There are quite a few items that need funding early in the school year. We try and carryover up to 1/2 of our budget to the next year. Then the new group coming in don't have to scramble early on in the school year. They have money to start out with, have time to run their fall fundraiser and then set the rest of the year based upon its income. This year, our FF did poor and we needed to plan additional things for later in the year to have enough to fund our programs. If we didn't have that start up money, it would created a panic among us. I strongly recommend carrying over enough money for events & activitites scheduled through January.
Making a positive difference one project at a time <img src=images/smilies/smile.gif>
We have budget lines for big projects we are saving for that have been approved by vote of the membership(stage construction, fitness trail, playground maintenance) but the rest goes into general fund. General fund monies left at the end of the year are "spent down."
We share the feeling that it's hard to ask folks to contribute to new fundraisers if we have a big cushion in the bottom line
And 15/16k without a target or philosphy that everyone has bought into sounds pretty excessive. We had a very high amount our second year of operations primarily because the pres was scared to spend the money and be liable in her mind for its use. We took care of that pretty quickly when the next year started...d
There is no max on what you can keep, however keep in mind that unless you have these monies earmarked for specific projects that you are saving for, you could eventually harm your fundraising efforts because parents will start to wonder why you need more money when you have such large sums in your account already.
Thank You - it does make sense. The reason for my question is because our board wants to keep the whole budget. We have a $15,000.00 for next year and so we are starting out the school year with all that money and so any fundraising efforts go to replenish that budget and any excess is what we give back to the school. This year we are able to give the school $16,000 plus keep the $15,000.00 in our checking acct.
Is there a maximum that you can keep in your acct to be a 501c3 organization?
