said he didn't find any credit unions that could give a loan in general.
 * Matt: Either way, DK has the best leads so I just mean follow up on his leads, whatever they are.
 * Yar: don't most of them want us to be 2yo?
 * Matt: *I don't know*, I'd just be speculating. Anyone want to give DK a heads-up to get in touch when he's back from Italy? Could also send a ping now in case he responds. I'd be happy to go with others to follow-up with some of the prospective banks.
 * Laura: Can we put Marcus on it since he was interested in this? I can cmmunicate with him.
 * Matt: I think he'd be interested and I'd be happy to work with him.
 * Laura: OK Ill email you 2 tomorrow

Lets move on to budget shortfall...

= budget shortfall =
 * it's big
 * in order to make rent we need 5-6k in the next few days. we also have pg&e and insurance due this week. pg&e autopays, so that could impact our rent. gas might be more this month, maybe electricity less due to fewer events.
 * matt g hasn't talked to john yet, but in the invoice he wanted to talk about which collectives are still here. Last quarter insurance wasn't paid and he got a bunch of cancellations. he's worried. jenny was gonna follow through.
 * We're in a bad position, risking the purchase option.
 * it wasn't our fault the insurance didn't get paid. they mixed up the numbers.
 * So we aren't currently behind on insurance payments, nor are we in violation of the terms of the lease to the best of our awareness/ability (right now)?
 * dk is named for both black hole and backspace - neither exist.
 * There were a lot of swaps in the couple of weeks leading up to signing the actual lease, different orgs that were going to be listed, but yeah the ones that were settled on weren't even all of the founding collectives, they were just to make John comfortable.
 * jesse told us not to bother with a new lease so close to buying, but that was 6 months ago
 * exactly. uff.
 * Laura: I talked to Joe who said that he was going to update John and get an addendum to the lease from Jesse with the updated collectives. The 3 new ones haven't actually signed subleases yet becasue there arent any so I am gongto have to make new ones by combining a generic commercial sublease with the specific term that are in the existing option to sublease forms.
 * Jenny texted that marc is willing to loan us enough to cover. Yay!

=botw=
 * We need to close down the Bank of the West account. is jenny a signer?
 * We have a western fed account but you have to go downtown.
 * We should fix the lockbox. -- what do you mean fix? Make s secure place for cash k
 * Laura: We are discussing how to use western fed and not ever having to go there. CAsh depostis are the problem. Matt G is gong to set up the QB so that he can keep cash and then invoice himself for the amount. QB? Quick books K, that's fine.
 * All cash should be spent on toilet paper -- we are out of toilet paper, huh? uff. No, just in principle. k
 * Yeah, I looked into that when I learned Bank of the West was closing... there are no nearby banks to Temescal. You have to go over to Broadway & 50th or up to Ashby in Berkeley.
 * The safe in the secure storage room--I can't find anybody with the combo, I assume DK or John would be the ones with that.

=gambling=
 * jenny's in vegas
 * We should all go to vegas and play the slot machines
 * Lol. I'm like--THAT'S OUTRAG--wait maybe that's not such a bad idea... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Blackjack_Team

=february=
 * mattg knows somebody who'd invite rich berkeley people to a party. they like books and art.
 * those are a lot of work

=indigogo followup= Jenny not here