Overview

As with previous years, the SDA’s financial accounts consist of a bank account in the Norwegian BNBank and a PayPal account, where operating funds reside. PayPal is also the mechanism we use to manage membership subscriptions and renewals. The BNBank account therefore acts as reserves; we strive to keep funds in the PayPal account to expedite reimbursements and payments as necessary.

Financial statement

The business year is from 1st October to 30th September. However, this report is being presented early as a part of an Extraordinary General Assembly, thus we may only present the financial status of the organization up to the date of Sept. 20, 2024.

October 1, 2023

September 20, 2024

BNBank

84331.56 NOK

84516.28 NOK

PayPal

€3,358.04 EUR

197,726.25 NOK

$0.65 CAD

€9,011.71 EUR

406,673.20 NOK

$0.65 CAD

Activities

BNBank

The BNBank account was transferred 197,726.25 NOK from the SDA’s PayPal account in October 2023 to pay for expenses related to RSD12-Nordmarka Forest, as planned. The remaining funds in the account are the funds in the SDA’s reserves.

PayPal

🏦 Note: This report is inclusive of PayPal’s transaction processing fees on each transaction. I.e., PayPal charges a small fee on each transaction — the numbers above reflect our revenues and expenses after that fee.

As our main source of operating funds, the PayPal account has seen substantial traffic.

PayPal Financial Activity for 2023–2024

	Revenue		Expenses		Net
	Budgeted	Actuals	Budgeted	Actuals
EUR	3500	5653.67	4000	5629.632	24.04
NOK	0	420,663.061	0	197,776.763	208,946.95

Summary of Revenues

EUR

All revenues in EUR were from membership fees/renewals.

NOK

[1]: All revenues in NOK are related to RSD13. Post-RSD13, these revenues will be used to pay for expenses related to the conference. As a result, there are effectively no revenues for the SDA during the reporting period.

Summary of Expenses

EUR

[2]: The SDA’s expenses in EUR all go towards publishing and digital infrastructure in support of hosting and promoting RSD, RSDX, and other events. Note that the following expenses are planned but not yet expensed as of Sep 20, 2024.

Reimbursed

Amount

Reason

Cheryl May

€3,169.63 EUR (based on conversion at time of writing)

($4,800 CAD)

Publishing expenses and communications tools in support of membership management, event organizing, RSD proceedings, and Contexts production

Redesign (Peter Jones)

€2,460.00 EUR

SDA digital infrastructure, including web hosting and membership management software and services

NOK

[3]: On Oct. 26, 2023, funds held in the SDA account from revenues from RSD12-Nordmarka Forest were withdrawn to pay for expenses from RSD12-Nordmarka Forest (as planned).

As a result, effectively, there have been no real expenses in NOK for the SDA during the reporting period.

⚠️ Important: Some costs from SDA activities leading up to RSD13 have yet to be expensed and accounted for. These will have to be reconciled in the 2024–2025 period.

Conclusion

The SDA began the reporting period in a financially balanced state and it ends in a financially balanced state.

We had budgeted €3500 EUR for income via membership fees and exceeded that with €5653.67 EUR in total revenues. It is worth noting that our dependence on membership fees is also an opportunity: other revenue streams such as sponsorships and grants may be worth pursuing to diversify the SDA’s sources of income.

We budgeted €4000 EUR for expenses. Here we report €5669.63 EUR in total actual expenses. As reported in the previous year, many of the expenses related to the SDA operations are paid for by volunteers. These expenses were not being recognized by the SDA and volunteers were not being reimbursed. This current financial report accounts for some of these expenses. In addition, costs have increased substantially in recent years. Not only are more people participating in our programming (leading to increased costs related to coordinating and running those programs), but we have also launched Contexts: The Systemic Design Journal. Hence, the actuals here are over the budgeted amounts. These numbers are obviously beyond what were budgeted for in the previous year but they reflect the operational realities of the organization. Of course, and fortunately, these expenses do not exceed our revenues, and we remain in a financially healthy state.

Thus, in this 2023–2024 financial report, we are happy to present a total accounting of the expenses and revenues of the SDA. It is impressive that the SDA leads such a tremendous movement in an utterly vital and still-nascent field with such a lean operation. This, of course, is no accident, and is entirely due to countless hours of effort put in by volunteers and members like you who deserve to be recognized on every stage we have. Thank you for your contributions.

Palak Dudani Ryan J. A. Murphy

SDA Treasurer SDA Secretary

Sep 20, 2024 Sep 20, 2024