Throughout the year, the OTW Finance team has continued its work of ensuring that the organization’s bills are paid, tax returns filed, and standard accounting procedures met. The team also revamped the accounting structure to better reflect the OTW’s financial activity. Preparation for the audit of 2021 financial statements continues!
The team has also been diligently working on the 2022 budget update and are happy to present it here (access the 2022 budget spreadsheet for more detailed information):
2022 Expenses
Archive of Our Own (AO3)
- US$290,688.25 spent so far out of US$376,186.44 total this year, as of July 31, 2022.
- 66.7% of the OTW’s expenses go towards maintaining the AO3. This includes the bulk of our server expenses—both new purchases and ongoing colocation and maintenance—website performance monitoring tools, and various systems-related licenses, as well as costs highlighted below (access all program expenses).
- This year’s updated estimated AO3 expenses include a planned US$42,000 for a modest expansion of server capacity to continue to handle site traffic growth efficiently, as well as to replace existing equipment.
Open Doors
- US$1,234.42 spent so far out of US$3,459.98 total this year, as of July 31, 2022.
- Open Doors’ expenses include hosting, backup, and domain costs for imported fanwork archives, shipping costs associated with preserving fanworks, and ticketing software (access all program expenses).
Transformative Works and Cultures
- US$275.00 spent so far out of US$2,349.00 total this year, as of July 31, 2022.
- Transformative Works and Cultures‘ expenses are the journal’s website hosting, publishing, and storage fees (access all program expenses).
Fanlore
- US$14,564.40 spent so far out of US$19,276.90 total this year, as of July 31, 2022.
- Fanlore’s expenses are a citation tool for the wiki, as well as its share of allocated server hardware, maintenance and colocation costs (access all program expenses).
Legal Advocacy
- US$0.00 spent so far out of US$4,000.00 total this year, as of July 31, 2022.
- Legal’s expenses consist of filing fees and other costs associated with conferences and hearings (access all program expenses).
Con Outreach
- US$0.00 spent so far out of US$780.00 total this year, as of July 31, 2022.
- Budgeted expenses include WorldCon memberships for volunteers to attend and represent the OTW at ChiCon (access all program expenses).
Grant for F. Coppa book on the History of Fanvidding
- US$660.00 spent so far out of US$660.00 total this year, as of July 31, 2022.
- The money for this grant comes from a donation made to the OTW in 2020 for the specific purpose of covering costs related to the production of Francesca Coppa’s book on the history of fanvidding. The University of Michigan has published the book and it is freely accessible online now. Since the full amount of the grant has been spent and its purpose has been accomplished, the grant is now closed.
- Remaining expenses were spent on the final proofreading and creating a table of contents for the book (access all program expenses).
Fundraising and Development
- US$48,796.15 spent so far out of US$80,962.15 total this year, as of July 31, 2022.
- Our fundraising and development expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation, thank-you gift purchases and shipping, and the tools used to host the OTW’s membership database and track communications with donors and potential donors (access fundraising expenses).
Administration
- US$27,985.04 spent so far out of US$76,147.32 total this year, as of July 31, 2022.
- The OTW’s administrative expenses include hosting for our website, trademarks, domains, insurance, tax filing, and annual financial statement audits, as well as communication, management, encrypted document storage, and accounting tools (access all admin expenses).
2022 Revenue
- The OTW is entirely supported by your donations—thank you for your generosity!
- We receive a significant portion of our donations each year in the April and October fundraising drives, which together should account for about 55% of our income in 2022. We also receive donations via employer matching programs, royalties, Amazon Smile, and PayPal Giving Fund, which administers donations from programs like Humble Bundle and eBay for Charity. If you’d like to support us while making purchases on those websites, please select the Organization for Transformative Works as your charity of choice!
- US$512,358.90 received so far (as of July 31, 2022) and US$600,118.51 is projected to be received by the end of the year.
Got questions?
If you have any questions about the budget or the OTW’s finances, please contact the Finance committee. We will also be hosting an open chat to answer any questions you may have. This chat will take place in our public chatroom on October 15 at 8pm UTC (what time is that in my timezone?).
To download the OTW’s 2022 budget in spreadsheet format, please follow this link.