When launching or reorganizing a booster club, it is important that each member of the management team has clearly defined roles. Failing to give booster club leaders job descriptions, roles and responsibilities, and balanced limits and autonomy can result in confusion, accidental overlap, or tasks left undone.To avoid the chaos, we’d suggest reading this description of the booster club treasurer’s leadership role. Because when the mana gement team is working in harmony, your booster club can really flourish!
The Qualities of the Booster Club Treasurer
The treasurer ought to be a responsible leader with a strong grasp on finances. Perhaps those things sound obvious, yet it’s important to know in order to pick the most qualified person for the job.
- The treasurer will be in charge of the booster club’s budget, meaning he or she must be responsible and organized.
- Likewise, he or she will likely be directly leading a team of several volunteers, meaning the treasurer must have leadership capabilities (strong communication, initiative, delegation, etc).
- Finally, the treasurer does not need to be an economist, yet he or she should have some familiarity with
When electing a new treasurer, voters must keep these qualities in mind, instead of just voting for their friends. And while that’s true of every booster club management position, it’s especially true of the person managing money because their actions have very serious (even sometimes legal) consequences.
The Booster Club Treasurer Should Create a Budget
Having budgeting experience is a major advantage for a booster club treasurer, though it’s not necessary. Any responsible leader who is willing to learn could do the job! The primary role of the booster club treasurer is accounting.
Accounting means creating a budget and making sure the booster club sticks with it. There are many different softwares that can help with this. In this blog, we recommend a few. The treasurer should work alongside the booster club president and vice president to list all the clubs’ expected finances over the year (snacks at meetings, fundraising, transportation to events, miscellaneous, etc). When planning how much money should go into each category, it’s better to over-estimate than under-estimate.
The Treasurer Collaborates with Leaders and Leads Volunteers
As previously mentioned, the treasurer is a leader. He or she must feel comfortable suggesting, moderating, and rejecting ideas with the booster club president and vice president. It can sometimes be intimidating going back and forth with those in charge, yet the treasurer’s voice must be heard. He or she is arguably the most responsible person in the room.
Likewise, the treasurer heads a group of volunteers. These volunteers can help in many ways–perhaps some are creative, or have many connections in the neighborhood and student body, and others have experience running certain fundraisers. Whatever the treasurer lacks, they can gain through the help of volunteers.
If the management team is having trouble garnering excitement about the club and attracting volunteers, they can try some of these helpful methods. The treasurer must feel comfortable initiating meetings with their volunteers, speaking in front of the whole booster club, making decisions on behalf of the team, and occasionally even disagreeing with others’ suggestions if they think they go against the numbers. In short, he or she must have the ability to lead.
The Treasurer is the Gatekeeper of Fundraising Campaigns
The treasurer’s main responsibility in fundraising, is looking at the numbers and knowing how much money the booster club has and how much it needs. This information will keep the club from wasting time and money. The treasurer should also continually review the numbers to make sure the club isn’t losing money. (For example, ordering 35 custom T-shirts, when only 3 people indicated interest in buying one.) He or she doesn’t have to rig, steer, and run the ship, they just have to make sure it stays on course.
It’s important to note that the booster club treasurer isn’t in charge of every detail of fundraising, as he or she would quickly burn out. Fundraising can be complex, therefore the treasurer ought to have a group of volunteers dedicated to helping. The treasurer can partner with the president, vice president, secretary, and volunteers to brainstorm, plan, and host fundraisers. (For extra help, here’s our blog detailing how to plan fundraising events.)
A good fundraising idea can come from anyone, and the odds are it will take a whole team to pull the event off. Great booster club fundraising activities can be: quick and easy, Holiday themed, collaborative with the community, or something of your own invention. The two most important questions for the treasurer to answer are:
- “Do we have the budget to host this fundraiser?” It costs money to run a fundraiser. Whether it’s buying the ingredients for a bake sale or paying a fee to host a fun run in a local park, there is almost always some up front cost.
- “Will this fundraiser actually help us gain the money we need?” It can be very fun to think about buying baskets of decorations and setting up a haunted house in your school’s gym. But, before pouring huge amounts of money into a fundraiser, the treasurer should find ways to predict the student body’s level of interest. Once he or she knows that, they can be more confident in the event actually raising funds.
If the treasurer can confidently answer yes to both questions, then the booster club should go ahead with the fundraiser.
Conclusion
If your booster club is looking for a new treasurer, they ought to only consider individuals who are responsible leaders who know (or can quickly learn) how to budget. The booster club treasurer’s primary responsibility is to create a budget and ensure that the group operates within its means. The treasurer does not need to control every aspect of fundraising, rather he or she must make sure all fundraisers are feasible and likely to succeed. If they do all these things, the year will be a success!
