The Annual Fundraising Efforts for Conferences

If your bank charges you a "society admin fee", an "audit fee", "credit card fees", and "conference admin fees", would you stay with the bank?.

I have just read an IEEE article about contributions of volunteers for conference organization. The revenue numbers are staggering. The 900+ conferences generated US $129 million in 2008 for IEEE. The article goes on to say that volunteers decide on the technical theme, venue, program committee members, technical program, publicizing and publishing of conference proceedings.

The article seems to be written from a marketing viewpoint, selling the IEEE services that cater to conference organizers. It annoys me to see such a one-sided article that fails to honestly describe the many other aspect of conference management. Conference organizers typically scramble to secure monies in the form of sponsorships and support from industry and government. Fundraising is one of the most tedious aspects of conference management as it has to be repeated annually without much continuity between each year. While there are steering committees that help conferences direct the focus of the conferences and help the general chairs transition, there is relatively little help in terms of funding. "Find the money or else the conference will be cancelled". That is the invisible motto by IEEE if you fail to meet certain level of sponsorship.

The funding in turns helps reduce cost of registration and conference events. There is, however, a certain amount of the proceeds going to IEEE in the form of required fees. Just like some banks would instill fees for their customers, IEEE has a myriad of fees for conferences. Some would call this a tax since it is an obligatory sum paid for IEEE sponsorship. Typically, the fee or tax would equate to 10-20% of the conference revenue. A quick calculation based on the IEEE article would result in $13-25 million in operating fees in 2008. If you look closely at the forms you have to fill, you will notice a society admin fee, an audit fee, credit card fees, and conference admin fees. There is even a policy that states "All conference budgets submitted for approval should be set to generate a minimum surplus of 20% over projected expenses (Policy 10.1.6)". These are all overheads that conferences pay for IEEE sponsorship.

It is important to note that other organizations such as ACM would also require similar fees as well. Both IEEE and ACM, through its SIG (special interest groups), would partially defray some cost for student registration. However, the required fees have become a necessary evil to support the organization and have been a norm in the grand scheme of things. Let’s be honest about the consequences. Conference management has turned into more of annual fundraising event that impacts the quality of the conference. Lower funds mean higher registration fees or smaller venues. Lower funds mean that the technical program chair has to squeeze a larger number of presentations into a smaller amount of time. In today’s slow economy, it might even mean that your coffee breaks would eventually turn from coffee and cookies to just water and bread (see previous article)!

The IEEE article ends with the following note: The contribution of IEEE conference organizers is immeasurable. It’s incredible to see how dedicated they [volunteers] are to organizing conferences on topics that shape the way we live every day. In turn, I would like to suggest that IEEE give organizers better tools and support to reduce the amount of fundraising that is required. Give the conference volunteers better financial support by lowering the fees. Please provide better means to access funds that span multiple years. Focus not on selling your tools to organize conferences, but on ways to make our work more efficient. I hope I can speak for all that we, the volunteers, would like to get back to the more important aspect of a conference, that is, organizing technical discussions, not fundraising. I am open to any ideas, so feel free to comment. I have many more suggestions that I do not have enough time to convey here.

I can not do this alone, so I ask that you speak to your society (IEEE, ACM) representatives and conference chairs to confirm the real story about conference management. You will find the above to be true, and I hope you would write to your society representatives to initiate a change.

(continued in the next article)