The How-To-Guide to creating your reunion budget
Any organized event involving expected expenses and revenues needs a pre-planned budget. Before booking locations and entertainment it is essential to create a budget for estimating costs and revenues. Reunions especially need this discipline or the organizer or even the committee could be faced without enough cash to cover any remaining expenses at the end of the reunion.
Professional planning companies are especially vulnerable in that it could affect any future business or solvency.
A professional reunion planning company that was hired by my friendâs high school reunion committee went out of business after the reunion and disappeared without completing their post-reunion memory album/photo book.
To avoid potential disaster, budgetary planning is key. We have provided a Budget Template and a Microsoft Excel Budget Worksheet for reunion organizers. The template shows what assumptions are needed along with a basic list of potential reunion expenses and revenues. Here are the steps:
- Estimate your turnout
- Experiment with different ticket prices
- Estimate expense items
Once you have an estimated turnout, (I usually start with 40% including alumni and their guests), insert an estimated turnout under Total Items in the first row. This shows an estimate of ticket revenue. Then enter other estimated expenses plus any more you can think of in the blank rows if desired. You now have a budget to work with and adjust based on actual costs and revenues.
We developed two reunion templates here. One is a Sample Budget that shows various potential costs and revenues that could be included. Our Budget Worksheet will allow reunion planners. to input their particular information and make adjustments based on what is needed for each reunion. The worksheet is designed so that once the assumptions are entered, the ticket revenue and number of tables needed will be automatically calculated.
This simple task will help you plan ahead, make appropriate cost choices and clearly help to make your reunion a social and FINANCIAL success!
Click Here for an example budget template
Click Here for a sample budget PDF
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