friends of KUSF

Friends of KUSF Organizing Meeting, Feb. 27, 2007

Location: Edinburgh Castle

Attending: Carolyn, Cathy, Josh, Gary, Mtheo

Proposed Date for Next Meeting: March 15.

Summary:

It was a lively meeting, with a lower turnout that indicates the importance of having people who can show up. Overall, the meeting covered some important details, but we did not choose to vote to constitute ourselves into Friends of KUSF.

Gary noted that many of the details -- such as how to do membership or what fundraising options we want to pursue -- can all be discussed later, and Mtheo has drafted very flexible bylaws that don't commit us to anything other than procedural propriety, and that can be modified in the future as needed.

I agree, and propose that the immediate, short-term priority should be to find those minimum five people who can vote to constitute as Friends of KUSF. Gary and Mtheo both expressed doubts about their own eligibility, so we still need to find that team.

Discussion in Detail

Five basic topics came up:

1. A board that will be there. No matter what sort of organization Friends is, or what it does or who's involved, it will need a core group of people who make it happen. No less than five people are necessary for a nonprofit board.
   
   
2. Focus on modest but practical goals to build credibility, and prevent overcommitment/burnout. There was much agreement on this. Quarterly meetings are popular. We also agreed it will take more work than that to start.
   
   
3. Fundraising options . Since most of the work FoKUSF should be doing is raising funds to donate to KUSF, we need to pick projects we can do and that have a worthwhile return. Comments as follows:
   
   - Individual donors are hugely important. Cathy says it should be a priority. Mtheo is sympathetic and notes that it would be great for FoKUSF organizers to come to an Opera on KUSF fundraiser on March 18 (right Mark?), to help represent and learn about working with major donors.
   
   - Grants can have a payoff. Josh is interested in developing some grants to get funding for public affairs and news programming on KUSF.
   
   - Benefit shows. Cathy spoke for a bit to underscore the hard work and low returns of benefit shows. Josh (hi) also concurs, but let's note that benefits can be great if they succeed in terms of visibility and morale.
   
   - Merch and other activities (raffles, auctions, on-air fundraisers) are on the backburner for future discussion.
   
   
4. The accountability of donations given to KUSF ; i.e., how can we be assured donated funds will be used as the donor specifies.
   
   The short answer is, Friends would have a formal, grantmaker-grantee relationship with the station for whatever it wants to donate to the station. This would require a short, signed letter of agreeemnt. Grants can be either program-specific ("music library expansion," "news & public affairs underwriting") or for general operating expenses with no stipulation.
   
   To keep kosher with the IRS, Friends would need to have 501(c)(3) tax status, either via fiscal sponsorship by a sympathetic nonprofit group, or independently -- which interested Mtheo, and should be the long-term goal. In brief:
   
   Indepdendent:
   - Application fee approx. $600
   - Big novella-sized form, uou can do it yourself or get a lawyer, ideally pro bono.
   - Usually w/in six months you are approved for a five-year provisional ruling period during which you are classified as a 501(c)(3), and can behave as such; at the end of that time they *go over your finances* and make a final ruling.
   
   Fiscal Sponsorship:
   - An existing 501(c)(3) receives funding on behalf of the sponsored project.
   - Fiscal sponsors usually take a 5%-7% fee from all funds they handle.
   - Fiscal sponsorship is an easier way to get started quickly, and a good stepping stone towards independence. But a good sponsorship contract is vital . There's lots of liability in both directions. Detailed info about fiscal sponsorship is here:
   
   http://home.pacbell.net/josh-w/dox/six_ways.pdf
   
   
5. The Complaint Box . As often happens, it seemed as if a lot of our discussion occasionally got sidetracked by complaints about KUSF. I propose we have a separate way to discuss complaints and criticisms; perhaps a complaint blog or wiki, or a separate meeting entirely for kvetching. Or we could have a rule: When someone wants to complain, they stop, write their complaint down, and put it in a complaint box in the middle of the table, which we can then get to later.