Bridge Foundry 2015 financials

[Sarah Allen]

We had a small meeting yesterday to go over the financial statements, followed by a good discussion about next steps for getting more volunteers involved in Bridge Foundry and improving communication to volunteers who may have ideas for new initiatives.  We want to make sure there isn't an "in crowd" here... or rather, be clear that to get into the "in crowd" you just need to step up and help make stuff happen. 

Now that we have good processes in place for tracking funds, we can and should spend the money we raised last year.  We want to make sure all Chapter leaders and new organizers know that we offer grants. 

We want to communicate better across bridges, so more people can hear about (and be inspired by) the amazing work happening across the org. There is no single workshop format or audience.  We already have lots of initiatives that aren't workshops and open to volunteers trying new things.  

- See Meeting Slides, edited last two slides based on meeting 

- The 2015 overall P&L is posted on github in the operations/documents

- Mary will send out Bridge / Chapter reports in the next week or so.  These will follow the same format that is explained on the slides.

- Sarah will write a blog post about the grants -- would love help if anyone wants to do volunteer to write based on an outline we would discuss or even some pair writing.

Please reply all or reach out to me directly if you have any questions or want to get involved.

Sarah

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Sarah Allen

Bridge Foundry Program Director

http://bridgefoundry.org/

[Lillie Chilen]

Thanks for sharing the deck, Sarah! It's definitely very helpful to see what happened with finances in 2015.

I saw a lot of content about Bridge Troll in the plans for future accounting process changes, and would definitely like to sync up about that. I think Bridge Troll might be a good place for chapter/org financial statements, but maybe a separate app would be better suited to it. I'd also love to talk about Bridge Foundry's ideas for changing the product management process, since there is certainly room for identifying current pain points and subsequently making improvements, but that seems like a pretty separate conversation than 2015 finances and 2016 finance goals.

[Sarah Allen]

Hi Lillie,

Thanks for your response.  Those were ideas from the discussion -- plans will take some new volunteers to step up, although they could also be supported by fundraising.  They key need in 2016 is figure out how to make the financial reports more scalable. Bridge Troll integration is one idea for that, since Workshop expenses are the #1 way that money is spent by chapters and many volunteers are already going to Bridge Troll for much of their organizing needs.  

As for Bridge Troll product management, I should have made clear that I was sharing what you already had in process.  My understanding is that we have a volunteer working on usability, which is something that might be limiting adoption; however the primary limitation seems to simply be inertia from Chapters that existed before Bridge Troll and lack of awareness from some new chapters and bridges.  Happy to talk more about that at any time.

Most of what Bridge Foundry does is to bubble up plans and needs from all the Bridges.  The major initiatives around fundraising, communication, and the nascent staff coder positions are intended to support and amplify everyone's efforts.

Sarah