Finances

Camp finances fundamentally consist of two things: money in (donating) and money out (getting reimbursed).

To record any communal purchases you make, enter in each item, its prices, and your name into the "Expense tracking" tab of the master spreadsheet. Alternatively, if you're out and about and want to get the receipt off your mind fast, email a photo of your receipt to jon@craftyjon.com and we'll enter it into the spreadsheet it for you! (Our hope is that this is easier to do during times when you've got a phone but no laptop.)

Capital expenses that you purchase and get reimbursed for will be considered “camp property” and must be made available for any future event. By default, camp property is stored in Somerville. Capital expenses should be approved by Jon before purchase.

Rough guidelines: When purchasing groceries for cooking a camp dinner, aim to spend no more than $2.25 per confirmed camper for dinners, and no more than $1.75 per confirmed camper for brunch (in other words, ~$110 and ~$85 for typical Firefly camp sizes). We encourage you to bring food for the meal you're planning yourself, but you can also get your groceries purchased by another campmate.

After purchasing, enter in your name, the amount, and which meal it was for in the “Expense tracking” tab of the event spreadsheet. Camp dinner groceries don't need to be itemized. Just enter in your total as “groceries – Wednesday dinner”, for example, with a single dollar amount.

If we don't get enough donations to cover expenses, we will prioritize reimbursing food then consumables first, followed by capital. In the past, some camp members have volunteered to make up the difference in the event that we spend more money on the new capital expenses than we receive in donations.

Reimbursements will be sent out no later than 30 days after the end of the event, and usually within 7 days.

By default, you'll be reimbursed for purchases by receiving an electronic transfer via Venmo, Zelle, or PayPal from Jon. If this doesn't work for you, reach out to Jon to arrange for a different method.

The camp budget per event will be estimated ahead of time and confirmed after all receipts are collected. We raise money to pay for these expenses through member donations. Donations are voluntary! Typically we have a spread, some e.g. $0 and some e.g. $40 and some e.g. $100 or more. Donate whatever makes you most comfortable.

Instructions will be sent out after each event on how donations can be made.

The Universe will have a $0 balance between events. If we receive more donations than we spend, the excess funds will be returned according to an algorithm that tries to minimize the amount of the largest per-person donation. This system is designed so as to incentivize camp members to donate as much as they would be willing to spend on the camp, while ensuring that if the camp later learns it does not need the extra money then it will be returned. Furthermore, among campmates who overdonate, the algorithm will make their donations equal even if they didn't donate equal amounts.

As an example: if in a three-person camp with a $200 budget Alice donates $50, Bob donates $100, and Carol donates $150, then Bob will be refunded $25 and Carol will be refunded $75, causing the final donations to be $50 from Alice, $75 from Bob, and $75 from Carol.

We used this script to calculate donation returns this year. Feel free to check it out or make a pull request.