Invitations (gathering + co-budgeting)
Hello! If you are receiving this email, it is because you are a member of one of Raft Foundation’s fiscally-sponsored projects - or will be quite soon. We send out this bulletin toward the end of every month.
Join us for our second-ever monthly gathering
Last month’s gathering was such a delight! Around twenty project leads joined, and got to know each other a bit better in breakout groups, before entering into a larger discussion about co-budgeting - more on that below.
This month, at the request of a couple of our members, we’re trying a Monday rather than a Wednesday. At the meeting, we plan to continue to build trust and relationships while also brainstorming ideas for the Member Fund. We would love to have you!
Making decisions with money, together
As you all will be aware, 10% of Raft’s cost allocations (a.k.a. sponsorship fees) go into the Member Fund, which now sits at $5,807.22. At last month’s monthly gathering, Nathan shared a potential approach to co-budgeting that we could try, using the aptly-named tool, Cobudget. The process has continued to evolve, and we are now moving toward trying out the following approach:
During the “Generate” phase, Raft project members will have the opportunity to brainstorm and propose ideas for the use of the funds (the Raft team will help facilitate this and support it to be as collaborative as possible)
Throughout, discussion will be encouraged in the RaftTalk online forum (there’s already some discussion there - here’s the invite link!)
Then, during the “Budget” phase, all Raft project members will be given a certain amount of “money” in the Cobudget platform to distribute across different ideas
All proposals will have both a minimum goal amount and a “stretch” amount. Proposals that meet their minimum will be funded and executed on by the Raft team, while those that don’t meet their goal will retain funds into the next co-budgeting round
Based on last month’s discussion, we are thinking that we will collaborate within the following boundaries:
The process is opt-in - you must choose to participate otherwise you will not be included in the current round (but it resets every time - members will always have the opportunity to participate in future rounds)
Ideas must be oriented toward benefitting multiple Raft projects (for example workshops, resources, tools, or other desires)
Raft projects may not request funds for their own work (this is not meant to be a competitive process)
Funds will generally not be used to make donations to another organization, although they could hypothetically be used to create a new collaborative grant program, if desired (note: this has changed since last month’s discussion)
To help balance the influence of large projects in the voting, members of projects with more committee members participating will have slightly less “money” per person than projects with less members
For a funded idea to move forward, it must have the support of members of at least three Raft projects
We welcome feedback on all of this! What are we missing? Where are we wrong? Add your comments on RaftTalk. (Governance experts, we know you’re out there!)
Our first co-budgeting round
If you would like to participate in our first “go” at this, you must fill out this form.
The planned schedule is as follows:
Now until December 5: people opt in to participate
Now until December 20: brainstorming/generating ideas (including at both our November and December gatherings)
Mid-January: co-budgeting fund distribution by participants
You down? Opt in to participate in the first-ever co-budgeting process here.
Welcome new projects!
We continue to be totally jazzed about the amazing projects that are coming to Raft for support, including Solidarity Fest (a project of TW4C), Mutual Aid of Moses Lake, Neighborhood Village Project, and RXTX Mutual Aid.
RaftTalk forum activity
We had some activity in the RaftTalk online forum (invite link!) this month:
Aimee of the Permaculture CoLab posted an invitation for promotional collaboration for their upcoming funding readiness webinar
Boris and Nathan discussed the difference between adding someone on Open Collective and adding them to the project membership
Operational notes
Project matching: As announced in last month’s bulletin, we have personally matched projects that we think would be interested in meeting one another. Today, we sent out emails requesting consent from each project to participate. Once we have consent from both projects, we will connect you! If one of the projects does not consent, we will re-match the other with someone else, no worries at all.
Seasonal reports: We also announced in the last bulletin that we would be taking on most of the labor in completing the seasonal (i.e., quarterly reports). But, we are behind, so expect to get an email from us about that sometime in November 🙂
Insurance: Our insurance partner Nonprofits Insurance Alliance - which is a nonprofit themselves - finally figured out their IT issues. Projects will soon see us submitting expenses for the costs of adding them to Raft’s general liability insurance. In terms of premiums, we are still seeing a range of between $75 and ~$250 per year. Unfortunately we have absolutely no control over or insight into these costs, but feel free to reach out with any questions.
Bookkeeping integration: With the help of our bookkeepers, Key Figures Coop, our Open Collective financial data is now flowing nearly seamlessly into Quickbooks. You won’t be able to tell that anything has changed, but on the Raft admin side of things we are very happy about this.
Virtual cards: We have now tested out a new virtual card system with one of our projects for two months and it is going well. There is still more to build, and policies to write, but if you are interested in joining during this test phase for one or more of your recurring expenses, let us know and we will be happy to add you to the “alpha.”
Grant programs: Our project grantmaking structure is now live! Read the documentation here if you are interested (use pw ‘themany’ to log into the docs the first time). All three grant types - Standard, Award, and Hardship - have been tested by at least one of our projects.
Employee handbook: We have brought on some expert nonprofit HR consulting (at a reasonable price!) to help us get this project across the line.
Documentation web design: We’re still looking for a web designer to help us edit the colors of our documentation website.
Let us know if you have any questions.
Warmly,
Nathan