I've never worked organizing a conference of this scale, but how do you come to a decision like this only 2 weeks in advance? Surely sponsors etc. need to be lined up months ahead of time and organizers would have significantly more advance notice.
"We're a bit low and might have to cut a few things" and "we're so low we might have to cancel" are very different thresholds and merit very different responses.
If your event has historically gotten a lot of last minute (e.g. a month before the event) sign ups, your error bars for how underwhelming turnout is going to be might be really large until then.
Presumably when that happens you don't immediately cancel, but rather try some last ditch efforts with sponsors, vendors, etc and then you wind up 2 weeks out in a shitty situation.
The difference is that I assume good faith and a history of competence on the part of the GHC operators and do not make any such assumption about the Fyre operators.
Someone never learned the "you don't fund this year's conference using this year's signups and sponsorships, you fund NEXT year's conference using this year's signups and sponsorships" rule that applies once your conference is an established yearly event. How the hell was there no contingency fund?
According to the announcement, "individual registrations … came in significantly below prior years", so it seems few attendees will suffer financially.
No, it just means that fewer attendees will suffer financially compared to the number of attendees who would have suffered financially if this had happened in previous years. The number of attendees this year may still have been many, while still being significantly fewer than previous years and while not being enough to cover their costs considering the loss of their sponsors.
> What happens to my in-person or virtual registration fee?
> Information regarding GHC registration and other financial matters will be communicated to you promptly once we obtain a clearer understanding of AnitaB.org ’s financial condition.
I used to go to GHC to recruit every year on their floor, I enjoyed it greatly and hired a lot of bright people from it. It’s sad to see it so humbled. There was to my knowledge nothing quite like it. I hope it can recover.
This is sad! I only attended during COVID when it was remote and haven't had a chance to attend in person. I sure hope it can come back. I wonder if we will see the same thing with other conferences or only ones that fall under the DEI umbrella.
Incredibly sad and disappointing. Especially in lieu of Margaret Hamilton's passing this year. This was not right. Planned attendees deserve to understand a deeper post-mortem of why the event failed to transpire.
I've never worked organizing a conference of this scale, but how do you come to a decision like this only 2 weeks in advance? Surely sponsors etc. need to be lined up months ahead of time and organizers would have significantly more advance notice.
"We're a bit low and might have to cut a few things" and "we're so low we might have to cancel" are very different thresholds and merit very different responses.
If your event has historically gotten a lot of last minute (e.g. a month before the event) sign ups, your error bars for how underwhelming turnout is going to be might be really large until then.
Presumably when that happens you don't immediately cancel, but rather try some last ditch efforts with sponsors, vendors, etc and then you wind up 2 weeks out in a shitty situation.
Though looking at their filings, it seems like they did not adapt to reduced revenues starting in 2023, so maybe denial and an inability to cut costs is a bigger explanation: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/770...
They also stopped posting audited financials around then: https://anitab.org/audited-financials
People in the middle of things can often be in denial about the situation much longer than they should be.
heck just look at what happened with fyre festival.
The difference is that I assume good faith and a history of competence on the part of the GHC operators and do not make any such assumption about the Fyre operators.
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Someone never learned the "you don't fund this year's conference using this year's signups and sponsorships, you fund NEXT year's conference using this year's signups and sponsorships" rule that applies once your conference is an established yearly event. How the hell was there no contingency fund?
Cancelling 2 weeks before a conference seems pretty dire. So sad for all the attendees who are going to be out for non refundable travel costs.
According to the announcement, "individual registrations … came in significantly below prior years", so it seems few attendees will suffer financially.
No, it just means that fewer attendees will suffer financially compared to the number of attendees who would have suffered financially if this had happened in previous years. The number of attendees this year may still have been many, while still being significantly fewer than previous years and while not being enough to cover their costs considering the loss of their sponsors.
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> What happens to my in-person or virtual registration fee?
> Information regarding GHC registration and other financial matters will be communicated to you promptly once we obtain a clearer understanding of AnitaB.org ’s financial condition.
That's a pretty bad response. Sounds like they are leaving open the possibility that they may not be able to refund people's tickets
Only a fool would think they're getting any money back from an organization that is clearly broke.
I would submit a request for chargeback.
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lol, what really happened at this non-profit? do they share their funding and operating expenses?
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/770...
The “president and ceo” is bringing in over $500K a year.
Total nonsense.
500k to the CEO of an organization bringing in $25m/yr in revenue isn't that crazy.
In hindsight, it doesn't look like they did a great job running it, but the comp package doesn't seem crazy at that scale.
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Nothing in that budget makes sense. 2.39m executive compensation? 7.4m wages? -14m net income with 23m total assets?
[dead]
> Total nonsense.
Isn't that the entire point of foundations and non-profits? Massive salaries for their EDs.
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I used to go to GHC to recruit every year on their floor, I enjoyed it greatly and hired a lot of bright people from it. It’s sad to see it so humbled. There was to my knowledge nothing quite like it. I hope it can recover.
This is sad! I only attended during COVID when it was remote and haven't had a chance to attend in person. I sure hope it can come back. I wonder if we will see the same thing with other conferences or only ones that fall under the DEI umbrella.
Incredibly sad and disappointing. Especially in lieu of Margaret Hamilton's passing this year. This was not right. Planned attendees deserve to understand a deeper post-mortem of why the event failed to transpire.
The post reads pretty clear to me. They didn't raise enough money
Sure, but why?
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> Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI)
> features women
Are your pearls ok?
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