I am on our Class Reunion Committee and we are planning our 45th Reunion in September. Our Treasurer wants to show the classmates the price of each item that we purchased. She wants to do this because some classmates have inquired about why we are asking for donations. Some people have no idea just what is involved in planning a reunion.

Does anyone have any helpful suggestions? Some of us feel that it would just open a whole can of worms. We are spending the donation money wisely and making sure that we have enough for our 50th. We come from a small class of just 165.

Thank you,
Kathy

Hi Kathleen,

I'm sure you will receive very good advice from our fellow admins. You know they will reply... stay tuned.

Here is my reply:
The first thing I would do is to add a notice where ever appropriate that an accounting of funds will be available post-reunion.Then make sure you make one available as a PDF link on the site after the reunion.

I have not asked for donations for reunion expenses. I've added a registration fee to cover name tags, decorations, raffle tickets, costs of free snacks and drinks in a hospitality room, if there is one, and other miscellaneous items. That is always noted in the reunion details.

The cost of a dinner, tours and such have been increased to the nearest dollar for the most expensive events, unless a few extra dollars would not make a per ticket price unreasonable. In the case of a dinner, your decorations could come from these funds.

It reads as if you have already set prices. That said, I'll address the request for donations.

Why are you asking for donations? When you ask for donations, there should be a reason given. If you were considering buying door prizes or raffle/auction item, ask members to donate them and make the suggestions: nationwide stores such as Bed Bath & Beyond, Staples, Lowes or Home Depot... and the list goes on.

To be honest, I will not give a donation of funds without knowing what it is going to. Being the treasurer, I understand wanting to be upfront but every nickle and dime is a bit much. If you have not added a registration fee or added a dollar or more to cover the items I mentioned above, say so. Post it in your donation request something like this: As your reunion committee, we did not add a fee nor increase the price of dinner to cover additional items such as: (list the items... i.e. name tags, decorations...) We hope you will click on the donation button (or however you are receiving donations) to assist with these additional costs. If each of you donate $2, these costs will be covered.

Good luck, Kathy! Let us know what you choose to do.

Hi Kathleen - We never had any kind of treasurer's report available until we began using a CC web site for our 40th Reunion. We now have an "Income & Expense Report" with a link on our homepage.

I've removed the password protection on that page for a short time, so please feel free to take a look.

I knew I had recently viewed a very good report, this is it! Well done, Rhonda!

Rhonda McClellan wrote:

I always asked for donations to cover the startup costs, i.e., deposit for room, mailings a year in advance, website. Always had a few who wanted to help in some way and didn't live nearby. But at our 45th we did a 50-50 drawing to support our CC website for the next 5 years and the winner donated back his winnings so we are in excellent shape! I do a spreadsheet of all revenue and expenses and share it with the committee. No one else has ever asked but I would be glad to share if need be. I see no reason to post on website but I guess no harm in it. As you say most people have NO idea what it takes to put on such an event!

Sorry, I am Watterson High School class of 1966. I also have a CC for a non-profit I am involved in and apparently am logged in there right now.

Thank you Rhonda for the ideas... and templates (may we use these?)

On the 40th (2009) registration form we simply added a line with a space to fill in the amount. Over the years we had struggled with the problem of start-up costs but due to the generosity of the classmates we are set for at least the next two reunions so we also plan to keep costs low and perhaps start a scholarship fund at our school. No one thought ill of us for asking.

Here is the link to a picture of what we used. https://www.dropbox.com/s/g7hh36nflp1bc0u/Donation%20registration.jpg

Patrick

Patrick - If you'll scroll down, there is a link for an Income Expense Template.xls on this site:

http://www.consumerismcommentary.com/excel-template-for-income-and-expense-report/

After it was completed, I saved it to a pdf and then uploaded the pdf to our site.