Your Group Treasury

Before submitting any requests for reimbursement, all alumnae handling group expenses must submit this form. Only group members who are involved in treasury transactions need to submit this form. Each alum only needs to submit this form once. Please note you will need to log in with your MyWellesley login.

IMPORTANT for classes of 1961 and earlier: Please consult with Emily Rigdon (ecarey5@wellesley.edu) prior to registering.

How long do I have to submit my request? 
To receive reimbursements, volunteers should submit expense requests with any necessary receipts to the WCAA within 30 days after incurring the expense, but no later than 60 days after incurring the expense. For expenses in May and June, requests must be received by July 1. 

Are requests ever rejected? 
Groups retain discretion over how their funds are spent, provided that they are not using group funds to support other charities, nonprofit organizations, or political candidates. If an expense request is missing essential information, we will contact you prior to processing your request. 

May I submit multiple requests at the same time? 
Yes, you may submit multiple receipts at the same time, as long as they are all for the same event. 

If I did not register for direct deposit, how can I confirm that the reimbursement check will be sent to my current address?
The check will be sent to your address on file with the College. For special situations, be sure to provide clear instructions when you submit your reimbursement request.

How long will it take to receive my reimbursement? 
Please allow 10-14 business days for your request to be received, processed, and sent to your bank account. If you elected to receive your reimbursements by physical check (rather than direct deposit), please allow a longer window.

I no longer have the receipt. May I still submit an expense?
Please submit a copy of your credit card statement showing the purchase. Cash purchases submitted without a receipt will not be eligible for reimbursement. 

I only have a digital copy of our group’s invoice. How may I submit it? 
If your digital invoice is an attachment, such as a PDF, please upload it to the form directly. If it is part of an email or webpage that you can save as a PDF, or easily screenshot, you may do so in order to obtain an uploadable file. As a last resort, you may send the invoice to ecarey5@wellesley.edu; but please be advised this may result in a delay in processing your payment. 

How will our vendor be paid? 
All vendors must be registered in the College’s system for tax purposes. Using the information you provide, your vendor will be contacted by email to submit the required information via the Supplier Invoice Request form above. Like volunteer registrations, this is a one-time process. Once the vendor is approved, we will submit the invoice, and the College will process the requested payment. 

How long will it take for our vendor to receive payment? 
The vendor will be prompted to submit the registration form. Once the vendor submits the form, it may take up to one week for the vendor approval process. Then allow approximately 14 business days for the payment to be processed. 

What if our group needs an invoice payment made in a hurry?
We ask all groups to provide as much advance notice as possible so that we may pay invoices on your behalf. For a truly time-sensitive situation (ex: reserving a venue within 24 hours), please contact Emily Rigdon at 781-283-2398 to explore alternative options. 

How is a speaker honorarium different from a standard invoice?
Honoraria are funds gifted to a speaker or someone who provides a no-cost service to your group as thanks for their contribution. They are optional and given at your group's discretion. Please note that honoraria are reportable as taxable income. We encourage you to submit requests well in advance to allow time for the recipient to register as a supplier with the College. (We will manage this process automatically when you select this option on the reimbursement form.) You may elect to provide the speaker with a thank-you gift in lieu of a payment; in that case you should obtain a receipt that provides proof of payment, and select the ‘Purchase reimbursement’ option on the reimbursement form.

How will our speaker be paid?
All speakers must be registered in the College’s system for tax purposes. Using the information you provide, your speaker will be contacted by email to submit the required information. Like volunteer registrations, this is a one-time process. Once the speaker is approved, we will submit the invoice, and the College will process the requested payment. If the speaker is an alumna, please be sure to note this in the request form. 

May we pre-purchase gift cards as an easier way to have group funds on hand? 
No, gift cards are not permitted due to the requirement to provide proper documentation of the actual expense(s) you are incurring. Purchases should be made without the use of gift cards or preloaded debit cards. 

TREASURIES

How will we collect money for events that have an associated cost? Will paying by credit card be possible?
Groups can continue to collect payments online or by check made out to your club/class/SIG. Funds will go to your individual group agency accounts, managed through Workday. 

What WCAA funds will be available to support alumnae activities?
The WCAA is in its third year of a three-year pilot program* to provide annual allocations to alumnae clubs based on the number of alums in your region:

*Update: The pilot program to provide annual allocations to alumnae clubs and SIGs has been extended for an additional year, through June 30, 2025.

Our Wellesley network is at its best when all alums are able to participate. The Alumnae Association has set aside a dedicated fund to assist alums with the cost of attending ticketed club, class, or SIG events. All requests will be kept confidential; groups will not be informed of who has received aid. If you would like to request assistance for a ticketed event, please fill out the request form.

How can the WCAA allocation be used?
The allocation may be used to support activities that cannot be reasonably funded by event fees. This might include admitted student events, a small gift to a speaker for an event, or subsidizing young alum attendance at a welcome event.

How were allocation amounts determined?
Allocation amounts were determined based on all contactable alumnae in your club’s geographic area. Alums who have secondary addresses or club affiliations were included as well. Alums who are considered “lost” (mail returned 3+ times) or who have asked not to be contacted by Wellesley were not counted.The brackets were clubs with more than 800 members, clubs with 700-300 members, and clubs with less than 299 members. No clubs landed near the cusp of these brackets. 

What happens to unused funds from the WCAA?
Groups are encouraged to sponsor low-cost events and charge the cost of attendance. Annual allocations are meant to provide additional support. Unused funds from your group's annual WCAA allocation will be transferred to the all-alumnae Access Fund at the end of the fiscal year (June 30th) to provide financial assistance to alums to attend Wellesley alumnae programs. 

What happens after the pilot ends on June 30, 2025?
The WCAA will assess the annual allocation program to determine whether to continue to offer the same amounts, change the amounts, or retire this program. Our decision will depend on the data available on how clubs have used their funds, and for what purposes. Stay tuned! 

How can we access our treasury balance?
Quarterly account statements are provided electronically to club treasurers and presidents. 

When will we receive our account’s quarterly reports and what will they include? 
Quarterly reporting is based on Wellesley’s fiscal year quarters. You can expect to receive your reports via email two to four weeks after the end of each quarter:

• Fiscal 1st Quarter (7/1-9/30)
• Fiscal 2nd Quarter (10/1-12/31)
• Fiscal 3rd Quarter (1/1-3/31)
• Fiscal 4th Quarter (4/1-6/30)

Reports will include the beginning balance, end balance, and a record of each transaction. 

What if we need to give a deposit to a venue before we collect event registration fees?
A volunteer can make the deposit and submit for reimbursement, or the WCAA can make the payment directly from the group’s agency account. Please select vendor invoice payment on the Alumnae Reimbursement Request Form.

We offer lower cost event fees for recent grads, how can we continue doing that? 
Groups can increase per-person pricing for an event to subsidize young alum attendees. We also encourage groups to provide a range of programming at various price points. 

If we are expected to price events at per-person cost, what about events where we invite students?
Groups can increase per-person pricing for an event to subsidize student attendees. This could also be a strategic use of the annual allocation of WCAA funds for your group.

Can we use the WCAA allocation to fund gifts to students?
This is not the intended purpose of the funds. WCAA funds should be used for activities that support College priorities by connecting alumnae to the College and each other. While student care packages or gifts are intended as a generous gesture of student support, there are a few reasons why we are shifting away from this practice:

1. There is inequity in the concept of care packages: only students with a similar affiliation to an alumnae group (regional or identity-based) might receive such a gift. 

2. Student data privacy makes the sharing of names and mailing addresses with alums, or campus distribution, a resource-intensive process.

3. The Wellesley Fund supports Student Life, allowing staff and programs to be flexible and responsive to student needs each year. Alumnae can have the greatest current-year impact with a gift to the Wellesley Fund.

What will happen to our endowed fund/scholarship? 
Endowed funds, such as scholarship funds, will continue to generate income for their purpose in perpetuity. Individuals may contribute directly to existing funds, but clubs and classes will no longer increase the fund through annual gifts funded through dues. All alums are encouraged to give to the Wellesley Fund, which supports the College’s greatest needs.

How long will it take to process a reimbursement request? 
Reimbursements will typically take 10-14 business days. 

What will happen to our 501(c)(3) status?
Once your group’s bank balance is transferred to your new agency fund, the WCAA will be working with an attorney to legally dissolve the legal entity. 

Our club files state taxes and has been granted a tax exemption for purchases made in our state. How should we handle state documents under these changes?
The process of dissolving each club's federal and state documents will be an ongoing exercise requiring partnership between your club and our staff. If your state's nonprofit laws are an area of expertise for you or a fellow club member, we welcome your input and invite you to join us in this process. 

Can we use WCAA funds or existing funds in our treasury to cover travel expenses for our board to meet in person? 
We strongly discourage using your class funds for this limited purpose. We are making a serious effort to shift the use of resources towards supporting the College. Just as you would be unlikely to cover classmates' travel to a destination mini-reunion, we would not recommend covering travel if there are free or lower cost options available, such as Zoom, WebEx, Google Video Meet, and conference calls. 

Ultimately the class's funds are to be used at the discretion of the board, and in representing the class, volunteers assume the duty to manage and spend these funds responsibly. We hope that groups will consider saving these funds for something that will benefit the class or College more widely.

What will the Treasurer's duties be under this new model?

• Receive quarterly reports from the WCAA and inform group officers of financial assets as needed
• When expenditures arise, serve as the final "stamp of approval" for all expenses, depending on the group's available funds
• Request proactive payments from your group's account for invoices, venue deposits, or other payments needing to be made in advance of programming
• Serve as a liaison between WCAA and group members requesting reimbursements
• Help to positively model our new structure for group members (i.e. "why don't you collect dues any more?")

BLUESNAP FEES

Groups may use the Forms module of their websites to collect event fees. These funds will flow through a third-party payment system called Bluesnap before being deposited into your treasury. Make sure you’re familiar with the nominal fees involved, so that you can take them into account when pricing your event. 

For individual transactions: 

• Bluesnap takes 0.30 of the payment from each transaction as their own processing fee
• Each transaction will have its own unique credit card fee, set by the user's credit card company/bank. These typically range from 2.2-2.9%. 

Here's an example of what this looks like in practice: 

The Hartford Wellesley Club is selling $35.00 luncheon tickets. 

If the purchaser uses a credit card that takes a 2.2% fee...

• $0.77 will be taken from the 35.00 for the CC fee
• $0.30 will be taken from the 35.00 for Bluesnap's standard transaction fee
• A total of $1.07 will be taken from the 35.00 for a net income of 33.93

If the purchaser uses a credit card that takes a 2.9% fee...

• $1.01 will be taken from the 35.00 for the CC fee
• $0.30 will be taken from the 35.00 for Bluesnap's standard transaction fee
• A total of $1.32 will be taken from the 35.00 for a net income of 33.68.

For payouts: 

• There will be a flat fee of 2.00 every time a payout is made to the account. This is usually done weekly and may contain many individual transactions in the payout amount. If you would like to change your group's payout rate, please contact alumnae@wellesley.edu. 

DUES

When should we stop collecting dues?
All groups should have ceased collection of dues by December 31, 2021. 

As the dues model has been discontinued, please remind former paid members that they are still encouraged to give annually to the College to support Wellesley’s mission. 

How/when will our members hear about the change?
Less than 10% of all alumnae are dues-paying members of a club in a typical year. Changes to the membership model will impact some club operations, but will not significantly impact the way most alumnae experience their relationship with the College or your group. We recommend that each group determine the best communication strategy for your constituents. Some groups may not need a specific update, while others might need direction on how the current year membership cycle and event pricing will work.

Our club/class has given a gift to the College on behalf of the club/class in the past - are we no longer encouraged to do this?While Wellesley has appreciated the generosity of clubs and classes, we are asking volunteer leaders to support the College in a new way for a number of reasons. 

• Gifts directly from alumnae to the College give individuals a sense of pride in their philanthropy as well as tax advantages for the donor. 

• Gifts made directly from an alumna to the College enable the alumna to be counted in the “participation rate” for the class and for overall alumnae participation. This is not the case when group treasuries serve as “pass-throughs” for gifts to Wellesley.

•  A “class gift” to Wellesley (most notably in a reunion year) is a total of all gifts to the College from members of the class. (A common misunderstanding is that class gifts are made solely from the class treasury.)

• Some classes and clubs will have treasury money they still wish to give to the College, and of course this is still welcome. Class treasury donations will count toward class gift totals.

May classmates make individual donations to our class treasury?
While individual donations to class treasuries are permitted, we remind groups that one of their primary missions is to support the College's current endeavors. With this in mind, we strongly encourage individuals to consider directing their donations to the Wellesley Fund, which provides the critical and flexible funds that can be used to address the College's urgent needs.  

Will we need to change our bylaws?
You do not need to make any immediate changes to your bylaws. Once the treasuries are moved out of bank accounts into agency funds, we will be working with an attorney to dissolve the legal 501(c)(3) entities. 

Can we have club/class/SIG fundraisers? 
No. The model cannot support individual group fundraisers. Fundraising activity should be on behalf of Wellesley College. If your club/class/SIG has particular concerns, please give us a call.

If we host an event that runs a profit will we get to keep that profit in our treasury?
If you run a profit on an event, the money will stay in your account and your group will have access to those funds. However, the accounts should support current year activities, and groups should not have a goal of building up a treasury over time. Groups should manage pricing to cover costs, and strive to keep prices low enough to encourage participation. Our collective fundraising efforts should support Wellesley and students today. 

Don’t most people who pay club dues give to the College already? 
No, and we were surprised by this too, because we expect engaged alumnae to actively support the College. But in the last “normal” year, pre-pandemic, only nine clubs had more than 60% of their dues-paying members make a gift to Wellesley. The numbers were lower for some of the largest and most active clubs. We need to work together to shift this culture and help alumnae make the connection that giving back is an important part of how they pay forward their enthusiasm for their Wellesley experience and steward the future of the institution. 

How will we pay for print mailings?
We encourage all groups to eliminate or significantly reduce print mailings in consideration of both budget and environmental impact. You may wish to use your existing treasury for limited print mailings, and encourage your peers to keep their email up to date with the College.

What should we use our “Support” page on our website for now?
We recommend that you use this page to encourage members to support the College via a gift to the Wellesley Fund, which supports Wellesley by funding the College’s areas of greatest impact and most immediate needs. 

You may also wish to include some explanatory text such as the following: 

• An Update on our Class Treasury

  • During FY22, Wellesley clubs and classes moved away from a dues structure to create an open membership model that welcomes all alums and simplifies the administration of alumnae groups.

The Class Lifetime Membership (CLM) program has been phased out, with no new CLM purchases. Classes will continue to receive CLM distributions to their treasuries.

• An Update on our Club Treasury

  • During FY22, Wellesley clubs and classes moved away from a dues structure to create an open membership model that welcomes all alums and simplifies the administration of alumnae groups. Paid club memberships have been phased out, and clubs currently receive annual funding from the WCAA.

How can our group remain aligned with these changes to our club’s income and programming options?
All groups are encouraged to prioritize low-cost and no-cost events to align with our new financial model and our goals of inclusion and access. A recording of the WCAA’s Leadershare Live event, “Achievable, Accessible, and Affordable - Club Events for Everyone," featuring ideas and successes from volunteers like you, is available on the For Volunteers section of our website. 

REUNION

How will our class fund future Reunions?
For classes that transitioned their treasury funds over to the College, the funds remain designated as the Class treasury funds in a separate account. The class will continue to receive dividends from the endowment each year that will be deposited into the class's account at the College and the class will continue to have discretion on how their funds are spent. The class treasurer will oversee the submission of invoices and/or receipts for reimbursement. These are processed for payment by the WCAA and College staff. 

The WCAA will work with reuning classes to ensure that Reunions remain affordable and achievable. As of 2022, classes are no longer asked to provide financial aid to classmates; the WCAA provides anonymous Financial Aid for reuning alums.

For Reunion, it is recommended that classes use their existing treasuries for vendors or items that will enrich the class experience: Snacks and supplies for Friday socials, entertainment for Saturday dinner, decorations for the dorms, etc. Attendees will pay for the cost of meals, beverages, housing, and insignia as part of their individual registrations. Treasuries may be used to subsidize these costs as your funds allow. 

Your group has the ability to collect online payments for event and ticket sales via your website, and a funds-transferring service known as BlueSnap. Groups currently utilizing BlueSnap do not need to make any changes. When your group is ready to transfer your treasury to the College, you should plan to hold off on collecting any payments from members until the transfer has been completed and the WCAA has confirmed that you may resume collecting payments.

If your group has not yet created a BlueSnap account, your site is unable to process payments. In preparation for the upcoming changes to our financial process, we are no longer creating individual club BlueSnap accounts at this time. Once your treasury has been transferred to your College account, the WCAA will let you know when you may begin utilizing the Forms module to collect event and ticket payments.

1. Please write a check, made payable to Wellesley College Alumnae Association c/o [Your Group’s Name].
   It is essential that you include your group’s name so that we can deposit your funds into the correct account. Please use the Memo line to provide additional details on where the funds came from. 
   For ticketed events: if participants are paying for events by personal check, checks should be made out to Wellesley College Alumnae Association and forwarded to the class/club/SIG treasurer. The treasurer should then batch the checks and send them to the College as a complete set. 
    

2. Checks should be sent to: 
   Wellesley College Alumnae Association c/o Janet Kulbersh
   Green Hall Rm. 246
   106 Central Street
   Wellesley, MA 02481 

3. Deposits will be reflected in your group's quarterly statements, which will be sent to Presidents and Treasurers via email. 

Closing your bank account? Find a template for a letter to your bank here.