EEFC 2015 Spring Board Meeting Report

March 13 – 14
Berkeley, CA

Attending:
Ann Norton
Amy Mills
Nancy Leeper
Elena Erber
Eva Primack
Biz Hertzberg
Rachel MacFarlane
Traci Speed

Corinna Snyder, Demetri Tashie, and Noel Kropf were unable to attend in person. They Skyped in when available.

FINANCE COMMITTEE REPORT: Biz

• With the help of our accountant, the finance committee and staff have worked hard over the past year to get our accounting to match nonprofit best practices. The committee is working on pie charts of expenses and income, which will be put on the website with 3-5 years of info, formatted to standardize the information.
• The new website needed to be up and running for registration and not all of the financial and cultural information is there yet, but it’s coming
• Biz estimates that we need to raise $80,000 – $100,000 in donations annually

PROGRAM COMMITTEE REPORT: Demetri

The committee opted to increase its size last year,which proved to be too big to work effectively.

Accomplishments in the past 6 months:
Pared back the committee to 5 working members

• invited Corinna S to be part of the committee, increasing our number to 6
• Put the Workshop slates together earlier than last year.
• Complete the Workshop Slates In time for Registration opening in March

Goals for the next 6 months:

• Identify experts we can consult with for recommendation on teachers and performers in their particular areas of expertise/knowledge/passion (i.e. genres, regions, offerings)
• Form our committee earlier than the usual September to September term
• Identify other individuals who could work well on the committee that we could recruit
• Begin the process of programming this Summer for 2016 Workshops

The current group works well, and swiftly together, while still maintaining healthy debates on disagreements. We realize the needs of the committee are for individuals who can work well together ; have a collective broad base of knowledge and experiences; have a familiarity with both Workshops and their needs; can commit to often lengthy — and frequent — conference calls;

MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE REPORT: Elena

Accomplishments in the past 6 months:

• Organized and produced fall fundraising campaign: mailing coordination, design & printing
• Created workshop promotional postcards [printed] & flyers [digital]
• Distributed workshop promotional materials
• Placed print ads in BNNW, Chicago Spring Event, Boston Balkan Night; web ad: Dance Flurry
• Organized EEFC presence at:
  Golden Festival, with a table (slideshow, swag, postcards, email sign-up sheet, banner and volunteers to talk to)
  Saratoga NY Dance Flurry (banner & postcards). Tables were staffed by Board and Community Members
• Swag: design and fabrication of stickers, t-shirts, tote bags, water bottles
• Moved email service providers [easier to use platform] and instituted monthly newsletter mailings beginning January 2015 . Coordinated content for monthly e-blast newsletters.
• Organized the Golden Festival Drom AfterParty: profits were put into scholarships for Cocek Nation
• Redesigned website: phase one: design, develop & launch.
• Completed brand and marketing consultation with Catch A Fire volunteer.

Goals for the next 6 months:

• Continue camp promotions
• Continue development of the new website
• Fill out the marketing committee roles [descriptions & people]
• Create a “relaxed” timeline/production schedule for creating the monthly enews; assign roles.
• Swag: promote orders for delivery at camp
• Begin work on Spring Mailing Drive
• Documentation: finish creating a marketing calendar

DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE REPORT: Amy

Activity and accomplishments:

Reviewed and streamlined membership program

• Membership appeal sent out November 2014, raising $19,630 in memberships and other donations. This means that we are at 50.5% of $25K budget goal for memberships.
• Plans for the next 6-9 months
• Identify 1-2 new Development Committee members
• Review and update at-camp fundraising
• Provide community with easy-to-use community fundraising ideas and info
• Work with to set a process for tracking goals against regular financial reports
• Review how we acknowledge giving
• Work with rest of Board to provide tools and information, so that they can easily assist in development

SALESFORCE UPDATE: Noel

Working with the Marketing & Communications committee to work out web hosting details

BOARD DEVELOPMENT / SUCCESSION PLAN: Corinna

Board members rolling off this year:
Biz
Demetri
Ann
Nancy
Eva
Departing members will start working on recruiting new members.
Information on board service and an application is now on the website.

BOARD GOALS FOR THE NEXT 6 MONTHS: Nancy

• Update Bylaws
• Community relations plan
• Work to continue community forums, probably with audio &/or video conferencing
• Define roles of the EEFC reception and lunch with the board
• Redefine General manager & Administrative Assistant’s roles
• Fundraising strategy & plan