Careful budgeting saves Afrofest 2015

JEREMY JAMES FOKUOH
April 10,2015

Although the Afrofest committee for 2015 didn’t reach their set goal in budgeting, they did raise a significant amount of money to support Afrofest 2015.

Although a budget of $31,400 was set for Afrofest 2015, the team managed to raise $25,000 for the event.

Afrofest celebrated its tenth anniversary from Feb. 23 to 27 at the University of Windsor. The week-long event included performances of dance, music, poetry, advice panels and fashion. The week ended with the highly anticipated event Love Languages at the Green Bean Café on Wyandotte.

The planning of the event was a thought out process led by coordinator Zainab Ikpong and her team. With only four months of planning, half the initial time given and $47 in the team’s account, Ikpong knew that fundraising and sponsoring were the only options to secure Afrofest 2015.

“One of the first things I did was update the sponsorship package,” said Ikpong. “When I updated the sponsorship package and made the budget for the year according to what we wanted to do for the tenth anniversary, we determined that $31,400 would be our budget goal to raise.”

Money was raised through sponsorships and donations from sponsors such as the Organization of Part-time University Students, the University of Windsor Students’ Alliance, the Office of the President, the Office of Human Rights and Accessibility and other organizations in Windsor and Essex County. Money was also raised through bake sales, a speed dating event and charging covers for certain events. Although they were $7,000 short of their initial budget, the team knew that Afrofest couldn’t be paused or postponed. They managed not to only put on Afrofest for the tenth anniversary, but also ended up having a significant amount of money left over from their expenses. This included t-shirts, performer fees, transportation, banners, rentals, sound equipment, disk jockeys and accommodating their special guests and hosts at the Caesars Windsor Hotel.

In terms of budgeting and saving money, volunteer coordinator Evaysha Santiago-Kerr said she believes the process of budgeting wasn’t approached differently compared to past years.

“I would say it was the same,” said Santiago-Kerr. “We raised money and budgeted with what we had. We were raising the money and programming at the same time. We looked at who was similar in acts and what seemed as the smarter choice. We wanted who would give us more bang for our buck. We looked at what we would get and if it was worth paying or having a next person.”

The remainder of the Afrofest money will go towards student scholarships, charity, clubs at the University of Windsor and Afrofest efforts for 2016.