Freedom Follies Event

It has been 33 days since my initial request. I have gone through TEC numbers and have put them in spreadsheet form for easier viewing. I started tracking the donations the day that the Freedom Follies event was announced and tracked them through the end of November (almost 3 weeks after the event). I have removed the names of the donors to protect the members who have donated. The donations were split into shop, sponsorship of the event, ticket sales, one time donations and recurring donations/memberships. I have added 2 donations to the event that happened after the November cutoff, one in mid December and another $500 donation made to the event by a staff member on 1/31/24 (2 1/2 months after the event). After adding sponsorships, ticket sales and all one time donations (assuming 100% of all one time donations were because of this event, which is highly unlikely), my calculations showed that the event lost $113.61, well short of the $1813 that was presented to SLEC at the time of the event department's report. While there may be some cash donations that were made at the event, I assume that they are in the TEC report during this time as TEC requires all cash donations to be reported on the day they were accepted by the party. TEC made a distinguishment between received and accepted, but per the person I talked to at the TEC the party has 2 weeks to reject the cash donation before it is automatically considered accepted. This two week grace period fell into the end of November cutoff that I used. Please see attached spreadsheet for full accounting of TEC reports as they pertain to the Freedom Follies event.
 

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Jacob Bradley said:
It has been 33 days since my initial request. I have gone through TEC numbers and have put them in spreadsheet form for easier viewing. I started tracking the donations the day that the Freedom Follies event was announced and tracked them through the end of November (almost 3 weeks after the event). I have removed the names of the donors to protect the members who have donated. The donations were split into shop, sponsorship of the event, ticket sales, one time donations and recurring donations/memberships. I have added 2 donations to the event that happened after the November cutoff, one in mid December and another $500 donation made to the event by a staff member on 1/31/24 (2 1/2 months after the event). After adding sponsorships, ticket sales and all one time donations (assuming 100% of all one time donations were because of this event, which is highly unlikely), my calculations showed that the event lost $113.61, well short of the $1813 that was presented to SLEC at the time of the event department's report. While there may be some cash donations that were made at the event, I assume that they are in the TEC report during this time as TEC requires all cash donations to be reported on the day they were accepted by the party. TEC made a distinguishment between received and accepted, but per the person I talked to at the TEC the party has 2 weeks to reject the cash donation before it is automatically considered accepted. This two week grace period fell into the end of November cutoff that I used. Please see attached spreadsheet for full accounting of TEC reports as they pertain to the Freedom Follies event.
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So, unless there's some other donations or rebates that were not included, which is another issue all together, there's a delta of approximately $1900 from what was reported to the body and what our books and TEC show?
 
Jacob Bradley said:
It has been 33 days since my initial request. I have gone through TEC numbers and have put them in spreadsheet form for easier viewing. I started tracking the donations the day that the Freedom Follies event was announced and tracked them through the end of November (almost 3 weeks after the event). I have removed the names of the donors to protect the members who have donated. The donations were split into shop, sponsorship of the event, ticket sales, one time donations and recurring donations/memberships. I have added 2 donations to the event that happened after the November cutoff, one in mid December and another $500 donation made to the event by a staff member on 1/31/24 (2 1/2 months after the event). After adding sponsorships, ticket sales and all one time donations (assuming 100% of all one time donations were because of this event, which is highly unlikely), my calculations showed that the event lost $113.61, well short of the $1813 that was presented to SLEC at the time of the event department's report. While there may be some cash donations that were made at the event, I assume that they are in the TEC report during this time as TEC requires all cash donations to be reported on the day they were accepted by the party. TEC made a distinguishment between received and accepted, but per the person I talked to at the TEC the party has 2 weeks to reject the cash donation before it is automatically considered accepted. This two week grace period fell into the end of November cutoff that I used. Please see attached spreadsheet for full accounting of TEC reports as they pertain to the Freedom Follies event.
Click to expand...
I, too, am interested in these numbers. I am also saddened that it has taken SLEC this long to get the numbers.
 
Y'all! This was explained in the last SLEC meeting in person by me and Jodi. Her numbers did not match due to the cash donations not being available to her in the books by the end of the year. Her numbers were correct. I apologized for the delay. 2023 are in egnyte and was announced as such last month. The financial reports will not match her report due to the cash donations. You will see them in this quarter's reports that will be posted before convention. As stated several times over and over... TEC reports are not the same as financial reports!

A personal note: the event was not a fail. It made money and brought in new people and new money. We have to start evaluating events based on attendance and outreach, not just funds raised. Funds should be the priority but other metrics need to be considered.
 
kprather said:
Y'all! This was explained in the last SLEC meeting in person by me and Jodi. Her numbers did not match due to the cash donations not being available to her in the books by the end of the year. Her numbers were correct. I apologized for the delay. 2023 are in egnyte and was announced as such last month. The financial reports will not match her report due to the cash donations. You will see them in this quarter's reports that will be posted before convention. As stated several times over and over... TEC reports are not the same as financial reports!

A personal note: the event was not a fail. It made money and brought in new people and new money. We have to start evaluating events based on attendance and outreach, not just funds raised. Funds should be the priority but other metrics need to be considered.
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Thank you for the response. I am quite tired of hearing of this considering the information and explanation given on this matter at our previous meeting. I wish this body would just move on.
 
I'm not tracking this Kate, please help me out. Are you saying that the money was put in the account and not put on the TEC report until the first half of 2024 report (7 weeks later) or that the cash was recieved and not put into the bank account until 7 weeks later which pushed it to the 2024 TEC report? Either way, we are talking about $2000 in cash donations, correct?
 
ptsuperman said:
I, too, am interested in these numbers. I am also saddened that it has taken SLEC this long to get the numbers.
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Don't be sad. It happens. We're all fine.

We had been waiting to get the final accounting confirmations on cash donations/pledges that came in during the "ask" and auction at the event itself. As Kate mentioned at the February SLEC meeting, not everything had been entered into NationBuilder yet, and we were still in the process of syncing the various fundraising/financial tools.

I await Mr. Bradley's response to my email inviting him to review the findings with us.
 
The list of transactions you provided includes things that are not related to the event, so I find it unhelpful. As previously stated, the accounting of the event itself is not going to match up with TEC reports for a given time period due to the timing of the deposits and whether or not they were entered into NB or QB at the time of the reporting. The events department, however, keeps real-time track of the event incoming/outgoing, and while not immune to human error, typically tracks better than TEC reports for event-specific transactions.

Also, and as previously stated, the final numbers for events tend to take some time...there is a great deal of reconciliation that occurs, and in the case of the November event, some refunding and reimbursement. Given that you weren't at the event, nor were any of you who are obsessing over its financial performance, it is understandable that you are unaware of what occurred there.

In any event, non-ticket incoming funds for the event total $5060.51 across 17 individuals. All of that was either given prior to the event, given at the event, or pledged at the event - including the $500 you noted that was deposited on January 31st. Some of the day-of pledgers gave cash later and some made their donations through NationBuilder after a few reminders...even into December. It was about $2000 that was processed at the event or since, and all were documented pledges/donations at the time.

I suspect your supposed accounting of the outgoing is also incorrect, given things mentioned above about final reconciliation of events taking time and having to get refunds and reimbursements well after-the-fact. So, when you are ready and respond to my email to schedule a time to review directly, we can work together to sort out any remaining questions and recalculate. Until then, I don't intend to give this any more of my attention, and I am considering staff to be done with it, as well.

I am sure you will be as pleased as I am to note that the updated totals reflect a $559 increase on the revenue side and a $324.75 decrease in expenses from the event report in February, bringing us to an increased profit of $2,395.

Well done, team!


Jacob Bradley said:
It has been 33 days since my initial request. I have gone through TEC numbers and have put them in spreadsheet form for easier viewing. I started tracking the donations the day that the Freedom Follies event was announced and tracked them through the end of November (almost 3 weeks after the event). I have removed the names of the donors to protect the members who have donated. The donations were split into shop, sponsorship of the event, ticket sales, one time donations and recurring donations/memberships. I have added 2 donations to the event that happened after the November cutoff, one in mid December and another $500 donation made to the event by a staff member on 1/31/24 (2 1/2 months after the event). After adding sponsorships, ticket sales and all one time donations (assuming 100% of all one time donations were because of this event, which is highly unlikely), my calculations showed that the event lost $113.61, well short of the $1813 that was presented to SLEC at the time of the event department's report. While there may be some cash donations that were made at the event, I assume that they are in the TEC report during this time as TEC requires all cash donations to be reported on the day they were accepted by the party. TEC made a distinguishment between received and accepted, but per the person I talked to at the TEC the party has 2 weeks to reject the cash donation before it is automatically considered accepted. This two week grace period fell into the end of November cutoff that I used. Please see attached spreadsheet for full accounting of TEC reports as they pertain to the Freedom Follies event.
Click to expand...
 
wbilyeu said:
The list of transactions you provided includes things that are not related to the event, so I find it unhelpful. As previously stated, the accounting of the event itself is not going to match up with TEC reports for a given time period due to the timing of the deposits and whether or not they were entered into NB or QB at the time of the reporting. The events department, however, keeps real-time track of the event incoming/outgoing, and while not immune to human error, typically tracks better than TEC reports for event-specific transactions.

Also, and as previously stated, the final numbers for events tend to take some time...there is a great deal of reconciliation that occurs, and in the case of the November event, some refunding and reimbursement. Given that you weren't at the event, nor were any of you who are obsessing over its financial performance, it is understandable that you are unaware of what occurred there.

In any event, non-ticket incoming funds for the event total $5060.51 across 17 individuals. All of that was either given prior to the event, given at the event, or pledged at the event - including the $500 you noted that was deposited on January 31st. Some of the day-of pledgers gave cash later and some made their donations through NationBuilder after a few reminders...even into December. It was about $2000 that was processed at the event or since, and all were documented pledges/donations at the time.

I suspect your supposed accounting of the outgoing is also incorrect, given things mentioned above about final reconciliation of events taking time and having to get refunds and reimbursements well after-the-fact. So, when you are ready and respond to my email to schedule a time to review directly, we can work together to sort out any remaining questions and recalculate. Until then, I don't intend to give this any more of my attention, and I am considering staff to be done with it, as well.

I am sure you will be as pleased as I am to note that the updated totals reflect a $559 increase on the revenue side and a $324.75 decrease in expenses from the event report in February, bringing us to an increased profit of $2,395.

Well done, team!
Click to expand...
Thank you for the more detailed explanation, Whitney.
 
As an update, after reaching out the the former chair as requested and a few back and forth emails, I was told that I waited too long to bring up this issue and that there would be no time to meet prior to the convention. This body has yet to receive the line by line accounting that slec was told existed. I am therefore asking that our new officers, or @jodiCould present this to the slec body for review. Thank you in advance.

In Liberty,
Jacob Bradley
 
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