What Can CAP Do to Cut Costs?

[RADIOMAN015]

So here's the questions "What Can CAP (CAP members) Do To Cut Costs at the local, wing, regional, & national level?

Here's what I would do:
1.  Stop mailing any welcome packages to members including books etc.  All of this should be made available for download on the CAP national Website.
2.  Eliminate expiration dates on CAP ID cards.  Instead add a line on the back to indicate a website where the members current status can be verified.  (The website would only allow view of the members name, CAP rank, and current expiration date).
3.  Reduce overall administrative/meeting travel at national, region, wing.  With the advent of electronic meeting over the internet, travel should be able to be reduced.   Also when travel is necessary limit the number of personnel that travel.
4.  Don't move national board meeting to different areas around the country.  Find one location that is least costly to CAP overall and hold all meeting there.  Members that wish to attend can travel there or watch the meeting electronically.  CAP should also consider video backing up the entire meeting and offering it later for review on their website.
5.  Considering reducing the number of regional commands in CAP.  Right sizing should be determined by member populations in geographic areas.
6.  Considering elimination of geographic based (state) wings and instead go to numbered wings.   Again the wings would be right sized depending upon the total membership in various geographic areas, so that each wing would have similiar membership totals.  Likely there would be less wings overall after reorganization.
7.  Obtain Non Profit US Postal Service mailing permits at wing level and provide envelopes to units within the command pre addressed to wing.  (Also region & national would provide pre addressed envelopes to units as required).
8.  Eliminate wing & region financial analysts and centralize the payment activity at National headquarters.  Considering also reviewing the potential of an outside subcontractor providing this bookkeeping service for CAP.
9.  Eliminate the requirement of any units having to print out any information for IG inspections.  All of this should be electronically available to the inspectors.
10.  Review all aircraft utilization, and specify the minimum and maximum hours the aircraft is expected to be flown each year.  IF not achieved, reassign aircraft or reduce the fleet overall.
11.  Review vehicle authorization.  Administrative use of vehicles by CAP National Headquarters, region, and wing should be completely eliminated IF analysis shows that just reimbursement to the member for utilizing their private vehicle on a cost per mile basis would be less than the yearly total vehicle cost.
12.  Add the seat back into the CAP vans (15 seats) rather than the current 12 seat configuration, to improve passenger utilization per mile.  Provide additional safety instruction to van drivers of 15 pax van. 
Did I miss any
RM   

[SamFranklin]

some interesting views, some have merit, but you need to get smart on "colors of money" as some of these cuts would not save any money at all.  example: seniors buy their member kits and vehicle procurement is a separate line item.

[vmstan]

13. Discontinue unauthorized feeding of trolls.



(Sorry I couldn't resist)

1. Not a horrible idea, but the notebooks and even the welcome paperwork help to make the connection to CAP "physical" -- "hey you paid your dues, here is some swag"
2. I can see the benefit of this, but Internet access isn't always readily available. Considering many opt to buy the $4 picture ID, and the library card is renewed with the yearly dues, seems like it's not worth the effort.
3. No comment.
4. Fair enough. I'd be all about having a video archive.
5. No comment, although see my next one.
6. Disagree. Our squadron members already have to drive half way across the state of Kansas to go to Wing meetings. It's already a full day event. Also, making the Wings not connect to the state reduces the community feel we have. In addition many wing commanders are tied directly into the state emergency management policy.
7. We don't have this already?
8. So it can be processed slower?
9. Agreed.
10. They do this.
11. Processing this one...
12. I could be wrong but I think this is more than just a CAP regulation. Honestly, I don't like driving that many people at the same time.

[PHall]

Note on #1, you assume that everybody has internet access. You assume wrong.

[MSG Mac]

Note on #1, you assume that everybody has internet access. You assume wrong.

True, not everyone has access to the internet at home, but most cadets do have it available in school, and almost every public library in the country has internet.

Money could be saved by sending CD's of most of the Leadership and Aerospace materials we send out. IE Learn to Lead Vols 1&2, and the New Aerospace Dimesions books cost about $25 plus at least $5 for shipping. Cost of a DVD is about a dollar

[caphornbuckle]

This would also be safe to assume everyone has a computer as well.  Although we are in the 21st century, there are still families out there without computers.  As for going to other locations, that would assume that they can use cd/dvd programs on those computers.  Although if they were to go to on-line learning (as like they are with the testing now), they can access it at any internet site and would still ultimately save money by eliminating the need for books, cd's or dvd's as well.

I remember years ago they talked that CAP was going to go "paperless".  In some ways they have.  In other ways....still to come!

[Pylon]

#7 won't save you any money because that's not how non-profit bulk rate permits work. 


a) Bulk permits can cost hundreds of dollars per year to maintain.  Not worth pinching pennies over.
b) Non-profit Bulk Rate only applies to mailings of 255 identical pieces of more, when they're presorted by ZIP code.   There is no such thing as a special non-profit rate for first-class or single mailings at a time.
c) Since CAP is a non-profit, if you did have a large mailing and wanted to save on postage, a mailhouse (most every printing press in every city has a mailhouse either in-house or on contract) can do the postage prep and handling for you and use a non-profit rate anyways.  And with a mailhouse's zip barcoding, ZIP+4, NCOA and other abilities, you'll save more money than you would trying to prep a mailing on your own.

[FW]

The bulk of our "appropriated" budget goes to maintenance of our NHQ staff and facilities, purchase and maintenance of aircraft, purchase and maintenance of our comm assets and mission expenses.
The bulk of our "corporate" budget goes to NHQ salaries, NCSAs and, staff travel.  All this comes from member dues and, interest from some of our excess cash saved up over the years.  National dues, btw, have remained at $35 for the last 20 years.
The membership card issue is being taken care of.  NB meetings are actually revenue neutral. 
Wing Finanial Analysts (there are no region Financial Analysts) come from the appropriated budget and, if consolidated or eliminated, the cash would disappear.  Membership "welcome packages" are paid for with 1st years dues bump. 

Actually, there is very little wiggle room in our budgets.  The only way to improve our financial picture is to find more funds; either by increased dues, increased customer fees or, increased contributions from dedicated contributors.

[RiverAux]

NB meetings are actually revenue neutral. 

How do you figure that?  To my knowledge our Wing isn't getting paid back for the $1-2K it often takes to send the Wing Commander to the NB. 

6.  Considering elimination of geographic based (state) wings and instead go to numbered wings.   Again the wings would be right sized depending upon the total membership in various geographic areas, so that each wing would have similiar membership totals.  Likely there would be less wings overall after reorganization.

Where this would make the most sense would be in the NE where the geography makes for very small wings.  However, this might have a backblast effect since almost all of the wings in this region are getting money from their states and I would think it likely that this would stop if the CAP Wing was made up of 3-4 states.  Vermont may not want to give $60K to a joint VT-NH wing when they won't know that their money is only supporting VT.

Eliminate wing & region financial analysts and centralize the payment activity at National headquarters.  Considering also reviewing the potential of an outside subcontractor providing this bookkeeping service for CAP.

Probably could stand for some consolidation in this area.

[Earhart1971]

Its Blood out of a turnup. CAP runs on AIR and the expended energy of the membership.

We need a Congressional Liaison, and I don't see why Don Rowland or someone on Salary at NHQ cannot make contact with our own Congressional Squadron and Congressional Membership to develop a plan to get more funding.

The differences in our Cadet Program and the JROTCs in money support is HUGE.

We could get more money, if it was appropriately asked for. After Novermber 2010, we need to have a plan.

[jimmydeanno]

We need a Congressional Liaison

We have one.  It's his sole purpose in CAP, to ensure that our appropriated fund stream doesn't dry up.  He meets and greets and works to restore funding decreases, etc.

[Capt Rivera]

We need a Congressional Liaison

We have one.  It's his sole purpose in CAP, to ensure that our appropriated fund stream doesn't dry up.  He meets and greets and works to restore funding decreases, etc.

Who is it? Has he asked my reps to join? (and... Yes I have asked, have you asked yours?)

[FW]

^Our "congressional liaison" is Col John Swain, CAP.  He is a paid staffer and member of the congressional squadron.  He has been asking Reps and Senators for years to join up. However, it's always better when a constituent does the asking.

[jimmydeanno]

...Has he asked my reps to join? (and... Yes I have asked, have you asked yours?)

What's with the hostility?  Someone said we need to have someone is a position.  I said we already had one.  There's really no need to get defensive before there's even a sign of a battle, don't you think?

If you think I was getting testy, I really wasn't. 

----general thoughts, not directed at anyone ----

However, sometimes it can be a bit frustrating when people start accusing CAP of doing stuff (or in this case, not doing) without having the slightest clue what they're talking about. 

Does CAP have room for improvement?  Absolutely.
Do some ideas have merit? Absolutely.

But, people shouldn't start making accusations that stuff is FW&A, or that we could reduce costs freeing up money for other programs, when they don't know how the money chain works. 

Getting rid of airplanes doesn't provide more money to give squadrons internet access, because we aren't approved to spend our appropriated monies that way (example).

In fact, when we say we 'received' 30 million in appropriated funds, that doesn't mean that we get a check for 30 million that we can just spend.  We have to "sell" the expense to our oversight organization (the USAF) and they give approval for appropriated funds to be spent in that manner.

So, many ideas won't save any money or give us more funding in another area simply because we wouldn't be able to spend the saved money in any other way.

[mmouw]

The biggest factor to keep in mind is who suffers the most with cut backs. When cutting anywhere, it is usually the members that have to sacrifice to make it work. What money goes away for any of the suggestions will result in members putting more money out of their pocket.

[Persona non grata]

 :clap: :clap: :clap:  Thank You!               They stop giving out printed materials so I have to keep buying the ink for my printer.  The magazine is great because I leave it at other places for people to look over.  They should have an option for the memebers to decline the magazine in printed format because I know several people who dont even read the thing.  If they want to save money, go back to the newspaper and get rid of the full color magazine.

[MSG Mac]

:clap: :clap: :clap:  Thank You!               They stop giving out printed materials so I have to keep buying the ink for my printer.  The magazine is great because I leave it at other places for people to look over.  They should have an option for the memebers to decline the magazine in printed format because I know several people who dont even read the thing.  If they want to save money, go back to the newspaper and get rid of the full color magazine.

You have that option in E-services

[Persona non grata]

I learn something new everyday, thanks, I will pass this info on to those that can care less about the magazine.

[jimmydeanno]

You know.  At this point, I think we're pretty well as lean as we're going to get without it becoming our public school system, where the cadets need to bring their own roll of toilet paper with them.

Perhaps the better question is "What can CAP do to increase revenue?"

In my opinion, some of these ideas are contrary to that.  Every time you open your mailbox, don't you have requests from non-profits asking for money?  You know, those envelopes full of return address labels, with their orgs logo, but your name (Think St. Jude's, World Wildlife Federation, Arbor Day Foundation, etc).  They mail millions of those things each year.  They certainly aren't doing it because it loses them money.

Ask our own members for more money.  If we aren't willing to support our mission, who else would?

IMO, the CAP News has been replaced by the online news feed.  There isn't any reason to bring back the B&W CAP News.  The Volunteer, IMO, is far better as a recruiting tool/advertising space than that paper was.  If anything, we don't exploit that magazine enough with the advertising sales.

Additionally, many of the funding issues we have are felt locally, where, for some reason, nobody feels like fund raising.  I always hear excuses like, "Why should we have to?" etc.  It's what we do, we are members, we decided to support the organization, so organize some fundraising.

If you have 15 people in your squadron (the size of the average CAP unit, BTW), and you get them to get $20 from 10 local businesses, you have $3000.00.  I have yet to meet a local business that wouldn't donate an amount that small.  Imagine if you took the time to try and get $50 or even $100 dollars from them.   That same attempt could next $15,000.  If each unit did that, the organization would find themselves with 22.5 MILLION dollars down at the local level.

Then you can buy your parade equipment, cadets shoes, pay for your members membership dues, give discount memberships to new members (further increasing your size), send your cadets to encampment for free, rent decent facilities for your unit to be in, pay for internet access, etc.

But, I suppose that would be too much work...

[lordmonar]

If you are going to go for off the wall shot gun "cost savings" inititives.

Ellinate CAP vans all together.

Eliminate CAP Aircraft all together.

Kill the NCSA.

Kill the wing/region/national conferences.

Kill all the face to face training.

Cutting costs is all well and good...but what is the plan to use the cost savings?

[Capt Rivera]

...Has he asked my reps to join? (and... Yes I have asked, have you asked yours?)

What's with the hostility?  Someone said we need to have someone is a position.  I said we already had one.  There's really no need to get defensive before there's even a sign of a battle, don't you think?

If you think I was getting testy, I really wasn't. 

I didn't think that at all... and wasn't trying to appear that way... I apologize that it appeared that way...

The part about... "I have... have you..." was in advanced of the person (anyone) who I assumed we all know (someone) would ask...  It was more of a pointed joke then anything... no offense directed really to anyone... Ill try to more clear going forward.

[LTC Don]

Additionally, many of the funding issues we have are felt locally, where, for some reason, nobody feels like fund raising.  I always hear excuses like, "Why should we have to?" etc.  It's what we do, we are members, we decided to support the organization, so organize some fundraising.

^This right here is truth.

There are multiple squadrons in my wing who have no home.  I can tell you it gets pretty tiresome running a squadron out of the trunk of the car.

This whole discussion really isn't about National, it's about the local units.

Squadrons should be running as local community non-profits, with the financial expertise to work their local communities to meet funding needs.  Unfortunately, most squadrons, mine included just don't have members with that expertise at writing grants, solicitation, contacts, etc.  It is very hard competing for the few local philanthropic dollars available with all the other great non-profits out there.

To "work the programs (missions)" the way they need to be worked, it takes facilities not unlike a school.  And that takes a lot of money.  And that takes a lot of financial expertise.  It's not National's job to raise money for squadrons.  It's the squadron's responsibility.  National didn't start the local squadrons (post WWII, of course), the local squadrons applied for a charter, accepting responsibility as a local unit of CAP.  That said, each fundraising project should be for big bucks, to be applied to a budget.  Hot dog sales, car washes, etc. are to small, and suck the energy out of a squadron, especially small ones.  Should they be discouraged? Not if they are the only option available, but the money raised should always be used to plan a larger fundraiser to maximize the return the next time.

Financial management in CAP has always been a contentious issue, but one that has languished badly for the local units with not nearly enough training for unit Finance officers (who usually burn out very fast and leave).

I wonder how many units have a dedicated Finance Officer who have assigned assistant FOs working their local communities and giving agencies like United Way.......


Cheers,

[FW]

Speaking as a former dedicated unit finance officer, I think there are very few such units indeed.  However, development of local support for a squadron should not be the finance officer's first responsibility.  That honor goes to the commander.  However, the whole squadron should feel a "want" to be part of the effort. NHQ calls this effort "Friendraising".  It is important to identify those in the community who will support your efforts.  Contributors will come from this pool. 
As for grants; there is staff at NHQ who will assist you in writing them.  There are also many websites which will guide you in the endeavor.  There are grant sites which even have their own forms.

[Patterson]

One HUGE cost saving measure is to actually move to a "paperless operation".  It is 2010, paperless business practices are the trend these days.

Honestly, we are being forced to verify members identities very soon when they fill out an application.  Why can't Squadron Commanders electronically sign applications as well as the applicants?? 

In the most recent Cadet Program mailing from National, I appreciated the L2L Texts and associated materials, but everything could and should have been electronic except the books themselves. 

As for the notion that not everyone has internet, well too bad.  That was an excuse 10 years ago.  If you do not have internet, that is a choice.  If you are capable of attending a CAP meeting, you can surely get yourself to a library, school, inner-city rec center etc. 

As a Squadron Commander I should not have to touch a single piece of paper, yet it seems like the more electronic CAP gets, the more physical paper is associated with it.