New policy will outline ways to fundraise

The city of West Linn is looking to formalize the way neighborhoods can raise money.

The city council discussed creating a policy that outlines how neighborhood associations (NA) can fundraise during its Aug. 6 work session.

Currently, the city allocates $10,000 every year to split between 11 neighborhood associations, which is determined by the neighborhood association presidents group. The funds are typically divided with the larger neighborhoods receiving more than smaller neighborhoods. The funds are then put on debit cards and entrusted to each neighborhood association president at the beginning of the fiscal year.

“This distribution system has significantly decreased the administrative overhead of providing reimbursements for NA expenses, and has allowed NA officers to use the debit card instead of their personal funds for NA expenses,” wrote Assistant City Manager Kirsten Wyatt in an Aug. 3 memo.

Those funds can be spent on neighborhood events or projects or can be saved for larger improvements.

Since the NAs are city-created entities, they are not considered independent organizations or nonprofits. Though fundraising does not come up a lot, some NAs are more active than others. One such neighborhood is the Willamette neighborhood, which raises funds each year to offset the costs of its annual Living History Tour.

The benefits of allowing NAs to fundraise on their own include raising money for special programs, decreasing the need for city funding and the ability to target specific needs in each neighborhood.

However, there are also challenges in letting NAs raise funds, including ensuring property financial management, controlling how funds are raised and the potential of creating competition with citywide measures.

Jef Treece, chair of the neighborhood association presidents group, said the goal of creating a policy is to have a standard of consistency between all the neighborhoods.

“We are trying to improve the value and the efficiency of what NAs are doing,” he said at the work session. “Fundraising is important to a couple of NAs. We would like to have some clarity on when it’s OK to do that.”

Wyatt offered three options for the council to weigh at the work session.

One option is the city could create a policy that allows NAs to fundraise with the money being deposited into the city-owned accounts but still accessible to the NAs.

The second option would be to create a policy where neighborhoods, not NAs, could raise funds and the residents would be responsible for all aspects of the money and funds would be kept separate from the NA accounts.

The final option is to revise the existing NA stipend to ban independent fundraising by the NAs.

The councilors agreed that fundraising by NAs is not only acceptable but also encouraged.

“I think having the ability to fundraise is critical,” said Councilor Jody Carson. “Option one would be the route to go. There needs to be oversight.”

“The issue of internal control is very important,” added Councilor Teri Cummings.

Though there will be some challenges of enforcing fiscal responsibility on each neighborhood, the council felt creating a policy will help keep tabs on the accounts.

“We recognized there’s a risk to fundraising,” Treece said.

“I feel confident we can craft a policy that will work,” Wyatt said. “We’re going to take into account all the potentials.”

She said the presidents group will play a major role in writing the policy. “A part of this is empowering the neighborhood,” Wyatt said.

Once a policy is crafted, it will return to the city council for approval.