Financial liability

Hey, interesting idea, that!

And the gypsy scarf is quite becoming.

Great Idea eh!
There are probably online courses available too. I know a local college here offers a program in volunteer management, in house only but.
Experience is the real asset though, and you've got it in spades by now. LoL

I'm sure some of us can also be used as your resource on specific issues and problem solving. I've worked for nonprofits for the last 18 years of my professional career - as a paid staff. I'm a volunteer for the Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury, and I'm learning things about local government that should be worth a PhD. LOL

I've worked in non-profits my whole career thus far; mostly paid, some volunteer.

Veddy veddy interesting.

And you guys have certainly contributed scads to my education, here... thanks again.

Thinking.
It's a good thing.

:-D

Possible really good news!

One of the main things that has been causing me to tear my hair out is that I always thought I was supposed to raise about $25,000, but couldn't find that number in any of the budgets ("any of the budgets" -- that says something right there, doesn't it?) There was the $22,000 thing I mentioned a while ago, which was close, but...

Then when I was showing E.G. something in the 501(c) 3 application, he kept paging through and found... "Financial Data", with "Proposed budget for 2 years." And there on the "Gifts, grants, and contributions received" line, a bootiful, round, lovely "$25,000."

That's the most official document we have, and that is when the total estimated expenses were about as high as they've gotten, ~$145,000.

So, $20,000 now, several things in process, (Just got over $500 in the last couple of days) $25,000 eminently achievable by March 31st, that makes me feel much better. :-D

I'm still gonna resign and all, don't worry, but makes me feel infinitely better about the whole thing from several different angles.

That is good news.

It would have made me nervous to see projected expenses of 145k and a fund-raising goal of 25k. I'm used to seeing things the other way round.

Yeah.

Again, the expectation is/was that registrations would cover the bulk of the expenses.

But, yeah.

so maybe I'm a bit inspired - by the soz and this discussion. I hadn't been involved with the cancer society fund-raiser for a couple of years. I talked to someone about it last night, and I might be back in again.

Hey, cool!

Interesting that this would be inspiring -- rather than, like, "I'm never volunteering for nothin' if I can possibly help it!!" -- but, cool! :-D

I've always thought volunteering was a great thing, soz. And I thought what you are trying to do is excellent.

It was some of the *&^%(&*&%# fools who didn't have their &^%#*(% together that were peeving me, not you or the basic idea.

Heh!

Oh, I know, but the whole experience is so scary. Go in thinking yay good cause, helping out, groovy, and then WHOA!

Sounds like your organization is nice and normal and established, though. Not scary.

Just checked in after the weekend, and was happy to see the good news! <sigh of relief> Just to be sure, have your fundraising successes very painstaikingly documented just in case they're slow to come clear about their budgets and fail to account for them.

Also, I have combed through my old bookmarks to see if I find something which might help you avoid such unpleasant surprises on your next volunteering project. It wasn't much -- I'm not nearly as involved as you are -- but The McKinsey quarterly has a section on managing non-profits which you might find helpful. As everything emanating from McKinsey, it has more consultant-speak in it than necessary, and it is tilted toward large organizations, but many points should be adaptable to your interests anyway. You can find their non-profits page (free registration required) here.

Surfing from there, I landed at a site called "Teach for America", an organization you may (or may not) be interested in volunteering for. The main reason I mention it, though, is that they link to a site called Charity Navigator, a nonprofit for tracking and certifying the fiscal sanity of nonprofits. You may find this useful for making sure that the next organization you join has its act together moneywise, and for sanitizing your own nonprofit, should you ever decide to start up one.

I didn't look very deeply into those links, so take them as is.

Good luck for the Wednesday meeting!

-- Thomas

Thanks, Thomas! :-)

So, I've just woken up to the fact that it is past Wednesday...

not to put you on the spot, Soz, but wondering.

<stage whisper - She did it! She told 'em!>

Hee hee!

Yep, I did, sorry for no update here. It went really well, much better than I had hoped. I'm feeling pretty good about it, not least because I have plunged into the house-hunting stuff -- when I started to think about all of this I didn't realize that I would need to buy a house at the end of APRIL. If I was 100% certain that they would make a tidy profit, I'd STILL need to resign right about when I did so I could focus on the move.

So it worked out well. (So far, official last day is March 31st, still time for some shoe-dropping.) I'm putting all of my energies into this until my last day, and am seeing some results. (Got a $1,000 commitment yesterday.) If I can get out of this without making any enemies, and raise a lot of money, and be able to focus on house hunting just in time, I'll be a happy happy girl. (I'm at ~$22,000 or ~$28,000, depending on how it's counted.)

... and there was me wondering that maybe you didn't tell them, or something ugly happened when you told them, and now you were too uncomfortable to talk about it and update us. I apologize for doubting you even for a second, and most importantly:

congratulations!

Good job, soz!

Yeah, good job! Hurrah.