Event Participant Allowances can be given to event participants to cover food, housing, or incidentals.
For events that are shorter in length (for example a mission trip that is less than a month) in general the event finance administrator will receive the event participant allowances and distribute portions to the participants as needed for their specific event. See Event Participant Allowance for more details.
However, there are some events (usually programs) that last for multiple months. For these events, rather than giving the funds direction to the event director, it makes sense for Reliant to send the event allowance to the event participant directly via direct deposit. For these events, we will deposit the funds on a monthly basis.
When an event spans multiple months, the events team will be keeping track of support raising totals. They will share with accounting each month who is receiving a participant allowance and how much (based on how much has been raised.) The event participants must fill out a direct deposit request (the events team will insure that all participants have filled out a direct deposit for accounting) in order to receive the participant allowance funds.
Direct Deposit Form for Non Reliant Employee
The participant will receive funds on a normal EFT run (either the 10th, 20th, or last business day of the month.) The monthly deposit date will need to be decided upon ahead of time by the event director (we suggest using the closest EFT normal deposit date that happens right before the start of the event) and the same EFT deposit date will be used for all months for that specific event.
The event participant allowance max monthly distribution will be the same for all participants based on the specific amount chosen during the registration of the program. The participant is allowed to choose a different allowance amount during the program based on the different allowable program options. For example, if an event offered multiple allowance options and at the beginning the participant choose the lower conservative amount. But, then the participant received a large donation to the event on their behalf half way during the program and now wanted to increase their monthly allowable allowance to reflect additional funding they could then choose the higher allowance option that was offered by the event. However they would not be able to retroactively receive the difference between the original amount and the new larger amount from deposits of months that have already occurred. (There will be a process of requesting this change (a form) and we would have a deadline to receive the change by x date to begin with this month's deposit or it doesn't go into effect the following month, etc.)
The event's fixed costs requirements will need to be be raised first before funds are available for the participant to receive participant allowances. The intent of the event participant allowance is to cover food, housing, and incidentals each month. Therefore, we distribute it on a monthly basis not all at once even if the funds are there to receive it all at once. So we will not give more than the chosen allowance amount ahead of time due to excess of funds.
However, we do allow for making up for a deficit. If a participant has not raised enough to cover the fixed costs of the event then they will not be able to receive the total event participant allowance that month. Either they will receive no funds that month or they will receive a smaller amount if they have raised some, but not all of the amount raised. They can, however, make up whatever was a deficit that month in the following months.
For example, if the monthly total was $800 a month. But, the available funds for participant allowance for the event participant was only $500. They would be able to receive $500 for that month. The following month, if they had raised enough to receive both the following month and the deficit for the previous month (for example, they received the needed $300 plus another $800) then they would be eligible to receive $1100 total that following month.
The first possible direct deposit will occur prior to the start of the event. The last possible one will occur after the event is over (and that last deposit is only if there was insufficient funds along the way they have one more chance to make up for any deposit shortfall.)
Here is an example of a program whose participant allowance option was $2000 total. Their program was 10.5 weeks long. That means they were eligible for $190/week.
- They began support raising in February.
- Their event begins on May 20th.
- We will use whatever funds have been raised as of April 30th to deposit their first participant allowance on May 10th and for this deposit we will give 4 weeks worth of allowance.
- We will give another 4 weeks on June 10th.
- And the final 2.5 weeks on July 10th.
- The last donations for the event can be received up until July 31st and then the fund will close. The event ends on August 2nd.
- Those that had any deficit for event allowances would be eligible to receive one last deposit to make up for any shortfall on August 10th for whatever gifts were received in July.
