Lets Ask Bill W.
Question & Answer # 26
How will the proposed General Service Conference be financed?
Answer
How best to finance our Conference is a moot question. The General Service Conference will function for the benefit of A.A. as a whole. Its entire cost ought to be a charge against those “Group contributions” now sent to New York for the support of the General Office. But this method is quite impossible now. Group contributions are not meeting General Office expenses. Nor can the “reserve” or the Foundation’s A.A. “book income” carry the Conference.
We therefore propose that all A.A. Groups be asked for a gift of $5 each, yearly, at Christmas. The Foundation Trustees would deposit these sums in a special account marked “Conference Funds.”
If even one-half of the A.A. Groups made this annual $5 gift to the Foundation “for the benefit of the million who don’t yet know,” we estimate that the resulting income would absorb the total yearly Conference overhead, plus all Delegates’ transportation to New York in excess of $100 each. (Third Legacy Pamphlet, October 1950)