Second this. I’m guessing part of what’s going on in the $3.1 versus £1.8 is to do with reserves, but would be useful to get confirmation. Also, the google sheet linked doesn’t have numbers that I can line up with anything else in the blog post, I think because it has numbers for CEA UK only and ignores CEA US (but that’s speculation)?
Hi AGB, you are correct on both counts—the linked budget is for CEA UK only, and the $3.1M figure is enough to allow us to end 2017 with at least 12 months of reserves.
The reason that we’re raising more than the total projected spend for 2017 is that we are hoping to build up our reserves to ensure we do not need to fundraise mid-year. We aim to maintain a minimum of 12 months of reserves, in line with recommended best practices for non-profits. Prior to the start of this fundraiser, we had planned let our reserves fall far below this limit towards the end of 2016, as we identified some particularly promising opportunities late in the year, including the Doing Good Better giveaway campaign and marketing the EA Newsletter and the Giving What We Can Pledge. Having experimented with these new approaches, we want to further test and expand upon these activities in 2017, while rebuilding our reserves to a more sustainable level. This means that we need to raise about 18 months of reserves to fully fund our current mainline plans, and avoid the need to fundraise mid-year.
You can describe our plans following the fundraiser as follows:
If we raise the full $3.1M then we will not run another fundraiser until late 2017. We will plan to end 2017 with around 12-16 months of reserves.
If we raise less than $2.1M, we will reevaluate our 2017 plans. In this scenario, we would likely reduce our planned spending on marketing activities during Y Combinator, reduce the amount we plan to spend on EAGx and student group grants and delay or cancel some planned hires.
If we raise an amount between $2.1M to $3.1M, we will proceed with our mainline plans for 2017, but we will likely not pursue any additional activities and we will be more cautious with some of our more flexible spending such as EAGx grants and the marketing spend we have planned during Y Combinator. We will then reevaluate our financial position mid-year and may decide to run a smaller fundraiser then to cover any gaps.
Second this. I’m guessing part of what’s going on in the $3.1 versus £1.8 is to do with reserves, but would be useful to get confirmation. Also, the google sheet linked doesn’t have numbers that I can line up with anything else in the blog post, I think because it has numbers for CEA UK only and ignores CEA US (but that’s speculation)?
Hi AGB, you are correct on both counts—the linked budget is for CEA UK only, and the $3.1M figure is enough to allow us to end 2017 with at least 12 months of reserves.
The reason that we’re raising more than the total projected spend for 2017 is that we are hoping to build up our reserves to ensure we do not need to fundraise mid-year. We aim to maintain a minimum of 12 months of reserves, in line with recommended best practices for non-profits. Prior to the start of this fundraiser, we had planned let our reserves fall far below this limit towards the end of 2016, as we identified some particularly promising opportunities late in the year, including the Doing Good Better giveaway campaign and marketing the EA Newsletter and the Giving What We Can Pledge. Having experimented with these new approaches, we want to further test and expand upon these activities in 2017, while rebuilding our reserves to a more sustainable level. This means that we need to raise about 18 months of reserves to fully fund our current mainline plans, and avoid the need to fundraise mid-year.
You can describe our plans following the fundraiser as follows:
If we raise the full $3.1M then we will not run another fundraiser until late 2017. We will plan to end 2017 with around 12-16 months of reserves.
If we raise less than $2.1M, we will reevaluate our 2017 plans. In this scenario, we would likely reduce our planned spending on marketing activities during Y Combinator, reduce the amount we plan to spend on EAGx and student group grants and delay or cancel some planned hires.
If we raise an amount between $2.1M to $3.1M, we will proceed with our mainline plans for 2017, but we will likely not pursue any additional activities and we will be more cautious with some of our more flexible spending such as EAGx grants and the marketing spend we have planned during Y Combinator. We will then reevaluate our financial position mid-year and may decide to run a smaller fundraiser then to cover any gaps.