Welcome to the newsletter for homeschool group leaders
Homeschool Leader
October 2008In this issue:
- Creating a Budget for Your Homeschool Group
- Blog Entries on
- IRS Notices
- Homeschool conferences
- Tips for co-op newbies
- News: Promote or review my book and receive a free copy!
Creating a Budget for Your Homeschool Group
By Carol Topp, CPA
Start early
Ideally, your organization should prepare a budget before your program year starts. Some people think that budgets are only for tracking spending, but you must plan for income also. List all the sources of revenue you can think of (dues, class fees, fund-raisers, etc). Don’t be too optimistic. Conservative estimates will serve you best.
Predict expenses
Next try to predict expenses such as postage, copying, building use fees, supplies. Think of everything you might spend money on. On the expense side it is better to include too much rather than too little.
Compare and adjust
Compare revenue to expenses and adjust until you have a balanced budget or even a small surplus as protection for the unexpected. If you cannot balance your budget, you have two choices: cut expenses or increase income. Recalculate your income with more membership dues. Try increasing dues until the budget balances.
To read more about budgets for homeschool groups and to see a sample budget, visit my website
www.HomeschoolCPA.com and go to the Articles page. Or go directly to the article Preparing a Budget
I am asked a lot of questions from homeschool leaders across the country, so I use my blog to answer them. Each entry is a question from a homeschool leader like you and covers topics such as nonprofit organizations, leadership and finances. Some recent entries include:
Starting a homeschool conference
Homeschool group avoids IRS tax notices
Tips for newbies to homeschool co-ops
NEWS!
Promote or review my book and receive a free copy!
Promote or review my book and receive a free copy!
(click on the book to learn more and read a sample chapter)
I have been collecting reviews for my book Homeschool Co-ops: How to Start Them, Run Them and Not Burn Out. Here’s a favorite:
Carol Topp is wonderful, buy her book, it's worth 4 times the price, subscribe to her blog, download her free ebooks.
-Janet Hellerman, CHAMPS Homeschool Co-op leader
Do you host a forum, yahoo site, etc? I was a “guest speaker” on a large Yahoo group for Indiana homeschoolers where we discussed a number of topics related to homeschool groups such as conflict, burn out, leadership skills, etc. Two lucky Indiana homeschoolers received free copies of my book. If you manage a homeschool forum or Yahoo group, and would like to host me as a guest, I would be happy to offer a free copy of my book as a give-away gift. Please e-mail me at Carol @HomeschoolCo-ops.com.
Coming Up Next Issue November 2008
Article: Writing a Statement of Faith
Blog Entries: Q&A from homeschool leaders
News: Homeschool Leaders Conference in Texas
This is a monthly newsletter for homeschool group leaders. Thanks for reading! Please feel free to pass this along to other homeschool leaders.