Last week we were reminded about how advertising sales for our concert program is a major fundraiser for VOICES and the other partners of Affiliated Choruses of Ithaca (ACI). Some of you may wonder why we still have participant fees if we have fundraisers. Here’s the context. The VOICES budget for this semester is $7,835. Of that, $6,020 (77%) pays stipends for our directors and accompanist. $500 is budgeted for new music scores with the rest of our music coming from archives. $350 goes for rental of our rehearsal space, a very modest fee which is part of the reason we perform at the First Unitarian Church each semester. The rest of the expenses, about $900, goes toward concert expenses such as instrumentalists, sound equipment and recording, and printing. Our concert space this semester is donated by First Baptist Church, and our performance there on October 18 is one way we thank them. 

 

On the income side, we budgeted concert ticket sales at $1,800. As of last week, income from your fees totals $1,200 and donations total about $300. The VOICES share of income from program shell ad sales and other ACI fundraisers is budgeted at about $1,000 for the semester. You don’t need a very sharp pencil to see that that leaves us $3,500 short for the semester. Your Steering Committee is pursuing grant support for the spring semester to help offset that shortfall. What happens if we run short? We do have reserve funds on account from some large events in the past that provided significant income. In recent years, we have been lucky that fundraising has exceeded budgeted amounts (sell those ads and tickets!) so we have only had to dip into those reserves very modestly. This year could be another story.