GPC Donations Procedure
and Guidelines
Introduction
Every year,
the Grizzly Peak Cyclists
makes donations out of proceeds raised from our Century to
bicycle-related non-profit organizations and causes.
This is consistent with the club's formal objectives as stated in the
GPC Bylaws
(Article III):
"to provide cyclists with a variety of challenging bicycle-riding experiences
and to promote safe bicycle riding and touring".
A detailed list of our donations over the past several years appears on the
main donations page.
Procedure
The process usually occurs in the fall.
It consists of three steps:
-
A proposal for the year's donation allocations is prepared by the
Donation Committee.
That committee consists simply of all members who attend the donation meeting.
The donation meeting is announced in advance in the club newsletter,
the Wheel Truth.
-
At the next regular club meeting, the donation proposal from
the committee is voted up or down as a package.
However no fine tuning is done,
unless members at the meeting explicitly agree to do so by majority vote.
(This happened once because the proposal did not comply with
traditional donation guidelines.)
If the proposal is rejected, then it's back to step 1:
a new Donation Committee meeting is held to prepare a new proposal.
-
After the proposal is accepted at a regular club meeting,
it is published in the
Wheel Truth.
It must be confirmed by a second vote at a second club meeting
before becoming final.
(The
bylaws,
Article V Section 4(b)(vi),
require publication
in the newsletter prior to any vote on such a matter.)
Guidelines
The donations proposal must meet these guidelines:
-
Donations must be related to bicycling in some way.
-
Donations must be to organizations, not to individuals.
-
In particular, no donations to, or on behalf of, individuals doing rides,
regardless of the cause being ridden for.
-
Donations must have some local Bay Area benefit.
Donations to statewide and nationwide organizations that meet
the other criteria are ok,
provided there is a trickle-down local effect.
Donations to local bike advocacy in another region or state are not ok.
-
Non GPC members may make presentations to the Donation Committee
and answer questions.
However, the discussion and final decision is limited to GPC members.
Non-members must excuse themselves from the meeting after
the presentations conclude.
The rationale behind the guidelines is straightforward:
The funds are raised by
Bay Area bicyclists from Bay Area bicyclists,
so the benefit should go to Bay Area bicyclists as a whole.
Background
Over the years, the club adopted (perhaps informally) a number of
policies regarding donations.
But apparently they were never written up . . .
at least, not where they could be easily found.
I took on this task in 2003.
A verbal outline of these procedure and guidelines
was presented at the club meeting of 16 July 2003,
and consensus was to proceed with a written version.
A written draft was circulated for comment at the meeting of 20 August 2003,
and a revised draft was published in the Wheel Truth,
September 2003, page 1.
The procedures and guidelines shown above were formally approved
at the club meeting of 17 September 2003.
This page is maintained by Mark Abrahams,
<webminion at Grizz dot org>.
Comments welcome.
Last updated 2005/08/28.