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Local Resource Contact Frequent communication with the Regional Resource Contact. Close communication with the City Contact and the local team to keep them informed about all plans for financial communication in the city and in nearby cities. Regular announcements at video events about local and global financial support. Set up and promotion of fund raising presentations by national speakers, usually once or twice a year, working with the Regional Resource contact and City Contact in the initial planning and in communication. Develop a plan for advance support of events and satellite events in the region. Local Contributions Manager Develop a contributions team of people to work with contributions. Develop the tables, materials, contribution information within legal guidelines. Take responsibility for the management of the contributions. Participate in contributions area at national and international events when possible. Make up accurate deposits providing necessary documentation and bank them in a timely way. Work closely with the local resource contact and local financial accounting manager. Local Finance Manager Open and/or maintain the local unincorporated association bank account. Keep impeccable records of all revenue and expenses. Work closely with the city contact and the team taking responsibility for maintaining a high standard of quality and integrity regarding payment of expenses and receiving contributions. Adhere to the legal and financial guidelines for creating the platform for propagation. Support wide spread understanding
of the policies and procedures that create sound and
ethical legal and financial practices that are in
compliance with the laws and supportive of
propagation. Financial Guidelines for Unincorporated Associations Fiscal and financial responsibility/accountability
1. The bank account should be managed by a person who understands finances. 2. Keep exact records of receipts and disbursements in case of IRS inquiry. All revenue and expenses need to be accounted for. (See Exhibit 1 sample of ledger sheet) 3. All expenses should have a receipt. 4. If there is a lot of cash contributed, two people can count the cash. 5. Depending on your size, the contributions person can be responsible for making deposits, the accounting person for writing checks. (See Exhibit 2 sample of deposit slip) 6. Take responsibility for timely, accurate deposit of cash. It is not appropriate for contributions to be left sitting around for days. 7. Checks can be photocopied, and the copy attached to the deposit receipt for your records. 8. All contributions are deposited into the bank account. There are no exceptions. This includes video library contributions and all cash contributions. 9. All expenses are paid out of the bank account and never out of the cash. 10. Contributions in the form of checks are made payable to the association and not to the individual overseeing the account. 11. Obtain a receipt for each expenditure. If the expenditure is a gratuity or cab fare, ask the person to sign a dated note indicating what was spent. 12. Keep a ledger of all deposits into the account and all checks written. 13. Do a monthly bank reconciliation. See that: a) The deposits in your ledger agree with the deposits on the bank statement. 14. Maintain a file for the bank account January through December. Each month organize the bank statement, the bank reconciliation, the record of all deposits for the month, a record of all checks written for the month with receipts and keep in the file. At the end of the year, start a new banking file for the next year. 15. Keep a file for: a) The fictitious business name filing (See Exhibit 4 sample of Fictitious Business filing) 16. Keep a file for all assets and equipment purchases recording the serial number, date of purchase, vendor, warranties, and value. This could be a photocopy of the invoice or the original invoice (with the photocopy in the banking file). 17. A list of equipment needs to be maintained and available for insurance purposes. The insurance company insuring the equipment requires this list each year to renew the policy. If the equipment is lost or stolen or retired, the list needs to be revised (or updated) to reflect the current status. 18. Depending on the size of the city, there can be a financial manager, a contributions manager, and a resource contact or fund raiser. In small communities these jobs may be combined. 19. Establish who makes up the team of people who approve expenses, particularly those which are unusual or large (such as for equipment and assets). This team will work together to form a consensus on budgetary matters. The team could include the city contact, the financial manager, the resource contact, a business advisor from the community, the information person, the productions person, or the aspirant contact. Agree to discuss expenditures until there is a consensus on how to spend the money. 20. In accordance with the agreed upon procedures, the accounting person pays the routine bills in a timely way. 21. It is important to pay the Visions screening fee punctually each month. 22. The finance person works with the resource contact and the city contact to make sure there is enough revenue to pay the bills. 23. Why is it important to keep good books and records? In the event of an IRS audit, it is very helpful if the books and records are impeccable. If there are irregularities, the IRS might want to look at other local organizations' books or at Elan Vital, Inc. 24. What does the IRS look for? Accurate accounting of revenue and expenses. Record of deposits. Record of checks written and receipts for checks written 25. Get legal and public relations approval for written materials to be distributed unless they already comply with the forms that come from the national information people. However, if the regional and local resource person put out a letter, we would like to review it as well. 26. Contact the regional resource contact or David Mankoff at 310-456-5047 with fund raising ideas. The people who do private fund raising need to know they are not to involve Elan Vital. And they are not to receive checks payable to Elan Vital. They need to understand there are legal and potential tax consequences to their ideas and that they are responsible for finding out what those are in their city and state. 27. The financial, contributions and resource contacts need to be in synch with the city contact. 28. Understand who to call to get answers to legal and financial questions. 29. The cities need to report to Visions if they are sharing the screening videos with other communities. Cities should not be sharing unless they have first cleared it with their GEO rep and with Visions. If Blyssville pays $250 a month and they send screening videos to four outlying cities, we need to know it because the same quality control applies. How can we get them on board properly if we don't know about it? Understand if it is okay or not okay to share screening videos with cities who could have their own subscription. 30. Work with the video librarian to facilitate running all revenue and expenses from the video library through the local bank account. 31. People running the video library need to understand that the cash from the contributions is deposited into the bank account and not used for expenses. 32. An event, such as a satellite event, is run through the local account. That includes registration, contributions to the local organization, and all the event expenses. It's a good idea to break these out on the bank reconciliation so that the special event can be separated out from the ongoing costs and revenue. 33. The city contact sends in a
statistics report to Roger Booth by the 15th of every
month on how many aspirants and how many events there
are. A summary report is then compiled within a few
days. |
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