Finance Committee Meeting
February 9, 2012
Committee Members Attending: Becky Jane, Peter Pettit, Theresa Steiner
Staff Attending: Scott Cassel, Amanda Nicholson, Brian Korby (contractor)
Agenda and Introductions:
Scott Cassel welcomed the finance committee and introduced the agenda for the meeting.
 Review the January financial statements
 Revisit New Business / Project Funding Ideas
January Financial Statements:
Amanda reviewed the financial statements. As of January 31st, PSI is 58% through FY12. PSI is at 54%
of its revenue target and 61% of its expense budget. The cash balance at the end of the month was
$173,849. Proposals outstanding total $640,711 and open invoices, including membership/partnership
renewals (which are not considered committed funds) total $162,385 of which $17,770 had been paid by
the date of this meeting.
Revenue: Revenue was lower than the budgeted amount for two primary reasons:
 Payments for three USDA invoices totaling $22,763.80 had not been received due to PSI’s
Section 504 Civil Rights Compliance audit. That audit was finalized 2/3/2012 and PSI was found
in compliance. Payments of $16,900 have since been issued. The remainder is expected this
month. Scott recognized Amanda’s work on completing the audit in an innovative and cost
effective manner.
 The US EPA grant for a project on Radioactive Devices expired September 30th. Work invoiced
through 12/31/2011 totaling $6,913 invoice will not be received until the extension is granted. As
of the Committee meeting, PSI expects to eventually receive these funds.
 Had these federal payments been received in January as budgeted, the revenue as of 1/31 would
have been at 58% of the budget (on par with the expected revenue for the year under the revised
budget).
U.S. EPA: Funds for the US EPA grant on radioactive devices expired and the revised scope of work was
therefore rejected. PSI did not budget the remaining $51,540 of this grant into the Revised FY12 budget,
so it does not affect the revised budget. However the loss of this revenue is a huge blow to PSI. Scott
recognized that the causes were on both the EPA side and the PSI side.
Expenses: Expenses were slightly above expectations due to some additional charges incurred in January:
 IT expenses for internet were higher than expected due to an upgrade.
 IT expenses for a project website were higher than expected.
 These temporary increases are not expected to affect the overall yearly budget and will even out
over the course of the remaining 5 months.
The Product Stewardship Institute is an equal opportunity provider and employer.
January data reflects neither negative nor positive movement in the budget for the year. February will be
an important month for PSI in which it needs to secure funds from the outstanding proposals and find
more short term funding for FY12. Updates in the March Finance Committee meeting should provide
more information on this year’s revenue trend. It will be more apparent in March if cuts will be necessary.
The Committee had no specific questions regarding the January Financial Statements.
Scott asked the committee if they had any more thoughts about funding opportunities for PSI. Peter Pettit
had not yet been in touch with Sierra about brainstorming from the Funding Needs document put before
the board on the January Board call but that is still expected to happen.
Becky asked Scott if the Advisory Council had also been asked about funding ideas and what their
feedback had been. Scott summarized the feedback from the most recent Advisory Council call. Mark
Buckley of Staples suggested that PSI explore publishing case studies about ways companies have
incorporated product stewardship and closed loop practices into their supply chain and the ways those
changes have been beneficial. Mark cited his decision to offer recycled content paper and his ability to do
so at parity by switching all Staples brand basic copy paper to 20% recycled content thereby ensuring
their supplier enough demand to lower the price. This type of work ties into PSI’s exploration of upstream
product stewardship solutions.
Becky said she could suggest some foundations she thinks would be a good fit for PSI. She emailed Scott
a list of foundations that offer grants and funding to nonprofit environmental advocacy groups locally and
nationally.
Next Finance Committee Calls
The next calls will be conducted through GoToMeeting. Amanda will confirm the dates and the
GoToMeeting information via email. The following one-hour calls will be held on:
 March 15, 2012 at 11am ET
 April 12, 2012 at 11am ET
 May 10, 2012 at 11am ET
 June 14, 2012 at 11am ET
PSI Finance Committee – Meeting Minutes
February 9, 2012
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