Co-Chair Finance Forum

Hey Everyone,
My name is Matt Caravan, I am the outgoing Vice President of Finance and Sponsorship Coordinator for the board of directors of St. John’s Pride 2013-2014. With your support I hope to return in this coming year as the Co-Chair of Finance, and also maintain my involvement with the Sponsorship Portfolio.

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m originally from Corner Brook, however I have been living here in St. John’s for the past 11 years with my husband Jon, and for the last 16 months our son Jensen.

Over the course of this past year, we have seen St, John’s Pride grow in many ways- we had almost double the attendance of last year, we expanded our programming to include events for families, youth, and the older generations of the LGBTQ community, started the first annual Pride Guide and saw for the first time ever, vehicles (and one FLOAT) in our parade. None of this would have been possible if we had not also more than doubled our working budget. This was my work this past year- connecting Pride into the corporate and business communities of St. John’s.

With the help of other board members, and after consultations with Halifax Pride’s Sponsorship Coordinator Marion Steele, I created the first official Sponsorship Package that served as the main legitimizing document that engaged companies interested in supporting St. John’s Pride. Next came the grant applications- for the City, for oil companies, and for other large corporations like CBC and TD Bank. Then, the phone calls, emails and meetings that were needed to keep sponsorship relations strong, to tweak the agreements for best fit, and to ensure that the goals of both Pride and our sponsors were being met. I was the point person for our sponsors and negotiated agreements with Bud Light/Labatt’s, 99.1 Hits FM, and Uptown Gourmet Bar and Grill, to name a few. In total, we had more than 25 business and community sponsors this year, bringing total funding raised for the 2013-2014 St. John’s Pride Festival at nearly $25,000, approximately $15,000 dollars more than in the previous calendar year. I won’t lie, it was quite stressful at times, however the long hours poured into pride were well worth it in the end.

A large part of this role is keeping excellent documentation so that the end of year reports are authentically connected to our actual incomes and expenses. I have kept a record of all transactions by keeping them all in an organized filing system and in an online document. This means that next year, any questions regarding expenditures can be easily answered. It is my hope to move all of St. John’s Pride’s Financial documentation into the online world in order to allow for easier access and organization of documentation, and to introduce a simplified way of maintaining inventory of our merchandise, should I be re-elected this coming weekend.

This year, we were working with minimal detailed documentation from previous years, and while most documentation was available, it was not easily accessed in one place, so creating a flexible budget was essential. Grant applications often ask for the total cost of the event, so knowing what the cost of each individual part was going to be was essential and helped us save money and leave some in the bank for the year to come.

We’ve heard a lot from people about getting more corporate sponsors and connecting into the community, and this is exactly the mandate I have had this past year. Local and Corporate Sponsors have all shared with the board on many occasions the importance of maintaining familiarity in this type of work. I have had the opportunity to build relationships with our sponsors, in most cases (even on the corporate level) on a first name basis. I hope when you cast your vote this Saturday that you take all of this into consideration and cast your vote(s) for the person(s) who have St. John’s Pride’s best interest at heart.

Thank you for taking your time to read this, I apologize for being long winded, lol.

Cheers
Matt

Hi Taylor
Great question! Over this past year we have established a plethora of wonderful new relationships within the local business as well as corporate business community. In meeting and speaking with various members of these organizations one recommendation that has been stressed was consistency in policy and procedure, as well as maintaining, where possible, a familiar face as point of contact with these individuals. Personal relationships go a long way and I believe that if I am able to continue with the board of St. John's Pride, that we will see these relationships grow and strengthen over time, which in the long run helps validate St. John's Pride as a whole. As well, getting to know and work with such wonderful teams of people from various sponsors, it has been realized the importance of loyalty, and we have taken steps to insure that past sponsors have rights to first refusal etc. We value the opinions and suggestions of our partners and take them into consideration while conducting all aspects of our business, from finance/sponsorship, to by-laws and general rules of operation.
As well, while we did implement our first event Sponsorship package this past year, it did not come without it's own set of hiccups. Learning from our misjudgements and underestimations, one of the first things I believe the board needs to do is to revamp parts of our sponsorship package, and adjust it accordingly. I believe that all the outgoing board members would agree that we greatly underestimated ourselves in some areas when it came to sponsorship. In saying that I believe that we can move forward and learn from those experiences. With improvements made to the package I think it will only further engage local and corporate support for St. John's Pride.
In regards to finding new support, efforts have already begun, even with the election just days away. I have just submitted the application for funding from the Canadian Heritage Grants Program for Local Festivals. Under this program, if approved, local festivals and non-profits are eligible for partial or complete funding for the upcoming year. I am happy to say with support of some wonderful colleagues on the board we were able to successfully complete the application under short deadlines. As well, there are also other grants we were unable to apply for in previous years due to either time restraints/deadlines, or lack of needed documentation to accurately fill out the applications. With the documentation kept this year we should run in to very little if no problems while applying for funding.

Hi Tony
The financials will be available on Sunday and up on our website as well. They're almost finished, but because the Canadian Heritage Grant has taken up so much of my time (the deadline was yesterday), I put most of my effort into finishing that before the deadline passed. In previous years, I don't believe there had ever been a financial report, at least not what I've been able to find. If you have any questions and are around on Sunday please come say hi and I'll be happy to go over anything with you as well!

Matt