Basic Assumption

As a conservative estimate, the Conference Group can count on about $20-25,000 per year from its contract with Cambridge University Press.  Of that fund, $5,000 – 10,000 should cover current expenditures, leaving $15,000 to be spent in new ways. 

Spending Categories

This plan would put proposed spending into four categories: (1) increase the Conference Group endowment; (2) increase the amounts for the book and article prizes; (3) institute summer travel grants for graduate students and new Ph.D.s; (4) institute travel to conference grants—for the annual AHA and GSA meetings—for graduate students presenting papers.

Endowment Spending

The plan would propose to invest $5,000 each year in the Conference Group’s endowment.  Added to the $22,000 in the endowment currently, and assuming an annual 4% rate of return (a cautious estimate), this would give, after five years, an endowment of approximately $55,000.  At the standard 5% yearly payout ratio for endowments, the Conference Group would be guaranteed an annual, income of $2,750 in perpetuity.

Improving the Book and Article

Currently, the conference group awards a book prize of $700 and an article prize of $500 every other year.  It would be desirable to make both these prizes yearly ones, and to increase the amount of the book prize to $1000.  To do this, would require and additional expenditure of $650 per year for the book prize and $250 per year for the article prize, making a total of an additional $900 per year to be spent on the prizes.

Research/Travel Grants

Two $4,000 research travel grants awarded each year would cost $8,000. These grants would be for graduate student ABDs or individuals who had received their PhD in the previous five years. Eligible individuals would have to be US or Canadian citizens or permanent residents, or students enrolled in a graduate program at a North American university or faculty members employed at a North American university, and paid-up members of the Conference Group. 

Travel to Conference Grants

Two travel to conference grants in the amount of $600 each, totaling $1,200, would be awarded to graduate students currently enrolled in North American universities who would be presenting papers at the annual meetings of the GSA or the AHA, or other scholarly conference in North America—the annual meetings of the Social Science History Association or the Conference of Europeanists, for example.  To be eligible for these grants, applicants would have to be members of the Conference Group.

Recapitulation

Building the endowment: $5,000
Improving the prize awards: $900
Research-travel grants: 2 @ $4,000 each, or $8,000
Travel to conference grants: 2 @ $700 each, or $1,400
Total: $15,300.

Observations

At the end of five years, the annual endowment return of $2,750 would fund the book prize of $1,000 and the article prize of $500, leaving about $1,250.  This would fund most of the travel to conference grants.  The funds out of current income being used in the previous years to pay for these expenditures could be used for other purposes.  Of course, the Conference Group’s publishing contract with Cambridge University Press would then be up, and it might then be necessary to reconsider financial arrangements.  Even in the worst of all possible worlds, though, the enhanced endowment would remain and could pay for at least some of the Conference Group expenditures.

These figures are extremely cautious and conservative estimates.  Cambridge University Press, for instance, is projecting that by 2010 the Conference Group’s annual income from Central European History should be on the order of $40,000 per year.  Should additional funds become available, I would suggest four possibilities for their use:

  1. Increase and accelerate the funding of the Conference Group’s endowment.
  2. Add one extra research grant and two more travel to conference grants to our program.
  3. Conduct a modest advertising campaign—perhaps by using the GSA mailing list—to inform people about the new grant program and the enhanced prizes.  Ken Ledford has suggested that such a campaign could also include a pitch to subscribe to the journal.  Since there would now be some potential benefits from being a Conference Group member and journal subscriber, this might help to increase individual journal subscriptions.
  4. Improve the quality of food at the annual Conference Group Bierabend.  Doing this might encourage better attendance, perhaps even to the business meeting, as well.