As you plan your chapter's activities and initiatives, it's important to anticipate increased operating expenses year over year. Inflation, and the associated impact on your chapter's budget, cannot be avoided.
- We generally recommend chapters consider a 3% increase in dues each year to account for cost-of-living increases. For 2022, due to significant inflation rates, the Social Security Administration made a 5.9% cost-of-living adjustment in their payments.
Security guards, bands, venues, food service companies, caterers, tents, etc. will all increase their fees to account for inflation. This means your events will be more expensive than you experienced last year. You need to collect more in dues to compensate for increased expenses and continue to enjoy these activities.
The reality is that money is not going as far as it used to. Each dollar your members pay in dues is less than it used to be, due to inflation and associated increased expenses.
- We recommend chapters incorporate a 10% increase into your 2022-2023 budget to account for the current rate of inflation, as well as the anticipated increased expenses that will continue over the coming year.
See the below articles for more information on Vault's budget and billing cycle tools.