Many CIO leaders have asked me about the Appropriations formula, and how they get the number they get, in terms of allocation amount. Well here it is, the Appropriations formula debunked. To understand it better, let’s compare last year system’s to this year’s system.
2010-2011::———————————————————————–2011-2012:
1. Basic Formula: [A]-([B]+[C]) 1. Basic Formula: [A]
2. Cutoff-based percentage system 2. Cutoff-based percentage system
3. 20%/40% fundraising incentive 3. 5%/10% fundraising incentive
1. So first of all, what does A, B and C mean? A is the requested amount of SAF Funds your organization reports, B is your organizations reported spending outside of SAF Funds, and C is self-generated revenue (e.g. Fundraising). Last year’s basic formula, would subtract from the amount you requested [A], your [B] and [C] values, penalizing you for spending your CIO’s own money. The mentality behind this is simple, if you have the money to spend a certain amount of money and self-generate, the Appropriations allocation can afford to be less. This year, the basic formula is simply [A], where the Appropriations team does not penalize any CIO for spending their own money, or fundraising. We give you an allocation based on what your CIO has requested, and what is fundable in the SAF Guidelines.
2. What does cutoff-based percentage system mean? Well, think income taxes. For the first $100, generally, the CIO is funded 100%, and then from $100 to $X, we will fund Y%, and so on and so forth. The cutoff values change, based on an expected overall expense for every Rolling Round and Semi-Annual. For each Round/Semi-Annual, the Appropriations Chairs and I have a certain amount we want to spend. Based on this amount, your allocation might vary from Rolling Round to Rolling Round.
3. What about the percentage allocation? The fundraising allocation value was determined by this simple formula- if the [C] value =(0.2 ([A]+[B]) )value, then there is a 20% allocation, and if the [C] value =(0.4([A]+[B]), then there is a 40% allocation. We have changed that to 5% and 10%. Now, this might sound like less, but without being subtracted your initial [B] and [C] values, the numbers of allocations are much higher. (Just ask those who applied for Semi-Annual (last year’s formula) versus those who did the Rolling Rounds this year!). But we still wanted to incentivize fundraising. With the new formula, putting a 20% and 40% fundraising incentive would catapult the allocation amounts to over 100%. The 5% and 10% may not make a huge difference in the $100 budgets, but in the $12,000 budgets, we’re looking at an extra $120. Keep the fundraising coming, guys.
Hope this helps you understand the Appropriations formula, past and present. Any Appropriations questions can be directed towards cio-appropriations@virginia.edu, or you can always email me at aneesharao@virginia.edu.
Sincerely,
Aneesha Rao
