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Any surplus money from the conference, after all the host expenses have been dealt with, should be transferred to Samvera's central funds. Samvera does not require complex paperwork to justify the figure, a fairly simple 'income and expenses' summary will be adequate. When Samvera receives confirmation of the figure it will issue an invoice to initiate payment. The conference fee has risen steadily over the years that Connect has taken place, due to the increasing 'sophistication' of the conference and its delegates. The registration fee represents only a part of a delegate's total expenses and, to that extent, this rise has not been a concern. The 2017 fee was close to $300 and since then we have tried to stay below that figure. The 2018 Connect conference implemented a discounted early bird registration option, which was $25 less than the general registration fee and 2019 followed a similar pattern. The majority of registrations for Connect 2018 and 2019 were early bird. Under Samvera's new Governance structure (2017), the organization has a need of central funds in support of its activities and generating a healthy surplus should not be seen as an embarrassment.
The organizing committee will need to come to an early agreement with the institution about how money will be handled. Will the hosts handle booking (either directly or through an organization such as EventBrite) or will a third party deal with it? Booking is dealt with more fully on the page 'Organizing and dealing with booking'.
Funding models
There are many ways in which the costs of a Samvera Connect meeting might be covered.
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In 2019, Samvera experimented with the idea of sponsorship for the Connect conference. In retrospect this was seen as somewhat unsuccessful (the sponsors did not benefit much by it) and the Steering Group resolved not to repeat the experiment in 2020. The rest of this paragraph is left in case the experiment should be repeated at a later date. However, given Samvera's needs for central funds, referenced in the previous section, it will probably be wise for hosts to assume no income from sponsorship and 'balance the books' with just the registration fee. Any sponsorship money that is raised will then be used to fund the sponsorship benefits offered and the surplus will be passed to Samvera as part of the conference surplus. The sponsorship levels are set such that they are adequate to cover the benefits included: 'free' registrations, exhibition tables, 'enhanced' refreshment breaks, an 'enhanced' poster reception, conference 'give-aways' etc. There should be no drain on local financial resources. Ideally sponsors will pay sponsorship money direct to the hosting organization rather than to Samvera centrally.
Free places
The number of free conference places (from zero upwards!) offered to the host institution will depend on the level of subsidy offered to the meeting overall. This will be a matter for negotiation and should not be pre-judged.
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