[Noisebridge-discuss] accountability of money

[jim]

On Sun, 2010-12-19 at 10:01 -0800, Patrick Keys wrote:
> Since I have a college degree in management, I notice certain things.
> Because it's raining outside, I'm bored, I care about noisebridge, and 
> I'm also loaded up with caffeine, here's a few things I notice:
> 
> * There's seemingly no accountability for money at noisebridge.  If 
> there's a set of books anywhere (income statement and balance sheet), 
> it'd be nice to know where those are located.  apparently noisebridge 
> has a bank account and pay bills, but how any of that actually gets done 
> seems rather haphazard.
> 
> * No accountability means no metrics.  Occasionally, I hear about how 
> noisebridge doesn't have enough paying members to cover its overhead. 
> But I've never heard any exact figure about the number of actual paying 
> members.  Nor have I heard about any goals for paying members.
> 
> * There's no system of checks/balances on spending of money.  People 
> routinely take the drink money and donations to pay for things, myself 
> included.  There's no system of knowing who took the money and how much 
> we got for it.
JS: the above seems a reasonable assessment. 
> 
> 
> Here's my suggestions, which I encourage everybody to constructively 
> criticize:
> * A dedicated accounting computer running quickbooks here at 
> noisebridge.  If nothing else, we could keep track of cash flows, do 
> online banking, and manage memberships.  There'd also potentially be 
> some sort of paper trail if noisebridge is ever audited, as non-profits 
> are always ripe for audits.
JS: no windows! use linux, there are lots of linux apps that can 
do accounting/bookkeeping. 
   also, find out what the current treasurer actually is using. 

> 
> * Knowing exact numbers on paying members would allow us to set goals. 
> If we need about 60 paying members to break even (and we do), then 
> knowing we only have (for example) 40 paying members at least lets us 
> set a goal of attracting 20 more paying members.  Meeting those goals 
> allows us to set new goals and expand noisebridge with new features.
JS: seems to me valuable to track member lifetime, mainly 
wrt paying dues, but also wrt to presence. 
   the value of tracking dues-paying lifetimes is, for any 
timeslice, to get some sense of what percentage of members 
are long-term, what percentage of members are short-term, 
and, if patterns indicate, what percentage of members are 
medium-term. 
   getting such metrics lets us better specify the number 
of embers we need: e.g. we have 20 long-term members and 
20 short-term members, and short-term means dues paying for 
four months; in the next four months we'll lose most of 
the 20 short-term members, maybe five will become medium- 
or long-term members, so we have to get 15 new members just 
to stay as is, and we need 20 additional members to make our 
costs.... 
   sharing such metrics with other groups might help them 
and maybe they'd also track their metrics and share. 
   as to tracking wrt to presence, such metrics will help 
understand seasonal trends and appeal of promo and group 
activities. 

> 
> * The checks/balances of spending money kinda bothers me the most. 
> Sometimes the vibe feels like the default conclusion is to assume people 
> stole money, when in fact they used the money to buy drinks or snacks 
> for everybody. 
JS: this is my view. the money should go to noisebridge, and 
people getting more {drinks,toilet-paper,paper-towels,soap} 
should please do so (and genuine thanks!) using money out of 
their pockets. noisebridge needs the money, not the drinks. 
 
> My solution to this one is to have a real procedure in place for taking 
> money.  I think there should be a general policy of having a buddy 
> system of another person (a witness) physically see you when you take 
> money from the donation bins and seeing you count the money taken. 
JS: i vote for a money jar with a mouth and throat too narrow 
to reach into. 

> I also feel like there should be a requirement for having some sort of 
> receipt for whatever was purchased with the money, writing your name 
> somewhere on the receipt, and leaving the receipt somewhere for 
> book-keeping.  If somebody thinks 20 dollars is missing, then all it 
> takes is a simple look to see if there's a receipt for about that much 
> that explains where the money went.
> The concern is also not to make sure that the money was properly spent, 
> but that we got a good value.  For example, 12 packs of sodas are 
> buy-2-get-3-free at safeway.  if you're buying them anywhere else, then 
> you're wasting money.
JS: no repayment for anything, especially soda pop! 

> 
> Like I said above, please constructively criticize all of these 
> observations.  My goal, like yours, is simply to keep noisebridge fun 
> and sustainable. 
JS: so intended. 
> 
> 
> Patrick
> _______________________________________________
> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss