FP: Financial Plan 2024-25

The financial plan follows the proposed activity plan. The plan with income and
expense has similar pattern to the previous year with minor changes. Important
difference is that from now on, we will publish not only for the year in which
the General Assembly votes for the plan but for the year afterwards. In this
case, here is Financial Plan for 2024 and 2025. Besides, we have applied for new
grant, which, if successful, would bring new activities, staff, and
significantly boost the budget.

The budgets run from:

Expenditure:

Category 1: Personnel Costs

Backbone of our organisation is our staff who manage day-to-day operations. This
budget line covers salaries, trainings, and meetings. The salaries are budgeted
for three full-time (35 h/w) employees: Secretary General, Office & Finance
Manager, and Project Coordinator. Compared to 2023, salaries have been
significantly raised (20-30%) to ensure good working conditions and currently it
is line with the wages in non-profit sector of Serbia. This increase was allowed
by employing one less person as we decided not to continue the position or
“Project Assistant.” Nevertheless, this decision did not negatively affect the
capacities or workload to the remaining staff. In the proposed budget, total
personnel cost is less compared to the previous year. However, due to the
increased amount of work and in-person activities, in case of confirmation of
new grant from Swedish Institute (SI), CDN will have a chance to hire two more
people for the tentative positions of: Projects Officer and Logistics & Events
Officer. Since the project is not approved, it is not yet reflected in the
budget but is separate budget line both for revenue & expense.

Category 2: Infrastructure and Operating costs

This category covers office, infrastructure, and operational costs related to
physical and digital maintenance, ensuring smooth operations, and supporting
organisational functionality. It includes expenses such as office rent,
utilities, office equipment, different software and website maintenance, all
vital for sustaining smooth and effective daily operations. Total costs of this
category are similar to that of 2023.

Category 3: Administrative expenditure

As can be guessed from the name, this budgetary category covers costs related to
administrative functioning that includes legal fees, extraordinary admin costs,
audit, and bank charges. Compared to previous year, it is reduced due to less
legal fees related to work & residence permit for staff as well as Statutes
update related notary costs.

Category 4: Statutory Meetings

General Assembly and Executive Committee Meetings that ensure governance of the
Network are covered by this budgetary category. Due to this increased number of
participants and overall expensiveness of Vilnius, General Assembly will cost
more than previous year as well despite it being 2 days less. While committee
costs are reduced to accommodate other expenses and is based on the figures of
the previous year. In case of approval of Swedish Institute grant and
allocations in the budget, it will be possible to increase this cost. Besides
these to activities, this category covers participation of CDN representatives
to the events of partner organisations and study visits to (potential) member
organisations.

Category 5: Capacity Building and Regional Activities

This category represents the largest share in the annual costs of the network
amounting to more than half of the entire budget. The category includes all
activities and projects: Work Plans, (Cross)Regional Meetings, Study Sessions,
etc. As per new Strategy, we have new project (to be confirmed) which will be a
16-months training programme which in total will be amounting to 1.5 million SEK
(approx. 129 000 EUR) out of which 58,000 EUR will be allocated for 2024 while
remaining 71,000 for 2025. Besides, other items are similar to the previous year
with some differences. For instance, total cost for EYF Work Plan (WP) is
reduced here while in revenue is higher this is due to the fact that starting
from this year, EYF allows staff and administrative costs to be accounted on the
Work Plan therefore parts of the costs we distributed across Category 1-3. When
it comes to the Regional Meeting, as mentioned in the activity plan, it will be
incorporated into Summer Camp, however it will remain a separate budget line but
will account as co-funding of the WP. Study Session is remaining in the category
despite costs being account as 0 as the activity is not directly financed by us
but European Youth Centre however, we have costs (Prep Team Meeting, ad hoc
expenses) that are later reimbursed by the Council of Europe thus in the end the
expense is 0. Similar is with the Green European Foundation’s (GEF)
collaboration project “Green Perspectives of European Security” through which we
will organise Conference that will be mostly paid directly by GEF but since we
could have expenses, it should be in the budget.

Revenue:

Category 1: Administrative Income

This category covers core funding of CDN and compared to the previous year,
there are no significant changes in the administrative income. With Green Forum
we have 3 year long project with same income per year however due to currency
fluctuations (SEK to EUR) it is different, this year we budgeted for the average
of 2023 which amounts to 38,500 while in SEK sum remains the same - 442,000.
European Youth Foundation awarded us Structural grant for 2024 and 2025 which in
total amounts to 52,607.16 EUR thus per year 26,303.58. Our sister-organisation
Young European Greens will continue financially supporting our work. In
addition, to ensure balance in the budget and well organised General Assembly,
we added participation fee for 2^nd delegates and guests in total amounting to
1,600 EUR. While donations are currently set at 0, there is a possibility of
increasing them.

Category 2: Projects

Most of the activities that we organise are covered through this income and
includes annual and/or short-term projects. It is largely similar to 2023 with
few changes, increases and decreases. EYF has increased our funding from 50,000
to 60,000 and simultaneously allowed to account administrative & staff costs
that has allowed to better distribute the income and have more flexible co-
funding for the Summer Camp for which we have engaged with Heinrich Boell
Foundation (Pending) as well as put participation fee. As explained above, Green
European Foundation will not be directly financing CDN but instead pay for the
activities that we collaborate such as Conference. We will continue partnership
with International Foundation GroenLinks which this year, with reduced budget
due to electoral changes in the Netherlands, will finance General Assembly with
Panel Discussion. We have applied for a new grant to Swedish Institute “Creative
Partnerships Programme” in collaboration with Green Forum which will fund 16-
months training programme focusing on key pillars of sustainable and effective
organisation. The results will be published by the end of the May therefore we
only included this as a separate line both for Expense and Income. In case of
approval, there will not be separate budget line for SI but will be added to
Green Forum while Expenses will have its line in Category 5 while parts will be
allocated to Categories 1-3 to cover staff and other administrative costs.

Annex.1: Financial Plan 2024-25