[Board] Project Donations

[Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo)]

These are all fine arguments, perhaps I'm just not as good at  
explaining the value to others so clearly. It does all seem  
reasonable to me, but it's the outward perception to members,  
projects, users and public that can be a challenge.

Let me back up - one discussion I had with Markus pushed me to  
consider how we could better help the projects on this front.  The  
one example I'm thinking of is related to QGIS.  Apparently there is  
an effort somehow related to the Italian Chapter to collect funding  
for squashing QGIS bugs.  (Markus can correct my mistakes in this  
statement)  It seems that some donors want 100% of their donation  
going toward particular project goals, so the Project Sponsorship  
angle isn't palatable.  How this aligns with the QGIS PSC, I am not  
sure.

Regardless of the details of that example, when I thought about who  
the Project Sponsorship program was primarily designed for ($  
minimum, promotion opportunity), these kinds of smaller efforts seem  
to fall through the cracks and the program does not really apply.   
Since these donors are not looking to be "sponsors", the program, on  
the surface looks irrelevant.

So, we can improve/revise that program or create something less  
formal that still helps bring the projects some cash or process.

I agree that the management of the funds can be annoying, but really  
it is no more work than already managing our PayPal accounts.  I  
certainly would not wish to be handling checks :)

Tyler

On 22-Nov-07, at 3:31 PM, Frank Warmerdam wrote:

> Dave McIlhagga wrote:
>> Tyler,
>> Why do you think it would be inappropriate to collect the 25% fee  
>> for any size of donation to projects? It's in all projects  
>> interest that OSGeo have sufficient funding to keep infrastructure  
>> in place, help with promotion, linkage to local chapters, and all  
>> the other functions that OSGeo performs. If these things are not  
>> of value to a project -- they wouldn't have become OSGeo projects  
>> in the first place. Even having the legal entity in place as a  
>> mechanism for people to donate to the projects is an important  
>> service of value to projects.
>> It seems to me that this is reasonable given the time and  
>> infrastructure to put these mechanisms in place and maintain them  
>> on an ongoing basis.
>
> Tyler / Dave,
>
> I also don't see any particular reason that small donations  
> shouldn't be
> subject to the 25% holding for general OSGeo purposes.
>
> I am concerned that small donations could result in unnecessary  
> hardship
> to manage.  Did you have thoughts on how to avoid too much burden from
> having to cash cheques for $20 and such?  Part of the 25% cut is to
> cover the work required by OSGeo to manage the sponsorships.
>
> I wouldn't mind changing http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/ 
> Project_Sponsorship
> to remove the $500 minimum, but also to remove the requirement to give
> recognition and to provide a sponsorship report to sponsors of less  
> than
> the silver ($3000USD) level.  This would keep overhead modest for the
> project for small donations.
>
> Note that projects can still collect and manage monies internally  
> if they
> want, but they aren't considered managed by or the responsibility of
> OSGeo in any way.  So, for instance, a project lead could manage a  
> paypal
> account to receive "tips" for the project, used for project tshirts or
> such if they wanted to.
>