Minutes General Board Meeting of the Colorado Native Plant Society
Sunday, August 27, 2023 4:00 – 5:00 pm, via Zoom
Attachments – all files in CoNPS Official Files > Board of Directors > Board Ops and Committee Mtgs > 2023. If you do not have access to these folders, please contact Amy Yarger at amy@bigempire.com
Voting Members Present: – Alex Smith, Amy Yarger, Ann Grant, Deryn Davidson, Gwen Kittel, Mo Ewing, Pat Butler – no quorum
Other Attendees: Anne Beard, Suzanne Dingwell, Maggie Gaddis, Phil Robinson, Kathy Okon, Karen Zuppa
1. Roll call for voting members (Amy, 2 min)
2. Welcome and approval of June minutes (Alex Smith, 5 min)
a. Amy will send out an email vote approval for the June minutes
b. The board voted unanimously electronically to approve the June general session minutes.
3. Strategic Plan Goal #2 Check-in (Alex S. and Ann, 10 min) -postponed for October meeting
4. Profit and Loss report (Maggie and Anne, 10 min)
a. Karen Zuppa from Complete Business Accounting (CBA), working with CoNPS since the beginning of the year, has met with Mo, Maggie and Anne; now resolving technology issues so that bookkeeping won’t take up so much time from the treasurer. The tech bugs are now worked out.
b. CBA has also been working on CoNPS’ 990, the tax form that a nonprofit submits (which is public information); this will result in a cleaner profit and loss report. We will also have to complete our statement of functional expenses if CoNPS has an audit, and that’s something that CBA is helping CoNPS with – allocating costs for programs, admin, and fundraising
c. One big task has been allocating costs to program, management, and fundraising. The statement of accounts will look different and will be more tied to the 990. We’ll be able to produce a general higher level reports as well as a customized deep dive into specific expenses and revenues for programs.
d. How is CoNPS looking financially? This past year (2022) showed lower expenses but also lower revenues (plant sales and other programs) compared to last year. We are making the most revenue from the Society’s programs, but we’ve recently received a grant and will apply for more in the future.
e. Will we have to change from Membership Works – Anne and Maggie are discussing but they are staging changes to ensure that the transformation makes sense.
5. Non-discrimination statement (Maggie, 5 min) –
a. SCFD Example: The Scientific & Cultural Facilities District does not discriminate against any person or organization based on age, race, sex, color, creed, religion, national origin, native language, sexual orientation, transgender status, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information, ancestry, marital status, gender, veteran status, military status, political service, affiliation or disability.
b. Mo moved and Alex Smith seconded adopting the SCFD non-discrimination statement.
c. The board voted unanimously electronically to adopt the SCFD proposed non-discrimination statement as presented.
d. Deadline is September 13 for the application; we could use reviewers for the SCFD pre-application. We will know at the end of year if we are eligible to apply.
i. We are under the $750K revenue threshold for required audit
e. Amy will send link to email vote to the CoNPS board re: non-discrimination statement by end of day tomorrow
6. Next steps for filling Treasurer and Secretary positions (Amy, 10 min)
a. We are looking for nominations! Best practice is to nominate someone you know!
b. Bylaws say that people can fill in as needed for secretary.
c. Treasurer position will be much simpler with new accounting and with Anne’s support.
d. Alex is willing to take on secretary duties for the last quarter of the year.
e. Maggie has some leads!
7. Program impacts – see full document here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/19zw116IHztA6b33L8pcfscDo-koMkSRNMAmQ_HsJeuw/edit?usp=sharing
a. 50 meetings in 2023
b. 12 statewide programs – over $8K in revenue
c. Garden tours – 5 tours, engaged in 8 communities
d. Lots of chapter events!
e. 1160 registrations total
8. Plant Sale proposal (Maggie, 10 min)
9. Committee and chapter updates (Chapters and committee heads, 5 min)
a. Education Committee report: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1J1-IKOFgJIEWHc7pp72J74QqNPhEXg5_/view?usp=drive_link