[Lnc-business] Upcoming budget increase requests

Thu Sep 1 19:50:45 EDT 2016

Thank you.  This all makes sense to me.

Joshua A. Katz
Westbrook CT Planning Commission (L in R seat)

On Thu, Sep 1, 2016 at 6:52 PM, Wes Benedict <wes.benedict at lp.org> wrote:

> I have been intentionally price things so that branding revenue is
> approximately the same as branding expenses, but I don't go to great
> lengths to try to make them match exactly. We sell most things for a tad
> more than they cost us. One notable exception is the door hangers -- we
> sell those for less than they cost us. Last year a donor contributed
> $20,000 in support of subsidizing door hangers.
>
> The staff time put into LPStore.org is not factored into my pricing of the
> things we sell. The feeling I've gotten over the years from our members and
> most LNC members is that we should be providing materials as a service more
> so than a profit center.
>
> My goal is to get as much stuff out there into the hands of our activists
> as is feasible, to help them help our candidates and party, not to maximize
> LPHQ profits on sales. Although sometimes these things are capable of
> generating significant profits.
>
> We are working on a new website, LP.org. That takes a significant amount
> of staff time (salary, hourly, and contractor).
>
> We sent Nick Dunbar to New Hampshire to help with an emergency ballot
> access situation. As a result, he worked a lot more hours lately than he
> had been. He normally works less than 20 hours per week for LPHQ.
>
> We sent Andy Burns to help with an emergency ballot access situation in
> Illinois, New Hampshire, and Iowa.
>
> Casey Hansen used to prepare membership cards, inquiry mailings, and pack
> most of our store shipments all by himself. It's way too much work for him
> now.
>
> Fundraising costs are higher partly because with a bigger membership list
> we send to more people so more copies are printed and more postage is paid.
> Another reason fundraising costs are higher are because, instead of sending
> the dirt-cheap Urgent Grams, we've been sending much nicer looking higher
> cost fundraising letters printed in full color. The thinking is those
> improve our image overall compared to the dirt-cheap black and white or
> yellow Urgent Grams or simple letters and reply forms.
>
> If you go back and check your email broadcasts from national, you'll see
> very few fundraising emails over the summer. Had I been sending daily
> fundraising emails like the RNC and DNC, our revenue would be a lot higher
> than it is today, but also, some associated expenses like processing fees
> would be a lot higher.
>
> With a bigger fundraising budget, we could try more prospecting via mail
> and Facebook ads, or at least keep up what we're doing.
>
>
> Wes Benedict, Executive Director
> Libertarian National Committee, Inc.
> 1444 Duke St., Alexandria, VA 22314(202) 333-0008 ext. 232, wes.benedict at lp.orgfacebook.com/libertarians @LPNational
> Join the Libertarian Party at: http://lp.org/membership
>
> On 9/1/2016 6:48 PM, Joshua Katz wrote:
>
> I am happy to hear this good news, and thank you Wes for having done the
> preliminary work and for getting the discussion going.
>
> I have a few questions, mainly just to clarify a few items.  26 and 55
> continue to match in the budget.  Do they match in real life, or do we make
> a profit on these items?  I don't have a problem with doing this at cost in
> order to brand ourselves - I think that's a great thing, I just want to
> know which it is.
>
> I expected to see an increase in fundraising costs, but I'm surprised at
> the size.  I hope the idea is to do different sorts of things and reach out
> to new markets.
>
> Like Mr. Starr, I am interested in the compensation increase.  Will this
> be more time, more contractor time, or more staff?  Does it include the
> interns we've hired for product distribution?
>
> I agree with the ED that the cutbacks proposed do not make sense, and I
> think the proposed changes make sense.
>
> Joshua A. Katz
> Westbrook CT Planning Commission (L in R seat)
>
> On Thu, Sep 1, 2016 at 2:46 PM, Wes Benedict <wes.benedict at lp.org> wrote:
>
>> Dear LNC:
>>
>> I'd like to start a discussion about several budget increase requests
>> before a formal motion is considered. I mentioned to the chair that I
>> thought it would be good for me to put this before the LNC soon, and he
>> agreed it was okay for me to get this discussion started on this list.
>>
>> To me, all of these budget increase requests are the result of good news
>> -- our revenue, membership, and interest is very high, far higher than
>> budgeted, and as a result, many of our expenses are higher as well.
>>
>> More revenue and members means more membership cards and LP News to mail
>> out, and bigger lists to send fundraising letter to.
>>
>> The original 2016 Budget adopted for the entire year of 2016  was
>> *$1,474,561*. My preliminary estimate for August 31, 2016 YTD revenue is
>> $1,679,938 (July 2016 YTD) plus $412,425 (August 2016) = *$2,092,363*.
>> It's possible we could double the original revenue budgeted for the entire
>> year (although I'm not ready to predict that).
>>
>> Dues-paying membership has increased from *11,693* at the start of
>> January to approximately *19,300* at the end of August.
>>
>> The original budget for branding revenue was *$35,000*. We've already
>> brought in *$205,862* in branding revenue (that's mostly the stuff we
>> sell at LPStore.org).
>>
>> Again, all of these increases in donations, memberships, and store
>> orders, means higher postage, credit card processing fees, purchases of
>> items offered at LPStore.org, office supplies, and some labor to help
>> process all that stuff.
>>
>> Robert Kraus and I have looked over the results of this year to date,
>> considered what things could look like going forward, and are recommending
>> that the LNC proposed and passes the following budget increases.
>>
>>
>> 26-Brand Political Materials Revenue increase by $150,000 to $400,000
>> 32-Fundraising Costs increase by $60,000 to $201,364
>> 33-Membership Fundraising Costs increase by $35,000 to $127,200
>> 40-Adminstrative Costs increase by $50,000 to $310,050
>> 45-Compensation increase by $60,000 to $448,800
>> 55-Brand Political Materials Expense increase by $150,000 to $400,000
>> 85-Member Communication increase by $17,500 to $62,500
>>
>> We have the revenue to pay for all of these budget increases. I'm pretty
>> certain we have more money in the bank for the September of a Presidential
>> election year than ever before in the history of the Libertarian Party, and
>> that's in spite of paying what it has taken to achieve 50 state ballot
>> access for the first time since 2000.
>>
>> While we are not technically over budget in most areas, we are trending
>> in that direction and certainly will go way over budget by the end of the
>> year unless I proactively cut back on fundraising letters, LP News,
>> shipping LPStore.org materials, staff levels, and other areas. That could
>> be done, but I don't think it's the right thing to do. For example, instead
>> of focusing my time on trying to continue the growth of membership and
>> fundraising by hiring another intern to fill boxes with campaign materials,
>> I could spend my own time stuffing envelopes and filling boxes with yard
>> signs--something I do actually enjoy and find to be therapeutic.
>>
>> I'd be happy to try to respond to any questions you have on these items.
>>
>> Thanks for your consideration. I'm hoping we have a productive discussion
>> on this, and then the chair or treasurer can propose a motion that fits a
>> consensus for you to consider of the Labor Day Weekend.
>>
>> --
>> Wes Benedict, Executive Director
>> Libertarian National Committee, Inc.
>> 1444 Duke St., Alexandria, VA 22314(202) 333-0008 ext. 232, wes.benedict at lp.orgfacebook.com/libertarians @LPNational
>> Join the Libertarian Party at: http://lp.org/membership
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Lnc-business mailing list
>> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
>> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>>
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lnc-business mailing listLnc-business at hq.lp.orghttp://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lnc-business mailing list
> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business/attachments/20160901/378d9bcb/attachment-0002.html>