2021-2023 Budget

Introduction. The proposed biennial 2021-2023 budget for the League of Women Voters of California (LWVC) is submitted to delegates for their consideration in accordance with the bylaws (Article XIII Financial Administration, Section 2 Budget).

Although the delegates only consider and vote on a budget for the LWVC, the Budget Committee is also presenting the budget for the League of Women Voters of California Education Fund (LWVCEF) for informational purposes. We hope this help delegates understand our overall budgetary priorities and projected sources and uses of funds for all League activities in California.  The LWVCEF Board of Directors adopts the LWVC EF budget after Convention.

The Budget Committee. This budget was prepared by a committee, appointed by the LWVC Board of Directors. The members as of print date were:

  • Frances Carrillo, Treasurer (Chair), LWVC
  • Carol Moon-Goldberg, President, LWVC (ex-officio)
  • Stephanie Doute, LWVC Executive Director
  • Tracey Edwards, LWV Cupertino-Sunnyvale
  • Debbie Fagen, LWV Pasadena Area
  • Katherine Gavzy, LWV Pasadena Area
  • Helen Hutchinson, LWV Oakland
  • Natalya Zernitskaya, LWV Santa Monica

Comments and Questions. Comments and questions should be addressed to Frances Carrillo at treasurer@lwvc.org. Please see LWVC convention website for information on a budget webinar for interested members.

The Budget Process. This year the budget development process was slightly different than in past years.  It was founded in the work of staff to re-evaluate their program areas and understand the budgeting process at this level before moving to our Budget Committee. Once the Executive Director and staff had developed a sound basis for their budget needs and recommendations, the Budget committee began reviewing the numbers to understand staff’s process and to provide organizational insight and priorities.  The biennial budget was then presented to the LWVC full Board of Directors in a special meeting on April 7, 2021.

The Context. With the hurdles we all faced this year during a global pandemic, staff and board were committed to presenting a budget that was thoughtfully reviewed at every level.  We all continued in our commitment to being a flexible, sustainable, and ambitious organization. This budget and the decisions behind it conveys to all of us, that we understand where we are coming from and where we need to go to continue to grow LWVC in the coming years. We call it ambitious, but conservative as we believe you must be ambitious in the nonprofit world, but the last year has shown us that we can function differently and that all hands-on deck is necessary.

Our Assumptions and Conclusions.  There is no PMP increase in this budget. It maintains the PMP (per member payment) at $28 per person.  As stated, this budget is an all-hands-on deck approach, especially with the revenue. To reach our ambitious goals and continue to offer the programs League is accustomed to providing, it will take full LWVC community participation.  We found that reaching our revenue goals have been a long-term difficulty for LWVC and we must address it now and moving forward. The budget is provided with notes and takes this into consideration a few of the following changes to sustain the proposed revenue numbers:

  • Creation of working committees with set fundraising and grant seeking responsibilities and goals.  These committees are listed below with a brief note of their main responsibility.  All committees will be given revenue targets that they will be asked to meet. It is important to note here that all these committees, although working at the state level, their work does affect and will be affected by our Local Leagues. We need everyone on board with these goals:
    • Board Development Committee – Responsible for Board level fundraising
    • Grant Seeking Committee – Responsible for understanding and exploring the California grant giving environment. This may also include exploring corporate giving for designated programs.
    • Voter’s Edge Fund Development Committee – Responsible for increasing local League support of Voter’s Edge; finding new sources of revenue to support Voter’s Edge, and the creation of a plan that communicates the budgetary needs of the program.
  • MyLO – Our revenue from the website service program is projected to break even over the next two years. We were conservative with the figure due to the changing field of web service providers available to Leagues nationwide.  At present time, the number of those migrating away from MyLO is being offset by new sites.
  • Member Services – The LWVC will continue the work of the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee, explore additional ways to assist in supporting local Leagues, continue to create and distribute toolkits for local Leagues, as well as implement ongoing training and community conversations for local League leaders. The LWVCEF will continue to manage EdFund accounts for the local Leagues who choose to hold their Education Funds with the state League.
  • Convention – The budget assumes Convention will be held in-person in 2023.  The 2021 convention hotel allowed LWVC to amend our contract and reschedule to 2023 without financial penalties.
  • Advocacy – The LWVC staff lobbyist is now one of the most senior voting rights advocates in the good government community in California.  LWVC’s role in advocating for voting rights at the state level is more important than ever.  The Legislative Committee’s work including their meeting time, any resources to assist such activities as CapitolTrack (bill tracking system), all work advocating for League positions, as well as necessary lobbying firm and legal costs are captured here.  This also includes the Trudy Schafer Fellowship, and advocacy emails and our Action Alert tool which makes it easy for League members and supporters to lobby their lawmakers directly. The League takes action on bills on a variety of issue areas from election reform to climate change to housing.
  • Community Education – These funds will be used for general statewide voter support around elections changes and vote by mail, general public education about ballot measures, support for the likely recall election, support and consultation with election officials, and public education and engagement in redistricting.  It also includes continued work on the Silicon Valley Community Foundation grant funded Civic Intelligence Via Field Reporting (CIVFR) project. When the CIVFR project is complete, the LWVCEF will have created a real-time reporting tool to capture and aggregate civic engagement activities and experience allowing residents to more fully participate in local government and to assist local governments to operate in a more transparent and accessible manner.
  • Voter Engagement & Education: We run many different projects as part of our work to engage and educate voters.  They include:
    • Voter’s Edge California:  Serving over 2 million California Voters last election cycle, Voter’s Edge California is the leading online Voter Guide in California providing the complete and unbiased information voters need to act with confidence on election day.
    • Easy Voter Guide: The Easy Voter Guide is a plain language, community reviewed, election resource for new and busy voters.  Available in five languages, it provides backbone ballot measure content for Voter’s Edge California and over 200,000 print copies were distributed across the state during the pandemic election in 2020.
    • Voter Engagement: LWVCEF will continue to develop statewide Pros and Cons (in English and Spanish), a corresponding presentation deck for local League use, and the In-Depths on certain ballot measures.
    • Youth Programs: Piloted in the 2020 election cycle, the LWVCEF’s award winning digital Youth Get Out the Vote project, which reached over 6 million people, was our first foray into dedicated youth engagement. Expanding on this work will allow us to live our DE&I values, to develop civic leadership and engagement in youth, and further work towards our mission of empowering voters and defending democracy.  This will also create expanded awareness and relevance of the LWV in a new generation, where we must increase our visibility and relevance for long term success and sustainability.  We will develop this further in the coming year as we work with potential partners and funders.

In regard to Expenses staff and board took a minimal approach with the following highlights:

  • Travel Expenses were reduced as a result of our learnings from the past year. We find that many events and meetings can still be conducted via online including Board Meetings and Committee Meetings. Although we do expect, and may want, a couple in-person meetings through the year, we know that we can greatly reduce this expense without losing the true intent of the meetings.
  • Trudy Schafer Fellowship – With the next fellowship beginning in January 2022, the Fellowship will be aligned better with the legislative cycle. The position will be reduced to 20 hours a week in order to stay within our available funding.  Overall, we will maintain the legacy of this incredible gift from Trudy but are seeking a more sustainable model to continue to honor her contributions.
  • Rent – Our current rent lease ends December 2022, and we are anticipating not renewing it. We will be taking this 1st year to re-evaluate our physical office space needs. We’ll be able to budget in the following budget based on those findings.

League of Women Voters of California and League of Women Voters of California Education Fund Proposed Functional Expense Budget