[Board] next board meeting & project sponsorship

Tyler Mitchell tmitchell.osgeo at shaw.ca
Thu Jun 2 22:47:39 PDT 2011


> There has been discussion previously about the accounting hassle 
> created by projects accepting small donations (along the lines 
> of "OSGeo is not a bank").  I wanted to hear again what the 
> specific issues were.

It doesn't have to be an issue, if handle well enough.  Basically our manpower is limited in tracking our finances (basically just me doing it) - but it is doable in a way to minimise challenges:
* donate through the Paypal account for OSGeo I have set up.  I just add an classification keyword for each project donation button so it can be summarised easily later.  OpenLayers already has this.
* then the project should designate a go-to person to work with me when they need to do reporting.  e.g. I could give read-only access to the account so they could do any reports back to the project community.
* occasionally, I can do transfers or write a check.  Maybe once or twice a year would be easy to handle.

Doesn't have to be more complicated than that.

> Seeing that other projects recognize sponsors at different 
> levels, I'm assuming that this is a non-issue.

Right, the board doesn't dictate what levels sponsorships for projects should be at.  Keeping the above in mind of course would help :)  If you want a specific category/product set up in Paypal to require $1,000 donations for a certain level, let me know and we can work on it.  Otherwise, the one you've got now can accept any level, and the primary contact could go in and check out when/if someone gives at a specific level.

Make sense?  Hope it helps! Email me if you have more questions.

Tyler

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