[omni-consensus] Urgent - Hellman Grant Reallocation Issue for Consensus - Part 1: $ for Gen Ops (fwd) - sudo-discuss

2 Nov 2023

I mentioned in the sudoroom meeting last night that Omni is basically out of
money - we had a huge drop in events bookings because of the boycott (and our
non-response to it) and that was about 50% of our income.  We also lost a
couple of tenants and have made zero progress getting new tenants.

(For context, TANC and their fellow printshop collective proposed joining us in
June, and if CLP had not blocked them we would have had another two tenants
with $1300/mo more income per month.  CLP never paid us anything)

Did you know that Omni has a bunch of rooms available for rent?  I think the
groups are preferred to be nonprofit (we can offer 501(c)3 umbrella financial
sponsorship!) but we'll take what we can get.

The sooner we get rooms filled - not only will it be money we can pay bills
with, but also it will look better on paper as we're trying to find a new
lender, as our present mortgage holder's agreement ends in DECEMBER and they
can foreclose on us if we don't have a new lender (or $900K)

-jake

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2023 16:43:12 -0700
From: Sarah Lockhart &lt;sarah.ee.el(a)gmail.com&gt;
To: consensus &lt;consensus(a)lists.omnicommons.org&gt;
Subject: [omni-consensus] Urgent - Hellman Grant Reallocation Issue for
     Consensus - Part 1: $ for Gen Ops

Hi there -- as I've mentioned in quite a few communications recently, Omni
is in dire need of funds for general operating expenses: mortgage,
utilities, insurance.  I am humbly proposing that Omni re-allocate $7000 of
grant money so that Omni can pay its bills this month. See spreadsheet for
details
<https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15qDtnI8P8d3kcuOb_4ZCqNZTVelKTl7I9yd1heVZY2M/edit?usp=sharing>

*The Version That Takes Up More Space*
Omni is currently sitting on about $35k of grant money restricted for
"Capacity Building". This money is in the Unify CU Savings Account.  I am
hoping that Omni can decide to allocate more of the grant to reimburse the
general ops account for expenses that weren't paid out of the grant money,
but would still be considered Capacity Building expenses.

If Omni were to do the legwork and liquidate the savings accounts at other
banks (Self Help CU and Beneficial) -- that would free up about $6000.
However, Omni is also looking at having to pay approximately $20k in
property taxes in December. I would advise holding these other funds that
are in other banks at least until then.

Here is the spreadsheet showing the current state of grant funds and
allocations
<https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15qDtnI8P8d3kcuOb_4ZCqNZTVelKTl7I9yd1heVZY2M/edit?usp=sharing>,
which has a column for what has already been paid out, and another column
for what contractors have billed Omni for but have not been paid yet. This
should be considered as "spent" in my humble opinion. The spreadsheet
also includes a bit at the bottom showing the detailed expenses the grant
could be "re-allocated to cover" - which would thus mean putting more money
into the general ops account to be used to pay general operating expenses.

When the $50k grant was received, it was understood (by Omni and the
funder) that some of the expenses the grant would cover had already been
paid out of general funds.

When Omni approved the grant budget this summer, there were a number of
expenses that grant money was allocated to which had already been paid.
Thus the money was "returned to the general fund" to "reimburse" the
general ops account.

Respectfully submitted,
Sarah L