Money

AfrikaBurn the organisation – What is it?

Afrika Burns Creative Projects (AfrikaBurn) was created in 2007 as a community-based development project, and was registered as a Section 21 Not-For-Profit Company, (reg no 2007/020812/08).

The organisation is bound by South African law as it pertains to Section 21 companies, generally accepted accounting practice and recognised non-profit best practice. In particular, any surplus funds generated by the project may not by law be distributed to members, and must be used to further the aims of AfrikaBurn.

The Guiding Principles of AfrikaBurn extend beyond this, by stressing the importance of Communal Effort, Participation, Radical Inclusion and responsibility towards society and the environment.

Tickets – Why charge for them?

A common question about AfrikaBurn centres around the decommodification or non-commercialism of the event: If we are non-profit and non-commercial, why charge for tickets? What happens to the money?

Almost all of AfrikaBurn’s income is derived from ticket sales and is used to pay for essential on-going services. These include accounting, auditing, office rental, insurance and website hosting, as well as event production and infrastructure.

Event production includes (among other things) site rental, the creation and demarcation of the Binnekring and Buitekring, signage, toilets, medics, fuel and wood, tools, event insurance, gate set-up and Centre Camp, ticket costs, printing costs and of course the building of the San Clan.

Any income generated above these costs goes into the Creative Grant Fund for next year's event, and for outreach projects during the year.

This means that the more people that attend, the more seed capital is available for the next event, for art grants and for community outreach work.

By increasing the ticket price as it gets closer to the event we hope to encourage people to buy their tickets earlier.

This not only brings in the much-needed funds to pay for the infrastructure and set-up of the event, it also gives us an indication of how many people will be at Tankwa Town, and thus how many medics - and toilets - we need to provide.

Stipends – Who gets paid?

As an ethos-driven organisation we consciously try to minimise paid positions, we emphasise volunteering and we encourage gifting.

Some people do get paid, but these payments are stipends that are given in instances where the time requirements of a job get in the way of a person being able to support themselves. For example the DPW crew is in the desert working for more than a month, from setup, through the event, to clean-up.

The amounts given are as low as reasonably possible, and are well below commercial rates. None of the Directors draw a salary from AfrikaBurn.

As always, we welcome your participation in this and any other aspect of AfrikaBurn. We also, in the spirit of transparency, inclusion and community, strive to make all financial and organisational information available.

Questions? Get in touch.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact AfrikBurn directly:

finance@afrikaburn.com

Download Afrikaburn Income Spreadsheet