[Bookstoprisoners] BTP meeting minutes

[Suzanne Linder]

Here are the April meeting minutes--they are in note form so if anyone has
questions, I will be happy to answer them.  Anyone who wasn't at the meeting
and doesn't want to read through the whole minutes, the distressing decision
was made to *stop shipping books for two weeks because we don't have enough
money* to pay shipping.  In two weeks we will look at our finances again and
decide if we can afford to send some packages, but in the meantime any ideas
about fund raising (and more importantly, any one willing to do the fund
raising work) PLEASE speak up!

BTP Meeting Minutes 4.12.08

Yvette, Jane, Deb, Deborah, Elizabeth, Jay, Barbara, Suzanne


 *CFECI—Joan Dixon*


 started in 1972, funds programs in Champaign, County—goal to "endow the
community." Money that was held in Champaign Co. Started out with $6,300,
now have $11 million. Principle stays in-tact and interest in distributed.
2/3 of funds are donor directed to various organizations, can give money to
any tax-exempt body. Given away $8 million over 35 years.


 2004 expanded to East Central Illinois.


 Governed by a board of 15 trustees, many are attorneys and lawyers. 650
community foundations in the U.S.


 57 organizations requested $200,000--$60,000 to give away. Like to fully
fund projects, so groups don't have to do additional fund-raising. 29
organizations had their requests funded. Grants in the $500-$5,000 range.


 *Finance--*


 Do we need to stop shipping until the book sale?


 We have students doing a book drive at the end of the semester which will
increase the amount of text books that we have to list on Amazon.


 Slowing down the flow? We have experienced exponential growth in terms of
volunteers, requests, and shipping cost.


 Volunteer groups—5-7 people, one per session


 Can the Key Staff look at the selection of books before they go to data
entry?


 Selling books at the Farmer's Market? Once / month. No one particularly
interested in taking this task on.


 Other "event" possibilities: Sweet Corn Festival, County Fair—informational
booths with books for sale.


 *Agreed:* new volunteers should show their first few packages to the Key
Staff.

pause shipping for 2 weeks—write the date packed on the side of box, when we
have money we will ship them in order


 Are there other sources of funding out there?


 Barbara talked to Strawberry Fields about a donation bin—waiting to hear
back from Jack.


 All of us need to think about other ways to raise money, and ways to manage
our process.


 *Consensus based process—*Barbara (see single text sent separately)


 *Book Sale—*June 6-8


 Suzanne will contact Sarah about sharing the space

Fall book sale Oct 17-19 (1st choice), Nov 14-16 (2nd choice)


 *Paradiso Pick Up—*can Gary do that?
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/bookstoprisoners/attachments/20080414/b6dcbfbc/attachment.html