08/05/2017
Because we often receive questions about Project Baseline funding, we (and others) have asked Project Baseline to be more transparant about funding.
This has resultated in this a newsletter to all volunteers from Project Baseline headquarters. The link to the newsletter is below and here are some excerpts on Funding, Budget, and Transparency
In regards to Project Baseline Vinkeveen. We have never had any extra funding except from volunteers paying for PBVV materials that have been used in PBVV activities.
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Transparency with respect to Project Baseline’s financials has been a priority since our inception though it appears that we have not done a very good job at communicating our status. Below you will find a summary followed by great detail in relation to these financial transactions.
Summary
* No money has been spent by GUE/PB to facilitate GlobalSubDive projects including those aboard the Baseline Explorer.
* GlobalSubDive has instead been responsible for the largest financial contributions to our work, without which we would not have our database interface.
* Membership revenue has been insufficient to consistently cover Vanessa’s salary, which is why we have not filled that position since her departure and instead are focusing on part-time work to address our promotional and communication efforts.
* We remain in need of finding a sustainable financial model to support the back-end work that we know is needed to support PB, including: 1) maintenance of and improvements to the database and database interface; 2) promotional work, outreach, and communications/reporting; 3) website upgrades and maintenance; and 4) fund raising. Without the support for these positions the hard work our volunteers do would go unnoticed and Project Baseline would cease to exist.
* Moving forward, we will be tracking and reporting our financials in the form presented in the 2016 Annual Report.
* We’re considering reporting our status more regularly, quarterly for instance, but this will require an allocation of time and therefore dollars that we don’t have at present.
Income
* The majority of our income has come from GUE membership dues. We have been steady at ~1,000 members for several years and Project Baseline is ear-marked $39 per membership. Thus, PB has received ~$40,000 per year from GUE membership dues. Last year that was $46,215.
* We’ve received very small periodic donations – usually $50 - $500. Last year, those totaled $556.
* GlobalSubDive contributed approximately $80,000 directly to Project Baseline between 2015 and 2016 that didn’t flow through GUE’s account but were listed in our 2016 Annual Report. These funds were earmarked for promoting Project Baseline and Baseline Explorer missions with scientific and conservation organizations, uploading Baseline Explorer data to the PB database, and improving the database interface.
Expenses
* Our largest expense has been salary and benefits associated with the single funded full-time position that was held by Vanessa from about 2013 to about December 2016. For most years, this position cost GUE more than PB’s membership revenue provided thus we have always been looking for additional sources of funding.
* We spent $30,450 on the development of and revisions to the database interface between 2013 and 2015.
* We spent, $14,346 between 2014 and 2015 for part-time work to move the back-log of data from Project Managers into the database as well as data collected from the 2014 GlobalSubDive missions on Pacific Provider and the 2015 missions on Baseline Explorer, and to develop and implement procedures to more quickly and effectively obtain and enter data from our Project Managers into the database.
* We’ve spent $21,090 between 2010 and 2016 on travel expenses associated with sending Vanessa to the GUE conferences, trade shows, and out to some of our project locations to conduct PB Workshops and work with teams to launch and expand their efforts.
* We’ve spent $5,346 between 2010 and 2016 on printed promotional materials, advertising, and marketing.
* We spent $500 in 2015 on team grants intended to encourage Project Managers to participate in scientific or public events in their areas.
* The $80,000 from GlobalSubDive was used to engage in promoting Project Baseline with scientific and conservation organizations and to process video transect, photographic, and numeric data from the 2016 Baseline Explorer missions into the Project Baseline Database and into deliverable files for the scientific collaborators on those missions. In 2015 and 2016 a portion of this was used on minor fixes to the database interface.
In-Kind Contributions
We attempted to capture in-kind contributions that have been made by various companies to support Project Baseline operations in the 2015 Annual Report. We stopped this because, at present we aren’t tracking all the different contributions made by people and organizations around the world to our work and feel that it is unfair to only report those that we’re most directly connected to at HQ. At some point, we believe there would be significant value in tracking and reporting as much of the in-kind support received by our Projects as possible. The major contributions that we’re currently aware of include:
* GlobalSubDive – sustained promotional support aboard Baseline Explorer and yearly public outreach events.
* GeoHydros, Inc – provided office space and logistical support for Caylin and then Vanessa between 2009 and 2016.
* Halcyon Manufacturing – provided products for auctions and project support.
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Click on the link below to read the full newsletter.
