[OSGeo-Board] Spending Approvals, Money, etc

[Dave McIlhagga]

Folks,

It seems to me that we need to put together a plan of items we feel that 
  are priority for OSGeo to have funding available for in order to be 
successful regardless of where that funding comes from.

We've come up with an annual budget that we would like to work from, 
this is giving us some general targets to work towards in the 
Fundraising committee. Autodesk has been extremely generous to fill in 
the initial holes -- but we clearly need to get our act together to make 
sure this can be sustained. We all heard at the last board meeting that 
over the next three years - as a non-profit, max of a third can come 
from a single organization. So obviously we have work to do to ensure we 
have multiple sources of $$$ coming into the organization.


So we've identifed some priority needs for the next months - these are 
actively being funded:

Infrastructure - funded until Jan. 1
Exec. Director - funded for next 2-3 quarters?
Promotion at a few conferences - funded for this fall


What else do we need between now and say Jan 1?

Infrastructure replacement:
  --> What do we need before jan 1 / after?
  --> Can we get a plan with $$$ requirements together, short and long term?

VisCom:
  --> Swag / Shirts -- do we have an idea of amount we need? Does $2,000 
for this seem reasonable between now and end of year given demand we've 
seen? more? less?
  --> Michael expressed some frustration with need for some graphic/web 
design support -- nothing seems forthcoming in the community, so can we 
put together some budget room for this? I'd suggest we get michael to 
put a proposal together for us so we understand what this need is for. 
We can evaluate and budget accordingly.


Fundraising:
  --> we might need some seed $$$ to be successful here. I'll come back 
with further thoughts on this if appropriate as we put together our docs 
for fundraising.


I think if we can line item these things -- they would cover critical 
priorities for the next few months -- others may have different ideas. 
The point I think Gary is trying to make is, let's put this info 
together and see where we can get the $$$ to support this. If we can get 
it through fundraising -- excellent. If Autodesk is willing to help 
somewhat as they have been so generous for to date -- great. But let's 
decide what we really need to make this work. If we can't get the money 
- we decide what gets chopped.


We're all short in resources which I understand, and why I'm hopeful an 
ED can help -- to fill in the coordination of pulling this type of info 
together.

In the meantime, the clock continues to tick. For my part -- I'll do my 
best to get our fundraising activities in line so we can begin to get 
some cash-flow projections from fundraising in the cue.

Dave





Gary Lang wrote:
> Markus,
> 
> To date, we have not set a targeted budget for anything other than an ED 
> so we have not put money in it. Instead we've been reactive and just 
> paid people who need miney from OSGeo. But it's always at OSGeo request, 
> and so OSGeo is spending it's money. As ADSK rep and treasurer, I could 
> write an ADSK check to OSGeo and then 30 seconds later write one to the 
> recipient. Heretofore, that seems silly.
> 
> I'm merely proposing that OSGeo set a set of actions down, budget it so 
> that we can make the money available in the OSGeo account. Otherwise how 
> much do I put in?
> 
> Gary
> 
> --- Original Message ---
> From: "Markus Neteler" <neteler.osgeo at gmail.com>
> Sent: Wed 8/23/06 4:02 pm
> To: "Gary Lang" <gary.lang at autodesk.com>
> Cc: "board at board.osgeo.org" <board at board.osgeo.org>
> Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Board] Spending Approvals, Money, etc
> 
> On 8/23/06, Gary Lang <gary.lang at autodesk.com> wrote:
>  >
>  > So OSGeo doesn't think it's been spending it's own money? That's news 
> to me.
> 
> Gary,
> 
> do we have an OSGeo bank account with money on it? That's
> not clear to me. How much is there?
> 
> Markus
>