Fiscal Transparency

This page is a resource for you to follow the financial policies and practices of the Consortium. Please let us know what other information would be useful by contacting the Organizational Operations Collective at [email protected]. We want to be accountable to you as members and demystify our financial processes as much as possible.

Income

Our income is almost entirely comprised of member dues and membership fees, and secondarily by registrations for daylong institutes. We are very grateful for donations, which typically make up <5% of our income.


Because we are funded so heavily by members, we characterize the Consortium as a member-serving organization. We focus our funding, education, and professional development efforts on practitioners and affiliates directly (rather than other nonprofit partners, the students we all serve, etc). We will continue to be intentional about this as we move toward more grants, fundraising, and also supporting students who are doing the work of practitioners on their campuses.

Expenses

We keep a running spreadsheet of every expense pulled from our bank account, whether paid via check, credit card, or through our membership payment system (i.e. a membership renewal reimbursement). The elements of this spreadsheet have changed shifted as our 501(c)3 status changed the structure of our reporting. However, it is a useful tool for seeing the ratios of our expenses, the cost per year for Creating Change, for our Memberclicks system, and so forth.

Consortium expenses spreadsheet

Budget

We want to make sure we are both keeping resources in reserve and ensuring that we distribute your membership and donation funds quickly and responsively. Beginning fiscal year/calendar year 2018-19, we will follow the model below:

  • Keep $15,000 in reserve for emergencies (e.g. unexpected legal fees)

  • Budget to spend 60% of remainder each year

    • With model of beginning with $70k, an example:

      • Y1: $55k after reserve, budget to spend $33k

      • Y2: $57k after reserve, budget to spend $34k

    • For proposed and unexpected expenses beyond the budget (e.g. more states sanction travel to other states, so cost for board and scholarship travel increases), we will follow our standard decision-making process.

Expense policies

We have expense finance policies built for best practices given our current board structure and the professional development programming we offer.

Stipends & honoraria policy

The Consortium Board is putting payment policies in place based on our new and evolving strategic development, guided by consultants from January-March 2018 and developed at our board retreat in July 2018. These policies will impact the Consortium’s budget and programming, but in a way that centers our values and encourages creativity and flexibility in the ways we serve members.

See more at the Consortium Guiding Document: Stipends & Honoraria.

Board travel policy

For annual summer board retreat, ground or air travel is reimbursed for each board member if not covered by home institution. Board members are encouraged to make conservative travel plans (i.e. train travel when available; making connections if less expensive than direct flight). Mileage is not reimbursed for drivers.

Context: Like many national and regional nonprofits, our board needs to travel to convene and plan with each other in person. In addition to monthly board calls, we meet for a formal board retreat once a year. In order to maximize the benefit of funding travel for this retreat, we host it in the same city and at the same time as our summer institute.

We also use the Creating Change: Conference on LGBTQ Equality as an opportunity for further in-person planning; however, we do not fund travel for this conference.

Food policy

For constituency socials and gatherings at the Creating Change: Conference on LGBTQ Equality, we plan food and beverage purchases to fall under the state maximums for per diem allowance in that state. Purchases almost always fall far below that cost. For large receptions, including the business meeting at Creating Change and lunch at summer daylong institutes, we have to use the caterers in the host buildings. When this makes providing full meals unfeasible, we purchase appetizers or other snacks as a replacement.

Context: We hold food, hospitality, and community over breaking bread as values in our movement spaces.

Alcohol policy

We pay for wine and beer servings in the amount of less than or equal to the number of expected attendees at the Consortium board social, open to all members, annually at Creating Change. We also pay for a bartender to run a cash bar and/or pay to rent a restaurant space for the post-business meeting social, open to all members, at Creating Change. All other alcohol expenses are incurred by the individual (i.e. personal drinks at dinners that are otherwise funded by the Consortium).

Context: This policy is formal as of February 2017, but has been our general practice. We want to be the best stewards of members’ and donors’ funds while balancing expectations of members at established socials. Many of our institutions follow a similar policy.

Taxes

All of the tax records we have are open to public inspection. Please see the PDFs below.