Since our organizational budget is primarily shaped in relation to program planning, the budget shall be created, maintained, and updated by staff, with Board oversight. The Board shall review and discuss the budget at Board meetings.

The Financial Circle shall maintain both an Organizational Budget and Circle Budgets (for circles with regular or foreseeable circle-specific expenditures) in a Budget Google Sheet. For both Organizational and Circle Budgets, the Financial Circle shall maintain two budget columns, which shall be updated and approved as follows:

• "Adopted" Budgets: Once adopted (via the process below) we should not make changes to these in the Budget document. These columns may be highlighted in red to indicate that they should not be changed.

• "Working" Budgets: This is a copied/pasted version of theAdopted Budgets that we can update as often as we'd like to. These columns may be highlighted in green to indicate that they may be changed. Any staff member may make suggested changes in bold, explaining the suggestion in the "Notes" section.

Process of adopting budgets:

Every fall (next year budgeting) and spring (mid-year revise), the Financial Circle shall let all staff know the FC is collecting input on Circle-specific budgets. Each Circle with a Circle-specific budget in the Budget Sheet shall review and, if needed, update that Circle’s budget, as a way to inform the Financial Circle of likely expenditures, and the Financial Circle will incorporate this information into the final Organizational Budget. After 3-4 weeks of collecting input and Circle budget information, the Financial Circle will incorporate feedback as needed, then present the Working Budgets as a proposal during a General Circle meeting. If there are no objections, the Working Budgets will become the new Adopted Budgets, and the Financial Circle will send it to the Board Treasurer.

The Financial Circle may also undertake an optional additional participatory budgeting process as needed if it finds that our anticipated income significantly outweighs expenses for that year. Funds allocated through this participatory budgeting process will be incorporated into the organization’s adopted budget by the budget eagle. Any funds not allocated through this participatory budgeting process will carry over to the following year’s income.

Re-Allocation of Funds:

Circles are empowered to reallocate funds within their adopted program budgets without needing GC approval. As an accountability measure, the Circle must notify the Financial Circle through an External Request, describing the purpose for reallocating funds, so at least someone else knows it's happening, if the re-allocation is $10,000 or more. The Financial Circle can request the proposal to reallocate be brought to the GC or SC. Only in the following instances does the Circle need to seek GC or SC approval:

• The budget allocation in the program was originally approved by the GC (outside of the regular budget process)

• The reallocation is of $20,000 or more.

Unspent Funds:

When circles have unspent funds in their budget at the end of the calendar year, they may plan to use these funds in the following year. However, they must ensure that such funds are included on the following year’s circle budget. To do this, they should notify the Financial Circle of any such funds as soon as possible but no later than the end of January of the new year, so that the Financial Circle can make sure these funds are included on the new year’s adopted organizational budget.

(FC) 

Update log:

• Updated January 8th, 2021 to include the power of Circles to reallocate funds within their program budget. 

• Revised wholly on October 19, 2023 per Financial Circle proposal titled "PROPOSAL: Update Budgeting Policy"