planning, and budget?

[Paola Di Maio]

Alain,

 In addition to my earlier email and other advisories,

 as part of my ongoing volunteering effort to reboot

I suggested we need to outline a budget.

Since you seem to have powers, do you know if anyone is working on this?

This means, if fellows/members  pay a 100 USD, how are these going to be spent?

Let's assume that we have already raised 4000 hypothetical USD, based on earlier exchanges on this list, and these are already paid into the entity bank account, or in the process of being paid

Say that we do the budget, it turns out that to run a 501 in California including all costs it takes 8000 USD

What is going to happen? I have a few scenarios in mind 

1. Councillors and Fellows will have to cover the additional costs?

2. The entity cannot be sustained?

3. ,,,,,,,

Discuss!

[alain tam]

Paola,

There is a budget in place. I don't know if this has been circulated yet. If not, I would advise to do so as soon as possible.

I don't have special "powers." I just attend many of the meetings.

You raise some good questions about what happens if there is a shortfall of cash. I'm hopeful that there will be enough interest in joining the institute to avoid having to face this issue. What do you suggest?

-Allan

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[Paola Di Maio]

Alain

I am pretty sure i mentioned before

1. list all costs 2, get headcount 3.establish membership fee based on costs/headcounts

this can at a minimum secure financial viability

a budget cannot be in place until stakeholders *those who have to buy into it have  approved it

The accounting fees charged by the last entity were out of this world

I personally would not have incorporated a company with my name on it before knowing where the money is coming from to cover the running costs

The decision making process should be documented and meeting minutes accessible to all scholars who may consider joining

That said, Ronin Institute in the meantime can continue to operate outside formal incorporation and costs until

the stakeholder basis has started functioning cohesively one way or another

I plan to issue email addresses under ronin-institute,org as soon as I have time to materially do it

Meetings, bureaucracy, sending suggestions that are taken on board without acknowledgement, or ignored altogether can be too tiresome and draining, especially if there is not clear what the benefits are going to be

PDM

[Paola Di Maio]

Alain nd... before I forget

I am not likely to remember or have the resources to pull this up, so if you think its a useful

consideration, please make a note of itm as follows:

I am not sure the membership fee should be set in the bylaws, membership type OK

because they are likely to change, an intelligent organisation does not change the bylaws each time the joining fees needs to be adjusted

I cannot remember if 100 usd is supposed to be one off or yearly

PDM

PDM

[Tom Lawrence]

Paola and Allan

 

I’ve just been catching up with all the messages over the last few weeks. This point about the budget is one that stands out to me, and I echo Paola’s sentiments on this.

 

Trying to make progress on pursuing the wrongs under the previous incarnation of Ronin feels to me like trying to wrestle a jelly and I really don’t feel this is worth me devoting any mental energy to it. (Although I really do sympathise with Anne – it sounds like she really has suffered financially from the disastrous mismanagement of the outgoing Board. Best of luck, Anne, in trying to recover your funds.) And I don’t see that that situation is being replicated in the new institution, although I think things could have been better handled by the interim Board, given that the disaster we have all lived through has understandably caused some scholars to be very wary of any information not being shared with them immediately. (That’s not just me using the benefit of hindsight, I’m on record as advising a process for building a new institution that would have been more collaborative, but I do understand the desire that existed to make rapid progress.)

 

But I do think that when it comes to scholars making contributions and them being spent, 100% transparency is crucial. There need to be comprehensive and clear records of every donation made by scholars and others to the new institution, and every item this money has been spent on. Any discussions by the interim board on how funds may be spent in future also need to be fully recorded – and, given that Allan’s email below states that a budget has now been drawn up, this needs to be shared with scholars as soon as humanly possible.

 

Strong accounting practices need to start at the beginning of the new entity; you can’t impose them at a later date and expect all the books to balance. (I expect that all the income and expenditure is being properly accounted for, but the full body of scholars needs to have confirmation of this.)

 

Regards

 

Tom

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