Chapter Finances
Budgets
Planning and organizing are two ingredients for a successful Chapter. The financial aspect is part of the planning
process. The chapter officers should prepare a budget each year estimating income and expenses. This will
require some advance planning of the activities to be sponsored by the organization for the year.
Guidelines for planning a budget:
All committee Chairs should prepare a list of projects that their committees wish to develop during the coming year
and submit them with a brief description and budget to the Executive Committee. Remember when evaluating
submitted budgets that expenditures tend to be underestimated by 20 to 30 percent. Add a safety cushion, so you
don’t run short of money at the end of the fiscal year.
The Executive Committee should evaluate proposals and prioritize projects that will be sponsored by the Phi Delta
Chi Chapter.
Identify all income sources and estimate revenue that will be received during the year.
Fundraising and Money Management
(Modified from spring 1988 Communicator)
Objectives
Chapters raise funds for a variety of purposes:
● Routine operations (e.g., postage stamps, parties, dances, Founders’ Day);
● Special events (e.g., Ritual robes, Grand Council fund);
● Campus projects (e.g., planting a tree on campus, buying an object for the pharmacy school);
● Charitable donations (collecting for St. Jude's, helping with a cancer walk-a-thon).
Use the comments and descriptions provided here to improve the way your Chapter goes about raising money and
managing it. Remember the famous advice: work smarter, not harder.
Types:
The two major types of fund-raising activities are sales and games-of-chance. But other sources of income are also
accessible if you know how to tap them.
Sales: Food and merchandise predominate in campus fund-raisers. Selling sandwiches and sweets to
commuter students during the day and to dorm residents in the evening seldom fails. Use standard
marketing tricks to optimize profits: use quality ingredients, sell at a competitive price, be creative in
advertising and service, and fill a need that no one else meets.
For merchandise, fun and professional goods both sell. Flowers (especially for Valentine’s Day and other
holidays) and jewelry (Fraternity or college) sell well; be careful, though, of capital investments. Assure that
catchy tee-shirts slogans are professional in nature. Refrain from using verbiage that will reflect poorly on
the Fraternity's premiere image and status.
Professional goods like textbooks, weight sets, lab coats, and mortar and pestle sets can be good
moneymakers. If the Chapter can arrange to be the sole source for an item, profits will increase
correspondingly.
Games-of-Chance: Raffles offer chances at cash or merchandise prizes. Offer prizes with a high wishquotient (e.g., televisions); 50/50 raffles offer one-half the intake as the prize so a profit is guaranteed. A
Casino Night can create a campus-wide event. Organize it by renting gaming equipment (e.g., roulette
wheel, crap table, dice wheels), collecting prizes donated by area merchants, and selling an allotment of
play money with which to “gamble.” Be certain to check local laws and regulations regarding the
legality of games-of-chance before you start.
Other Sources: Try these ideas for fundraisers:
● Admission: sponsor a meal or movie and charge a fee.
● Drug Fair: organize a multi-table presentation by representatives of the pharmaceutical industry.
Charge a set fee for exhibit space. Provide coffee and snacks to the representatives from the
proceeds.
● Sponsorships: hold a mar-, dance-, or bike-a-thon for charity. If you announce it beforehand, you
may be able to retain a portion of the money for the Chapter.
● Advertising: sell ads for your spring chapter publication. However, don’t run so many ads that it
detracts from the message of the publication itself. Alternatively, sell ads around the perimeter of a
calendar to be printed and distributed around campus.
● Alumni: solicit your alumni Brothers. For best results, ask for money to accomplish a specific
project: buying Ritual robes, retiring a mortgage, travel fund to the next Grand Council. Don’t
forget to be generous yourself once you’re an alumni Brother.
● Grant Money: Corporations and foundations often make money available to service organizations
to enable the accomplishment of good deeds in the community (e.g., the Merck Fund). Some fund
photographic slides, pamphlets, and mileage fees for presentations on specific themes, such as
hypertension, drug abuse, or birth defects. Contact the dean of your school for details.
● Services: hold car washes, inventory pharmacies, hold hypertension screenings in community
pharmacies; provide services for which people will offer money.
Be Fiscally Wise!
Every Phi Delta Chi Chapter has attempted fund-raising projects at one time or another. Some Chapters have been
very successful; others have invested considerable time and money in a project without reaping financial success.
Advance planning is an important consideration when organizing a fundraising project. Proper planning is often the
difference between success and failure. There are six steps in the planning and implementation of a program:
goalsetting, financial considerations, legal considerations, timetables for events, promotion, and followup.
1. Goal Setting: Objectives for the fundraising project should be stated early in the planning process.
Establishing clear and concise objectives gives everyone working on the project specific goals to achieve.
2. Financial Considerations: After the goals are stated and the specific program defined, the expense of the
project should be carefully reviewed. Most methods of raising money incur expenses at the outset. Some
programs have lost money because all potential expenses were not reviewed first.
3.
Legal Considerations: Before beginning a project, check the legal considerations. Contracts with facilities
should be reviewed by the Chapter Advisor. Make sure that the Chapter is not required to have a permit or
license for the planned activity. Consult with the Chapter Advisor to make sure ordinances do not prohibit
activities that you are planning.
4.
Timetable for Events: Deadlines should be established for the work and project to be completed. Without
deadlines, the people participating may put off their share of the work, and someone else will end up doing a
rush job at the last minute. Do not stretch a project out over a long period. This allows Brothers to become
uninterested before the project is completed.
5.
Promotion: No matter how much effort goes into planning a program, if it is not promoted the project will not
be a success. Widely publicize the chapter’s efforts, and encourage others to participate in the final product.
Inform the administration and faculty about the event, and invite them to participate and to announce the
program to their classes.
6.
Follow up: Once the project is complete, the project Chair should file a report for the chapter files. The report
and evaluation serves several purposes. It informs future chapter leaders of the successes and failures of past
years. It allows other Phi Delta Chi Chapters across the United States to benefit from an innovative idea from
your Chapter to be submitted to the National Office if there is a call for submissions. Finally, the evaluation
requires the project Chair to put in writing suggestions for improving the project if it is to be repeated.
The followup report should include the details of organizing the project, the results of the program, and
recommendations for future projects. List problems encountered and suggestions for avoiding the problems if
the project is going to be repeated.
Recognize the students who participated in the program at your next meeting. A short thankyou note will be
appreciated, too. Give praise to other organizations that assisted in the program and to the faculty and
administration for their support.
Additional specific steps you can take to increase your Chapter income and decrease your accounts
receivable include the following:
●
Elect a Worthy Keeper of Finance (WKF) who wants to aggressively improve the financial status of
your Chapter. The WKF doesn’t necessarily have to organize all the fund-raising activities himself. A
moneymaking committee is a good idea to even out the workload.
●
Establish checks and balances. Monitoring financial accounts regularly is essential. Require both WCC
and WKF signatures for all withdrawals.
●
Enforce your Chapter’s dues policies. Its human nature to be compassionate to a Brother in economic
hardship; but it’s also not fair for a Brother to be an undue burden on his other Brothers. Differentiate
between the strugglers and deadbeats. Those willfully not paying the bills are not entitled to the benefits of
Brotherhood.
●
Work with other organizations. Team up with larger events for your fund-raisers: homecoming, Greek
carnival, etc.
●
Keep good records. If you sponsor a hoagie sale, write down how many pounds of meat, tomatoes, and
cheese, how many heads of lettuce, how many dozen rolls, etc. That way, there’s no doubt how much you
need the next time. Buy your ingredients wholesale.
●
Keep a budget of projected and actual expenses. Computer spreadsheets and accounting programs
make this far easier than ever before.
●
Invest bequest or other gifts received. If your Chapter receives a bequest or some other gift, invest it. All
the corpus and the interest and dividends it creates work for the Chapter.
Saving for Rainy Days
Does your Chapter have an emergency fund? Five percent of your operating budget should be set aside each year
into an account not easily accessible. If your annual budget is $1,500, put $75 into a contingency fund at the
beginning of the school year while your good intentions are the strongest. Access to the account should be limited,
perhaps just to a combination of the WCC and the Chapter Advisor.
Taxes
If the Chapter’s gross, income is less than $25,000, it does not have to file a tax return. If the Chapter’s gross
income is over $25,000, it is required to fill out a Form 990 “Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax.” The
Chapter’s gross receipts are defined as the total amount of all monies it received from all sources during its annual
accounting period, without subtracting any costs or expenses. All revenues from registration fees incurred by hosting
social, professional, or regional events by a Chapter needs to be included in their gross receipts, as well as any
rents or housing payment revenues. A Chapter’s gross receipts are considered normally to be $25,000 or less if the
Chapter is:
1. Up to a year old and has received, or donors have pledged to give, $37,500 or less during its first tax year;
2. Between 1 and 3 years old and averaged $30,000 or less in gross receipts during each of its first 2 tax
years; or
3. Three (3) years old or more and averaged $25,000 or less in gross receipts for the immediately preceding 3
tax years (including the year for which the return would be filed).
Most Chapters do not meet the threshold for filing a 990 Form. Chapters not required to file Form 990 or Form 990EZ with the IRS may wish to use it to satisfy state reporting requirements, if any exist. Certain Chapters do have
houses, but the housing corporation is usually separate from the collegiate Chapter books. Some of the housing
corporations may have to file a return. Consult with the local IRS office for further details. If the Chapter’s gross
receipts during the year are less than $100,000 and its total assets at the end of the year are less than $250,000, it
may file Form 990-EZ instead of Form 990.
Bank Account
As a nonprofit organization, Chapters are eligible to have a tax exempt account. In order to set this up you will be
required to provide a federal tax ID number on the banking account form. A Chapter should set up one checking
account to handle day to day operations. A minimum balance $500 to $1000 dollars is recommended at the end of
a budget cycle. This allows the Chapter to have an operating cash flow prior to collecting dues in the fall.
It is also wise to have a savings account to deposit excess money in at the end of the year. Additional accounts
should be set up for designated funds such as scholarships, travel, house funds, philanthropy, etc. This keeps
things separated so that funds are not intermingled and accidentally spent on non-budgeted items. For chapters
that have a large excess amount of cash, they may consider placing it in either a money market account or a
certificate of deposit. These will make far more interest than a typical checking or savings account. However, keep
in mind that a certificate of deposit will tie up the money until it matures.
If you have any questions regarding budgeting, setting up accounts, or generalized financial questions, please
contact the National Office or your Regional Officers.
Merchandise Orders
Since prices for merchandise are subject to change, the Merchandise Order Form is only available at
www.phideltachi.org. The Fraternity has numerous materials available for Chapters to use to aid in its operation
including materials for Rush and social functions, Initiation and Ritual materials, gifts, graduation cords, Phi Delta Chi
– A Tradition of Leaders in Pharmacy history book, membership certificate replacements, and specialty recognition
certificates. Items on stock at National Office will ship within two weeks of receipt. Rush orders will ship via
overnight within two days of receipt. These time frames should be taken into consideration when placing your order.
Payment must accompany all merchandise orders or the Chapter will be billed for the order. For items not on stock
at National Office, once the order is received by the National Office, the Executive Director will process the order and
send the order out to the supplier within five business days.
If there will be a delay, the National Office will contact the Chapter immediately and inform it of the situation (e.g.,
member aprons out of stock). The Chapter may decide to split the order and receive items available with the ordered
items to follow at no additional charge to the Fraternity.
If the Chapter has an outstanding debt to the Fraternity and has not made reasonable attempts to meet its obligation
or has not made arrangement with the Executive Director to establish a debt repayment plan, the National Office
reserves the right to refuse to process the merchandise order, regardless of whether payment accompanies the
order.
Chapter Debt to National Office
In order for the Fraternity to run efficiently and effectively, it is imperative that Chapters remain current with their
national operating dues (NODs). NODs are assessed each September and are due to the National Office by
November 30 each year. Brothers are responsible for collecting dues from Brothers who are off campus on rotation.
Chapters who have Brothers who are on academic probation and not academically available for membership and
participation in an organization can claim the Brother “suspended” until such time that academic probation has been
lifted. The Chapter must inform the National Office of the Brother’s situation, the reason for the suspended status
and the date upon which the suspension is expected to be lifted. The Chapter will not be responsible for NODs for
this individual during the time of suspension.