November 2020
November 18th 2020, San Francisco
Agenda
Opening Items
Review Agenda & Vote [Ben]
Vote to approve previous minutes [Ben]
Discussion Topics
Prior to the meeting, please add items for discussion here:
Committee Updates
Events
Tech
Board Development Committee
End of Year Fundraiser [Amanda]
Review 2021 proposed budget [Amanda]
Executive Performance Review: Sign off and execution
Review & approve Caryn and Tom’s report outline (shared in advanced) [Caryn/Tom]
Resolve how information will be gathered for all items in the outline
List actions for completing the review report by the deadline
Closing Items
Open for public comment
Any other business?
Minutes
Scribe: Ben Ward
Present:
Amanda Guest, Chair, Executive Director
Caryn Kesler, Creative Director
Tom Tierney, Vice Chair
Ben Ward, Secretary, Technical Director
Erika Delgado, Events Director
18:17 – Convene, Vote on Agenda & Previous Minutes
Vote YES to approve the September minutes.
Vote YES to adopt the proposed agenda.
18:18 – Committee Reports
Events
Slow month! Thinking about what to do for the fundraiser.
Considering putting on Zoom DJ nights that could be a basis for events to accompany the fundraising period.
Besties Bash, about flat attendance, gained a few followers. Might consider streaming to multi-platforms to maximise reach, but focus the community on Twitch.
Bandcamp have launched a streaming platform with integrated ticketing. Needs investigation as to whether there’s an opportunity for us there.
Tech
We’ve had two new people interested in getting involved.
We ran the first two Community Hours, decent involvement, need a bit of structure but don’t want too much.
Leads should share things in the Slack channel to create a lightweight agenda.
Marketing
Possible nascent committee activity there working on the fundraising email.
18:34 – 2021 Proposed Budget
2020 in review:
Major loss in terms of grants: Invested money in, but didn’t get a single grant. We’ve discussed that a lot under the heading of the pandemic over the past months.
We had to dip into our emergency fund.
2021
Try to keep things as flat as possible, because we expect the year to be a weird one again.
Would like a small increase in recurring donors.
Dues have dropped a bit, especially under COVID, so conservative estimates for income there.
Grants: We should still have a goal to get some grants, but under the circumstances it is not clear that we should actively invest money in it.
Expenditures: People costs should be unchanged. Bands/events should be lower due to virtual-nature of the ongoing Besties Bashes.
Provisionally including investment in grant writing for now.
Next steps: Everyone should review the draft budget and consider it “pending”. There is some information still to gather relating to possibly Ferry Building costs, and effectiveness of fundraising income. We’ll look to ratify the budget right at the end of the year based on those costs.
19:13 – End of Year Fundraiser
Goal set at $25,000 by December 31
Similar playbook to last year, starting behind the scenes ASAP for a December 1 (Giving Tuesday) launch of public campaign.
Josef wasn’t particularly excited about the idea of doing a virtual gala...and neither am I due to the amount of work it will take! But, I have some ideas in motion, and depending on where we are money-wise by November 20 will make the call.
Each board member should name at least one person they will be soliciting for a donation. It could be a new person, or if there’s an existing donor with whom the board member has a good relationship, the goal should be upgrading the gift.
Big emphasis on anything we can do up front to get closer to the goal before the fundraiser goes public in December is of import.
The major note is that without the gala, we need to make up that major influx.
19:44 – Executive Performance Review
We reviewed & approved Caryn and Tom’s report process; and resolved our understanding that the process will end with a discussion review with Amanda.
Actions for completing the review report by the deadline:
Answers to the questions posed by the process will be gathered by December 15th.
The board discussion and final Amanda review discussion should happen before the end of the month.
The outcome from the end of month discussion should be draft goals for 2021, with a view to ratification at the January meeting.
20:32 — Meeting adjourned.
The next meeting of the BFF.fm board is scheduled for 6pm on December 17th. See https://board.bff.fm for more information.
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