Is uh below us.

I would entertain uh change to move three F to whenever the guest uh comes so that we can save for some time some days.

That's okay with the group because the order of business uh approved.

Is there a motion to approve the order of agenda?

I think it's you know, minutes in the video of our previous meeting, June 8th, they were sent previously.

Is there to approve?

Seven seven all affairs AI.

We are letting our guests uh settle in just a little bit.

If we go right to you right now, uh, would you like to do that?

Or would you like us to take a one item before you?

Um, that's your choice.

Well, then we will we will uh go right to 3F reviewing the financial statements and operating a reliance relations of our neighbors, Mr.

Anderson.

Yeah, let me scroll down here to uh I noticed uh three F they did have a bit of an uptick, so that was good news.

Um with us today, we do have Renee.

She can provide us with a little bit more detail and uh further commentary on that as well.

Thank you for allowing me to come and give you uh forgive me for running in at the last minute, but every street I tried to take was closed.

My wife said the same thing about a week ago.

Um, and this is our treasurer Craig Nichols.

Hello, um, he's done a really great job navigating us through this year.

Um, I put together these facts just because um I can speak to it in a general way, but it's nice sometimes to have the specifics of the quarterly payments have really kind of caused us difficulty because the summer months are really busy, and then the months that aren't the funding just we we ended up having pay gaps.

So I didn't get paid on time.

One, two, three, four different times, as well as my coworker.

Um retirement contributions were put on hold and all those things.

So the board chose to pivot, and instead of doing our big community event chop the black, we decided to do more of a neighborhood-based uh we made kits and we distributed them during national night out, and they're still available.

Um, and that saved seven grand, which I know doesn't really make sense, but it's giving us more money to put into neighborhood project grants, and also gave us a little buffer right now to get through until we have a little cushion that will get us through all of those quarterly gaps.

Did I explain that okay?

You want to add anything?

No, just now we had charged Renee with growing the organization a little bit because we were getting a lot of positive response in the communities, especially in the events that we've been holding.

And she did exactly that, but you know, our funds stayed stagnant for quite some time.

So we we that's why we asked for a little bit of an increase last time and we're back this time because we are running very lean, as Renee said, and it is you know, we we as a board felt horrible that we were delinquent on paying our staff four times out of the year.

So we're trying to remedy that, and that's why we're here today.

So by December, we should have about a five grand cushion, um, which will get us through two paycheck cycles.

Um, a lot of times our quarterly funding doesn't come right away because of the invoicing system takes a while.

So even us, you know, like we won't get our quarter one funding until the end of January.

And we don't have a service, you know, that we make money on.

So really the majority of our funding comes from the city.

Anyone have any questions?

Yeah, so I was looking at the uh figures for 2025 and 26 under resume collected, and you didn't get the five thousand dollar chocolate block donation, but you got almost 11,000 in contributions.

Uh, what was the improvement there?

How did those uh thanks for asking?

Um, we received a grant from the Rochester Area Foundation, and we're going to be doing an initiative this fall working with the core downtown neighborhoods that are going through right now some development stresses and just the rapid growth and rapid density that's going up around them.

under resume collected and you didn't get the five thousand dollar chocolate block donation but you got almost eleven thousand dollars in contributions uh what was the improvement there how did those uh thanks for asking um we received a grant from the Rochester Area Foundation and we're going to be doing an initiative this fall working with the core downtown neighborhoods um that are going through right now some development stresses and just the rapid growth and rapid density that's going up around them um the their volunteer burnout rate is really high and in the survey that we offered in the spring the feedback was we really like help with creating strategic plan help with um navigating this growth so that 10,000 dollar grant will go towards that initiative and then we got a thousand dollars from waste management um which allowed us to print posters and stickers promoting our fallen spring plantings I think it's important to note that of that 10 000 I don't recall the exact amount but the majority of that went to the function of the grant so very little of it if anyone into operating expenses I was one time I think usually it's a two year you have to wait two years and are there other local grant organizations you up to including Mayor Clinic that are providing operational support as well as from operational support is tough yeah it's tough to find yeah um it's simpler to find if you have a really great initiative and you want to kick off something brand new and shiny um it's harder sell to ask for operating and we also this doesn't have anything to do with our finances so I didn't include it here um but I wrote a grant and partnered with the city forestry team that was over a hundred grand and we're in year two of that it's a three year grant um and it allowed for the city to get a staff person that's just running that program.

Yeah so that did come through us not financially this is my fourth year on this committee and uh through really most of those four years we saw declined fund balances and uh uh it appeared to me not to be a sustainable uh way to continue into the future until as Mr.

Anderson noted there's an uptick uh this time uh do you believe that we are on a sustainable financial model for our neighbors I can't tell the future I I'm not sure last year was tough because we had a federal grant pulled that affected our finances um so I would love to say that if we were awarded the 120 like is mapped out that we would be in a good place um we have a staff person in 0.25 during the school year and that's greatly helpful but it's still with all of the growth that we're and I'm doing lots of bring lots of hats.

From an organizational perspective Renee is the glue that brings a lot of this so we recognize that and so for us to continue that sustainability we are she's doing succession planning now that we didn't have in place just for that so in case something does happen or Renee decides to retire that we can hopefully skip a beat and not see any decline in community involvement because we recognize her importance that a lot you know all of this wouldn't be possible without her connections in the neighborhoods and with the city she's the sort of the conduit that that connects the two raised joy in our neighbors um the power of people um just going around national night out and seeing the uniqueness that each neighborhood has it's really not a one size fits all type of a job and you can't look at a neighborhood with with that lens you have to really take into account their history the people who live there um even the way the neighborhoods built makes a difference and uh seeing the uniqueness of people and the things they can do when they work together is pretty special the the trajectory that's recommended the city of registrar's perspective the question would be um I guess or from your perspective the pros and cons of the way we do neighborhood support uh externally you asked me this before COVID I would have said I would very much like to be part of the city or just silly things like copy or like my printer ran out of ink and I didn't have access to any

The question would be um, I guess, or from your perspective, the pros and cons of the way we do neighborhood support uh externally.

If you asked me this before COVID, I would have said I would very much like to be part of the city, or just silly things like copy or like my printer ran out of ink and I didn't have access to any other uh printers.

Um that internal support would be really great because you know, I had to take my laptop into the shop last week and I didn't have it for four days and um but after COVID, we were able to pivot and be flexible and do things as we got feedback from neighborhoods, and I think the city you have the structure that's a little harder to change direction.

Um so I think that's a benefit of us staying an outside agency and looking back at the old paperwork that old timers like Badman Wiki when they put together our neighbors, they didn't want it to ever be politicized.

And a lot of when I go to national conferences, a lot of my cohort works out of a mayor's office.

And as we've seen lately, that can get very political now, even though it's not a political position.

Um, and then what would happen if a mayor came in that didn't value community outreach and then it would go away, you know.

So I think I heard you say operationally and the challenge is the time of the of the disbursements for funding the organization.

So I don't know what we can do as a committee to remedy that, but I thank you for bringing that forward to our attention.

Well, I guess if I may, um Chair Mr.

Anderson, uh could you define the policy and any flexibility or how that process would go forward to adjust, obviously we have a approval disbursement.

We didn't necessarily as a group outside agency make that policy risk.

Is that a misunderstanding?

Yeah, so the way it operates and I think it happened uh shortly before I got here, and it's probably one of the better systems I've seen, I guess, is to take a look at your financials and then go ahead and make that disbursement, obviously, to make sure that things are gonna be rolling forward.