[vcf-midatlantic] Gerry Lawson's 82nd birthday - Today's Google Doodle

[David Ryskalczyk]

I don't think paying a $5k speaking fee makes sense for VCF.

$5k+travel is a lot for a small nonprofit where there are no paid employees and the overall budget is small. Having seen last year's financial report at Festivus, I would put VCF in this category.
$5k+travel is not necessarily a lot for a larger nonprofit that has paid employees and charges a few hundred dollars or more for one to attend an event.

There has been an overall push for speakers to demand speaking fees even from nonprofits. This is generally because well-funded nonprofits that are absolutely able to pay such fees try to use these excuses to avoid doing so and have been getting away with it for years. Such nonprofits may even claim that a speaker fee is “out of budget” because they haven’t accounted for it when they could afford it. This leads to a situation where “we are a nonprofit” and “we have never paid a speaker fee” are poor justifications.

I think this brings up a greater concern: frankly I was a little surprised by how constrained VCF’s budget is when I heard the report at last year’s Festivus. I think it would make sense to publish an annual financial summary on the website so it is clear that VCF isn't flush with money and that people know where funds end up going. That way it would be obvious that, for instance, a fee of $5000 would be a significant portion of the organization’s annual revenue and make a huge dent on the operating budget. (One could continue this discussion further and ask whether an organization that is entirely volunteer-run is sustainable long-term, but that is not an easy problem to solve.)

I don’t think this would necessarily resolve the matter being discussed here in the immediate term, but it would certainly make it easier in the long run, especially since I suspect that in the future we will see more requests for speaker fees.

David

> On Dec 2, 2022, at 10:59 AM, Alexander Jacocks via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic at lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
> 
> Yep, I think they came for the joy of it (at least Clint/LGR did). I vote
> no on the payment. I wouldn't take it amiss, as he probably thinks we're a
> corporation profiting from events, but it'd set a bad precedent, and I
> agree that we don't have the resources to do this, even if we wanted to.
> 
> I spoke to Clint and Adrian at some length, and it was very clear that they
> were having a fantastic time. Ben Heck as well, though I didn't talk to him
> as much.
> 
> - Alex
> 
> On Fri, Dec 2, 2022 at 8:41 AM Andrew Diller via vcf-midatlantic <
> vcf-midatlantic at lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Dec 1, 2022, at 8:18 PM, Ethan O'Toole via vcf-midatlantic <
>> vcf-midatlantic at lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>> It wouldn't be an issue if it would be returned in the way of boosted
>> attendance, aka return on investment. Big events (yes, 501c3) pay for the
>> top keynotes and stuff -- but they make a return on that by way of
>> attendees coming to see em.
>>> 
>>> Youtube famous people would draw more of a crowd if marketed well and
>> cost less.
>>> 
>> 
>> VCFMW proved this- the YouTube corner was packed non-stop from what I saw
>> when I was there. Non-stop.
>> 
>> I don't think they paid them at all to show up and talk.
>> 
>> -andy
>> 
>>