Veg Fest 2014 Financial Report
The goal of Vegetarians of Central Florida (VegCF) is to encourage and support vegetarians, vegans and those transitioning to a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle, in Central Florida. One important way VegCF fulfills this mission is to host two of the largest vegan festivals in the country, Central Florida Veg Fest and Central Florida Earth Day, annually. We are proud of our community-building events – widely acclaimed to be among the biggest and best vegan festivals in the country – which expose thousands of people to a vegan lifestyle, promote veg-friendly businesses and organizations, and support animal rescue groups, among countless other benefits to Central Florida.
We are making available the financial information for the 9th annual Central Florida Veg Fest, held on October 25, 2014. It takes several weeks after an event for all event transactions to be finalized, then it takes many hours of work for board members to organize the information into a report. The report can be found here. Some highlights include:
1. Once all payments are received and deposits refunded, we expect a total event income of $25,650.40 from vendor fees, a grant, parking fees, and t-shirt & water bottle sales. We had a total of $23,652.16 in event-related expenses. Total profit is expected to be $1,998.24.
Vendor fees are kept as low as possible to ensure each event only makes a small profit. We comp the booth fee of many vegetarian, animal rights, and various other nonprofit groups. This reduces the income of the event significantly, but we feel that is worthwhile to demonstrate our support for these excellent organizations.
Almost all profits must be saved for Central Florida Earth Day 2015's advance expenses, such as making a reservation deposit for Lake Eola Park.
We received one grant of $500.00 for Veg Fest 2014, which was earmarked for the $506.20 airline ticket for one of our speakers, Keith McHenry (co-founder of Food Not Bombs).
2. The majority of our sponsors are advertising partners who help us promote the event. We did not receive income from these sponsors; rather they provided discounts on advertising in exchange for a sponsorship. Vegetarians of Central Florida paid sponsors a total of $5,024.00 for this promotion. The sole sponsor who contributed cash income directly to the event as a partial sponsorship payment was Whole Foods. The 501c3 umbrella group of VegCF, Animal Activists of Central Florida, co-organizes Veg Fest primarily by conducting the raffle which benefits the animal rescue events in attendance and by helping to secure rentals for the event.
3. Central Florida Veg Fest and all other VegCF events are solely run by dozens of unpaid volunteers including the VegCF board of directors, with support from an Executive Director who receives $500.00/month as a contractor for an average of 10 hours per week, with many more during the weeks leading up to the festivals. In addition to our many wonderful volunteers, without whom Central Florida Veg Fest would not be possible, the event was made even stronger by the hundreds of local and national non-profit organizations, small businesses, community leaders, speakers, food preparation demonstrators, musicians, healers, farmers, animal rescues, artists and craft-persons, media outlets, and restaurants who sign up each year to be vendors and/or sponsors.
Any requests by VegCF supporters for clarification on this report may be directed to: [email protected].
We are making available the financial information for the 9th annual Central Florida Veg Fest, held on October 25, 2014. It takes several weeks after an event for all event transactions to be finalized, then it takes many hours of work for board members to organize the information into a report. The report can be found here. Some highlights include:
1. Once all payments are received and deposits refunded, we expect a total event income of $25,650.40 from vendor fees, a grant, parking fees, and t-shirt & water bottle sales. We had a total of $23,652.16 in event-related expenses. Total profit is expected to be $1,998.24.
Vendor fees are kept as low as possible to ensure each event only makes a small profit. We comp the booth fee of many vegetarian, animal rights, and various other nonprofit groups. This reduces the income of the event significantly, but we feel that is worthwhile to demonstrate our support for these excellent organizations.
Almost all profits must be saved for Central Florida Earth Day 2015's advance expenses, such as making a reservation deposit for Lake Eola Park.
We received one grant of $500.00 for Veg Fest 2014, which was earmarked for the $506.20 airline ticket for one of our speakers, Keith McHenry (co-founder of Food Not Bombs).
2. The majority of our sponsors are advertising partners who help us promote the event. We did not receive income from these sponsors; rather they provided discounts on advertising in exchange for a sponsorship. Vegetarians of Central Florida paid sponsors a total of $5,024.00 for this promotion. The sole sponsor who contributed cash income directly to the event as a partial sponsorship payment was Whole Foods. The 501c3 umbrella group of VegCF, Animal Activists of Central Florida, co-organizes Veg Fest primarily by conducting the raffle which benefits the animal rescue events in attendance and by helping to secure rentals for the event.
3. Central Florida Veg Fest and all other VegCF events are solely run by dozens of unpaid volunteers including the VegCF board of directors, with support from an Executive Director who receives $500.00/month as a contractor for an average of 10 hours per week, with many more during the weeks leading up to the festivals. In addition to our many wonderful volunteers, without whom Central Florida Veg Fest would not be possible, the event was made even stronger by the hundreds of local and national non-profit organizations, small businesses, community leaders, speakers, food preparation demonstrators, musicians, healers, farmers, animal rescues, artists and craft-persons, media outlets, and restaurants who sign up each year to be vendors and/or sponsors.
Any requests by VegCF supporters for clarification on this report may be directed to: [email protected].
