[Lnc-business] Policy Manual provision regarding 2.5% of budgeted revenue

[Alicia Mattson]

The discussion of the current email ballot reminded me that I'm rather
tardy in addressing the subject matter of the below message.  I don't think
that the message adequately describes to the LNC what it was that led me
(while wearing my APRC hat) to point out the policy that required LNC
notification.

Some of our largest donors are going to be sent a letter which leaves the
impression that because we adopted a new logo, we need to spend $90,000 for
a 3-phase rebranding project.

>From a donor relations management standpoint, I think this letter might
leave a bad taste in donors' mouths.  We're broke enough that we send
urgent-grams saying we can barely pay our bills.  We're heading into a
presidential election year in which we're going to need a big pile of money
for ballot access.  I don't think it will appear that we have our
priorities straight for us to be touting a $90,000 rebranding effort in
these circumstances.

I agree that having adopted a new logo is going to result in some extra
expenses related to printing materials and putting the new logo on the
website.  That is described in this letter as being Phase 1 at a cost of
$10,000.  It doesn't break down how much of that total is for materials vs.
the website, but let's just split it and say it's $5,000 for each.

Phase 3 of the proposed rebranding project is a full website redesign, with
a price tag of $25,000 to $50,000.  Add to that the $5,000 portion of Phase
1 for the website, and now we'll be asking these donors for $30,000 to
$55,000 for website changes.

Keep in mind that the IT Committee has been telling us they expect a new
website would cost us in the $5,000 to $10,000 ballpark, and that doing it
after the new logo was adopted would allow those changes to be made at the
same time.

If we tell donors that we need to raise $20,000 for ballot access in State
X, and donors send us $30,000, and we actually spend the $20,000 we said we
needed on the project we described, then the excess $10,000 can go into our
general fund for other uses.  I have no problem with that.  We did what we
told the donors we would do with the funds, and they gave us more than we
asked for.  Even if we manage to come in a little under budget and get it
done for $18,000 instead, that's fine because the $20,000 we asked for was
a good-faith estimate of what we thought it would take.

However, if we believe that a new website will cost us $10,000, I do not
think we should tell donors that we need $30,000 to $55,000 for it so that
any excess collected over whatever we actually spend goes to the general
fund.  That's not a good-faith estimate.

If the entire three-phrase rebranding project is a single project, the
$90,000 price tag would represent just under 7% of our entire budgeted
$1,291,300 revenues.

I agree that in reality, the printed materials and hats/shirts go in
different budget categories than the website, so that this one
lump-sum-project pitch might actually be spread across more than one
category.  But if we just look at the potential $55,000 price tag for the
website (which does all belong in one budget category), we're pitching to
donors a project representing just under 4.3% of our entire budgeted
revenues while the IT Committee has only estimated a $10,000 price tag.

-Alicia




On Mon, Sep 28, 2015 at 7:31 AM, Wes Benedict <wes.benedict at lp.org> wrote:

> This email is primarily a notification email to be sure we're in
> compliance with our Policy Manual rules.
>
> The Policy Manual says:
>
> The Executive Director shall notify the LNC of any intention to undertake
> any project that
> is estimated, on gross, to cost more than 2.5% of budgeted revenue.
>
>
> I'm sending some fundraising letters that mention branding prominently.
> What exactly you consider "branding" is subject to interpretation. But as
> you can imagine, with a new logo and other branding, you change graphic
> design in snail mail, printed items, fundraising letters, business cards,
> email headers, brochures, t-shirts, stickers, door hangers, website
> graphics, and much more.
>
> Depending on how well fundraising goes, some of the spending will come out
> of various categories on the Standard Statement of Operations, depending on
> the area affected, but could include:
>
> 32 Fundraising Costs
> 33 Membership Fundraising Costs
> 35 Convention
> 36 Ballot Access Fundraising Exp
> 37 Building Fundraising Exp (for example a snail mail for the building
> using new branded letterhead)
>
> 40 Administrative Costs
> 45 Compensation
> 50 Affiliate Support
> 55 Brand Dev / Political Materials
> 58 Campus Outreach
> 60 Candidate, Campaign & Initiatives
> 85 Member Communication
> 88 Outreach
>
> I don't consider new polo shirts, minor website changes, new envelopes,
> etc., to be a single project. In any case, to be prudent, based on some
> advice from the APRC, I'm notifying the LNC in case depending on how things
> go and/or how we treat the bookkeeping we go over 2.5% of budgeted revenue.
> I have no plans to spend more than 2.5% on a project without approval,
> unless you consider all of the various minor efforts to be a single
> project, in which case we'll go over that.
>
> We're not building a website without LNC or IT Committee approval and
> don't have specific plans for a new website yet, just to ease any concerns
> by the IT Committee in case this email gives the wrong impression.
>
> Most of our fundraising letters raise around $10k to $30k. If one of the
> next ones raises upwards in the range of $45k to $90k, we'd be in a great
> position to initiate a new website with IT Committee and/or LNC approval. I
> don't think it would be prudent for me to predict one of our next letters
> will bring in $90k, but if so, we might feel a bit of pressure to move
> quickly on some of the bigger IT Project challenges.
>
> This email is primarily a notification email. I'm not asking for changes
> in the budget via this email.
>
> However, a separate request, perhaps by the Treasurer, may go out to ask
> for an increase in the branding budget, so we can add some new brochures to
> LPStore.org as and/or replenish what is already there.
>
> For Functional Allocation of Expenses purposes, I think the time spent on
> this email should be allocated to Admin, although a case could be made for
> allocating it to Branding or even Fundraising, since it was a fundraising
> letter that triggered this.
>
> Thanks,
> --
> Wes Benedict, Executive Director
> Libertarian National Committee, Inc.
> *New address: 1444 Duke St., Alexandria, VA 22314*
> (202) 333-0008 ext. 232, wes.benedict at lp.org
> facebook.com/libertarians @LPNational
> Join the Libertarian Party at: http://lp.org/membership
>
>
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>
>
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