Event:2017/03/06 Finance & Fundraising

Omni Finance Working Group 06 Mar 2017

Attendees

Marcus, Jenny, Laura, remote-David

Agenda

Quick discussion on ABDC finance situation for space adjustment

• • Could ABDC take over management of a cafe in the entrance hall and how would that affect the non-profit status
  • How does the sale of t-shirts and merchandise affect the status
  • ABDC could manage event rental space within the front hall and all equipment would be mobile to move on an event night
    • Get official research notes on the zoning regulations
      • Notes on mobile cart discount for selling a local biz's coffee is in the AV notes folder on sandstorm.oasis.io

• • (DK) I should try to connect with ABDC about this option. I am in support in theory except there is a major hiccup which is, changing the use of the entrance hall away from existing-nonconforming. Food and screenprinting in the same place - we need to examine the ramifications and make sure it doesn't trigger. Last I checked, for this specifically, it triggered.. :( It's a bit more than zoning its building dept's listed use (occupancy) for that room which exempts us from all kinds of otherwise-necessary upgrades.

• • (DK) The official use of that room came up specifically during the Tim Low fiasco. I was pressed on this by the supervisor of the Planning dept. The acting building official is also expecting us to open the closed-up door in that room.. we have to do that at some point, this will change the layout of the room.. basically I should get together with ABDC and see how / if it can work. I want to help ABDC; this needs to be thoroughly explored etc.
  • Old entrance on 48th thats walled over. The biggest one (back in the day). This is in the notes of the Tim Low episode..
  • I had to argue for maybe 15 minutes that the use of the entrance hall hadn't changed since 1934 and they pressed this point hard (wont get into details but I can for any who are interested), so its just something to consider. Moving away from assembly use will be noticed

• • LT suggests a meeting between ABDC & Agua Viva, and between ABDC & Building WG, and check with Jesse about legal relationships/sales/accounting as a nonprofit

Disaster Relief Fund

• • (DK) I have updates here as well. After a lot of bureaucratic wrangling communicating with GFM re: their polices, jesse, the recipients, the fundraiser person, etc we have hit upon the following best path forward:

   1. Because (thank goodness) the fund was technically started as a GFM 'Personal' fund and not as a 'Certified Charity' fund, it is ok with GFM to give funds outside of a 501c3, for those who do not require tax-deductibility. 
   2. Because of general fraud laws, consent forms will be emailed to every donor letting them know that their funds will be non-deductible. Some high-dollar donars will get affirmative consent forms, but most donors will get a 'object in 7 days or you consent' type email.
   3. It is anticipated that the number requiring tax-deductibility will be very low to nil. 
   4. Those who do require tax-deductibility, will have their funds distributed via Omni, and only a correspondingly small subset of recipients (corresponding to the tax-deductible amount) will in turn have to fill out the low-income tenant form. 
   5. If no one wants tax-deductibility, then nothing will go through omni, but one or two might want tax-deductibility (who donated above $500 for example). 
   

What do we think of that?

Sounds rad

• I talked to C. re: the other Ghostship relief fund and they are down to distribute the funds - they don't have a fiscal sponsor, not dealing w/ tax stuff, however still figring out whose bank account to pass the funds through.
  • Yes I talked ith S. as well (another organizer of this fund - 'Immediate Relief' fund) the same nite.. Perhaps we can have one of them distro the personal funds.. who was a bit less crucial, than whether it is even possible to distro outside of a c3, which took some time to sort out. Right now its going to go through Jesse's law office Trust. Who sends the checks in a way is less important but I will relay to them for sure. Thank you for checking with Claire!
  • Should I put Jesse & Claire in touch re: Jesse's trust to potentially route the funds from their gofundme through?
    • No. There's a lot of cooks in the kitchen with this particular fund and my point of contact is S. with that immediate fund if thats ok
      • k, cool, will let her know. thank you jenny!

• IF there are a few people who want tax deductions, do we still have to set up a permanent disaster relief fund?
  • Yes. Permanent for a while at least.. is that bad though? It just sits there. There really is no overhead to the fund and it would allow us to accomodate other relief efforts later (should we so choose) with far less hassle, I really don't ever want to do this setup phase again.. the conference calls alone have been sort of soul-destroying
  • We aren't a disaster relief agency.

I know. So? A lot of people set up funds and they were not disaster relief.. I just dont see the downside except for the set-up part, a lot of work but which is already done. I guess I dont see the value in having all this work repeated later. We are founded on principles of mutual aid and it feels like we should at least afford ourselves the capacity to do this, if we want to. It's basically about building in the capacity and affording ourselves this ability in the future. We don't 'have' to provide relief to anyone ever.. only if and when we want to. (I think this last point gets lost in the shuffle sometimes)

• • • extended back-and-forth about the amount of work required, expansion of activities, etc - consenso to wait and see if any donors have a problem with their donations not being tax-deductible.
    • We can't wait and see unfortunately, because the site needs to be closed and the old c3 on the site removed and every donor needs to get an email updating them to this fact..
      • that doesn't require omni's involvement.

I know. But, what happens when Omni Finance says 'No, we dont want to distribute the funds' after its already been emailed out to 600 people that tax-deductibile funds, should they want that, would go through omni?

• • • • The donors who insist on tax deductability, if there are any, can just be given their donation back.

According to who? I'm not sure they can. Then we can ask spme one who knows. You can ask Jesse Palmer. I find this backtracking sort of upsetting. I didn't get this whole project going. I know that. I don't understand why you would not want to distribute these funds? No reason has been stated, especially since it will only be for like 3 people tops probably This conversation is too complicatied to have by text message. We are going back on our word. That's not cool. We're here to help people. I haven't heard any reasons why not? This was unanimously consensed upon by delegates. It has been extensively (for reals) vetted for risk to Omni by our lawyer. A ton of prep work has gone into this. If there is a significant reason not to distribute these funds, it should simply be stated, so we all know what that is.

Re: a refund, Aay donor who already claimed this on their taxes would be screwed and a lot of people have likely already filed.. plus this money would not be going to people that really need it (disaster relief victims) so you're taking assistance away from them. The only people who would claim a deduction probably donated the most, so it would be genuinely impactful.

"How do I issue refunds? WePay (US & Canadian Accounts):

To refund all your account's donations, click this link here. To refund a single donor, please visit contact our team. "

what email are you talking about? I guess everytime you update the GFM site an email goes out, and to close the site and remove the previous c3 is an update/email. That needs an explanation for donors to the site who get those emails, and the explanation given re: how the funds will be distributed, would be the one I posited, unless there is any better suggestion?

DIY

• • (DK) Yay! Hey guys, I sent an email out to Finance list with a new grant app and an ask for jenny to remotely load up a HD pro card for Site #2:

   https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByjR12L1MEjCNzBDNXI5NnFDNjA/view?usp=sharing

Property, General Liability Insurance Quotes

• GL quotes comparison spread sheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XDwTvsazHkjedzzFFDORRrn6kHoOe-Yf2WeHcwBevGw/edit?usp=sharing
• How to make initial down payments on new GL and Property policies?
• We have to revoke GCS tenancy since they dont have a GL policy of their own. LAura will write letter.
• I have notified B&G that we want to go with their property quote from Nationwide ($6734 and better coverage vs $9000+)
  • Min 25% downpayment of approx $1684, then approx $571/month (now paying $769)
  • Will be effective as of 3/6/17, 3 months after Chubb policy took effect and soonest we can cancel.
  • Laura will notify Danielle about Chubb cancellation when notified to go ahead with their GL policy
  • Confused about sq.ftage areas in teh spreadsheet.. 'Halls' refer to hallways but not assembly hall rite?
    • it's like, x 100... 220 x the square footage of halls i believe Hallways? Or rooms? Hallways I guess
    • Ballroom alone is ~4000sf no? I wasn't sure if you meant halls as a room

• Does nautilus policy exclude children somehow?
  • oh, nautilus

Action Items

• Demo 'tiny tasks' that are super-helpful (jenny)
  • eg: reconciling transactions, creating invoices & documenting payments, updating public budget spreadsheet, archiving mtg notes to wiki, etc

Misc Link Dump

• Omni Budget - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rvkMc5lmd8PovoViNLdvlrv0tSyvrH7iB0SmGqaFec8/edit#gid=1281242457