The Costs of Running the Wood Stove Design Challenge

From inception, to announcement, to selecting the teams, to holding the Wood Stove Decathlon, the Wood Stove Design Challenge unfolded over a 2-year period.  The total cost came to about $200,000 over those 2 years, and $157,000 of that was in 2013.

In 2013, the Wood Stove Design Challenge cost about $157,000 in direct cash expenses.  In addition, tangible, in-kind donations that we would have otherwise had to pay for accounted for more than $50,000.  The largest budget items were salaries ($39,000), the tent ($33,000), prize money ($30,000) and testing ($23,000).

Overall, our largest funders were NYSERDA ($47,000), the Osprey Foundation ($40,000), and the District of Columbia ($10,000).  In addition, we had extremely large in-kind support from ICC Chimney, which was probably in the $20,000 range, the Chimney Safety Institute of America, the mobile particulate sampling companies Wohler and Testo, Brookhaven National Lab, Popular Mechanics, Travis Industries and others.

One reason the Alliance was able to hold this competition for a total cost of $200,000 is that salaries were low, and we kept many expenses to a bare minimum.  If the Alliance were to do another similar Design Challenge, we would have to plan for a total of about $300,000 over a two year period, and use at least $200,000 of that for the year of the event.

2013 Decathlon Costs Salaries  (Jan. 1 - Nov. 30, 2013)
President (50%)	$23,000
Research Fellow	$3,200
Research Fellow	$1,875
Web/IT	$1,000
WSDC assistant  (50%)	$6,000
Taxes, benefits & payroll (50%)	$4,500
Sub-total	$39,575
Prizes
First prize	$25,000
Second prize	$5,000
Sub-total	$30,000
Contractors
Brookhaven National Lab	$23,000
Media consultant	$2,500
Sub-total	$25,500
Event costs
NPS cost recovery deposit	$1,800
NPS police	$2,244
Tent, generator, tables, chairs, etc.	$33,117
Portable restrooms	$535
Signs	$690
Add’l liability insurance	$809
Lunches/food	$950
Local Travel	$200
Judges hotel	$2,300
Transport	$1,500
U-Haul Rental & scaffolding	$680
Misc. event supplies	$3,500
Sub-total	$48,325
Other costs
Jan. Brookhaven Judges Meeting	$3,000
Supplies	$1,000
Copying/printing	$600
Rent, phones, etc. (50%)	$7,450
Misc.	$1,600
Sub-total	$13,650
Total 2013  Decathlon expenses	$157,050