Update on Burn Blue Fundraising

[Maggie Karshner]

Dear Burn Blue Community,

By now you all have heard repeatedly about our tax situation and some of you may be thinking to yourselves "how much longer is this fundraising going to go on?" We at Burn Blue value transparency very highly so we want to give you access to as much information as possible. The short answer to the question is March 30th; for the details, keep reading. 

To recap the tax situation: the state government kindly pointed out that, although most services are not subject to sales tax, the service we provide (defined as "the opportunity to dance") is taxed. They requested payment for all the years we've been in business. 

Obviously, throughout our existence we have been bringing in revenue, however as a non-profit we dedicated that money to fair compensation for our staff and programs to build and enrich our community. At the time that they notified us of the sum of our back taxes we had approximately $2,500 in our account. 

To compare, here's the run down of our bill:

Back Taxes (2001-2010) = $5,600 (divided evenly into 4 monthly payments: Dec, Jan, Feb, and Mar.)

2011 Taxes = $2,000 (came due Feb 1st) 

2012 Q1 Taxes = approx. $400 (due at the end of March)

(Total: $8,000, which was our goal)

We decided to break the fundraising into monthly events which would help us make each payment. By the end of March, assuming the fundraising is successful, we'll establish a method for stashing away the sales tax from each Waid's night so we have it when we need to pay the government, and we won't need to fundraise for taxes in the future.

In all truth, our bank balance was abnormally low at the start of this because we'd started regularly loosing money each week. We recognize this as a separate concern from the taxes. In order to right our finances we cut costs including reducing pay for all staff (DJ's, teachers, hosts). We also looked at increasing revenue by increasing entry fee, but opted to attempt to increase revenue by increasing attendance through marketing before resorting to raising rates. In addition to paying the taxes, we set a bank balance of $3,000 as an indicator of being truly out of the woods. 

Our intention was for all fundraising events to pay off the taxes and not to be the way we solve our cash flow problem. In actuality, the money we've been making each week has been vital to allowing us to make our monthly tax payments. To date we've raised as much money at our weekly events as from the people auction.

So, "tell me more about how those fundraisers have been going" you ask? The first event, the People Auction, raised approximately $2,200. The second event, The Loose Change Exchange, raised approximately $4,100. We've had approximately $240 in miscellaneous donations. So we've raised $6,540 from fundraising. Which leaves us $1,460 shy of our goal. So the upcoming fundraising must raise $1,460. 

All us hosts are looking forward to the end of this phase of Burn Blue's existence. But we're not out of the woods quite yet; we still have $1,460 to raise! We look forward to returning staff pay to more equitable levels and returning to conversations about how we can best spend our operating revenue in the community. Help us get there faster by attending Blue Fire! Tickets available online here: http://bluefire.eventbrite.com/

Love, 

The Burn Blue Hosts

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