Funding rebellions, actions, campaigns and events

A rebellion comprises several actions and other co-ordinated activities. There may also be ad hoc self contained actions. Rebellions and actions are agreed in the 2 or 3 months leading up to a rebellion or other major action and budgets should be in proportion to the expected extra fundraising from the rebellion or action.

Summary of processes

1. Actions appoints a "lead BH" who is the single point of contact for IBG. They liaise with other BHs and ECs for any circles requesting a budget. They liaise with Relationships if a sister of affiliated group is being funded. All circles seeking funding must have a mandate.
2. The Lead BH prepares the budget using a spreadsheet supplied by IBG or their own equivalent which lists all expenses needing to be funded.
3. IBG meets to discuss the proposal and may have queries that the Lead BH needs to go away and answer.
4. When the request has been clarified, Finance advises if funds are available or, exceptionally, advises there is more funding than requested. The Lead BH may need to adjust the request accordingly.
5. Strategy team is advised of the funding request for feedback.
6. Finance wherever posible, has a reserve of 10,000 to be used for pre-rebellion costs where funds have not been raised. This reserve is replenished from later donations.
7. IBG approves the budget and the Lead BH works with others to transfer funds to bank accounts or else Finance processes the expense claims.
8. Fundraising and M&M must be kept fully involved so they can prepare fundraising messages.
9. The Lead BH tracks expenditure against budget.

Requests for funding a rebellion or a specific action or event

These requests should be prepared by the Budget Holder for the requesting circle or their delegate. A large action may have several Budget Holders who should nominate 1 BH as their rep, so the IBG has a single point of contact for queries.

The BH completes a Funding Request form or their own version which should contain the same level of detail. The Fundng Request form has a template, see the Funding Request template in the Cloud. For the equivalent Gdoc template, copy the Cloud template into a Gdoc spreadsheet. Make sure you take a copy of the template and give it an appropriate name. The form has instructions written as comments inside some cells on how to answer each question, which are being developed. The completed form must be discussed with Actions before coming to IBG and the outcome added to the form against Q 8. The form contains questions about the strategic nature of the activity as well as amounts for each type of expense that are needed but exact figures are not needed, e.g. the BH is not expected to look up every train fare. Depending on the nature of the activity, it may need to be also discussed with Relationships and Legal circles. The BH or a representative from the appropriate circle then brings the funding request to IBG. When the request has been discussed, the amounts funded by IBG are entered against each expense item. After the activity has ended, actual amounts spent are entered for comparison and review.

A reserve of 10,000 is set aside for initial rebellion costs in case there are insufficient funds at the start. This reserve must later be replenished and so is not shown in the cash flow because it is never actually an expenditure. This reserve is a contingency to prevent the cash flow becoming negative or if income from a rebellion or action is substantially below estimate. It must gain approval from Finance before being used.

It's very important to understand the terms and condtitions of the bank accounts used to fund a rebellion, which cannot bank money for illegal use. This can be managed by only publicising spend against costs such as training, art materials etc, and NOT locks and glue.

If a request is agreed, responsibility then goes to Finance who liaises with the BH and releases the funds to their nominated bank account. Finance then controls expenditure and collects receipts from the BH.