Umbrella really wants to be spoken to like this:
- shift liaison (pre-designated and introducted to board)
- talks to umbrella liaison to shift directly about all things
On occasion, the board will ask to meet with the liaison to talk about things but in general the communication is 1:1 no matter if shift has a “finance committee” so that there aren’t too many cooks in the kitchen.
If money is donated, umbrella takes 10% off the top upon receipt. Donations via square/facebook additionally have fees withdrawn so if someone wants to give shift $500 - try to get them to write a check instead of paypal’ing
Umbrella owns the bank account and enables shift to accept donations - it’s a 501(c)3 nonprofit. This puts some limitations on the activities shift can officially do - the liaisons from shift/umbrella should DEFINITELY talk before shift does anything “official” and political. (“shift kickoff ride for mayoral candidate X” or “shift signs petition to congress to Y” or “shift fundraises for or donates to any political campaign” are EXPLICITLY verboten).
Umbrella in general issues checks directly to folks whom the liaison provides:
- a request
- receipts for the expense
to umbrella for.
Current liaisons are lale.santelices@umbrellapdx.org @ umbrella and chris “fool” mccraw (gently@gmail.com).
How to spend money
- Every expense shall be pre-approved by finance committee. This should include a ballpark of $ requested even if the final bill is not ready yet.
- If approved by finance committee, large expenses over $100 shall be further pre-cleared at a board meeting by a majority vote, or if a meeting cannot happen before the expense will be incurred, an email to the entire board of directors from the finance lead should happen 1 week in advance and assuming there are no complaints and at least 3 votes from OUTSIDE of the finance committee to approve the expense, this expense will be considered approved.
- all expenses going forward will be submitted by email and the shift-bod-finance shall be cc:ed to see where the money is going.
- we will ask umbrella for a before-and-after balance with every request so we can be certain that there is no “unauthorized” money being withdrawn.
What we can spend money on
Umbrella understands that the Project expects to encounter the following type of expenses:
- expenses related to events described in the scope document above
- operating and developing the SHIFT website
- creating promotional materials for SHIFT and Pedalpalooza, and
- SHIFT event sponsorships and grant program.
And your finance board suggests that these are the “normal” things we spend money on:
- Paying the artist for Artwork, for pedalpalooza (annual, historically $400)
- Merch for pedalpalooza (annual)
- Meet and Greet, or hackathon, snacks (as needed)
- Website expenses (annual, historically $100-$250)