OTW Finance: 2023 Budget Update

Throughout the year, the OTW Finance team has continued its work of ensuring that the organization's bills are paid, tax returns filed, and standard accounting procedures met. The team also revamped the accounting structure to better reflect the OTW's financial activity. Preparation for the audit of 2022 financial statements continues!

The team has also been diligently working on the 2023 budget update and are happy to present it here: (access the 2023 budget spreadsheet for more detailed information):

2023 Expenses

Archive of Our Own (AO3)

• US$237,279.97 spent so far out of US$336,514.21 total this year, as of September 30, 2023.
• 47.7% of the OTW's expenses go towards maintaining the AO3. This includes the bulk of our server expenses—both new purchases and ongoing colocation and maintenance—website performance monitoring tools, and various systems-related licenses, as well as costs highlighted below (access all program expenses).
• This year's projected AO3 expenses also include US$64,000 to purchase new servers to increase the capacity of existing servers to handle expected site traffic growth through the year.

Open Doors

• US$4,081.74 spent so far out of US$4,379.42 total this year, as of September 30, 2023.
• Open Doors' expenses consist of hosting, backup, and domain costs for imported fanwork archives, as well as an allocated share of newly adopted OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Transformative Works and Cultures

• US$4,151.48 spent so far out of US$4,279.48 total this year, as of September 30, 2023.
• Transformative Works and Cultures' expenses are the journal's website hosting, publishing, and storage fees, as well as an allocated share of newly adopted OTW-wide productivity tool (access all program expenses).

Fanlore

• US$12,575.29 spent so far out of US$17,903.54 total this year, as of September 30, 2023.
• Fanlore's expenses are its share of allocated server hardware, maintenance and colocation costs, as well as its portion of newly adopted OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Legal Advocacy

• US$491.06 spent so far out of US$5,491.06 total this year, as of September 30, 2023.
• Legal's expenses consist of registration fees for conferences and hearings and funds set aside for legal filings if necessary, as well as an allocated share of newly adopted OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Con Outreach

• US$1,564.95 spent so far out of US$3,684.95 total this year, as of September 30, 2023.
• Budgeted expenses include convention outreach activities on behalf of the OTW, which include convention registration fees, tabling fees, and related presentation materials (access all program expenses).

Fundraising and Development

• US$68,285.08 spent so far out of US$121,509.38 total this year, as of September 30, 2023.
• Our fundraising and development expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation, thank-you gift purchases and shipping, and the tools used to host the OTW's membership database and track communications with donors and potential donors, as well as an allocated share of newly adopted OTW-wide productivity tools (access fundraising expenses).

Administration

• US$69,179.75 spent so far out of US$212,988.32 total this year, as of September 30, 2023.
• The OTW’s administrative expenses include hosting for our website, trademarks, domains, insurance, tax filing, and annual financial statement audits, as well as productivity, management, and accounting tools (access all admin expenses).

2023 Revenue

• The OTW is entirely supported by your donations—thank you for your generosity!
• We receive a significant portion of our donations each year in the April and October fundraising drives, which together will account for about 47% of our income in 2023. We also receive donations via employer matching programs, royalties, and PayPal Giving Fund, which administers donations from programs like Humble Bundle and eBay for Charity. If you'd like to support us while making purchases on those websites, please select the Organization for Transformative Works as your charity of choice!
• Thanks to your generosity in previous years, we have a healthy amount of money in our reserves, which we can use to pay for larger than usual purchases and keep on hand for legal contingencies. As mentioned previously, we plan to continue to upgrade the capacity of the Archive's servers, which significantly increases server equipment and server hosting expenses. As the Archive and other projects of the OTW grow, we also spend more on tools and technology to support our volunteers, such as the tools used by Support and Policy & Abuse to communicate with and aid users, further increasing expenses.
• US$621,454.87 received so far (as of September 30, 2023) and US$693,989.51 projected to be received by the end of the year.

Got questions?

If you have any questions about the budget or the OTW's finances, please contact the Finance committee. We'll get back to you as soon as possible!

To download the OTW's 2023 budget in spreadsheet format, please follow this link.