[Board] Project Donations

[Dave McIlhagga]

On 23-Nov-07, at 11:49 AM, Frank Warmerdam wrote:

> Markus Neteler wrote:
>>> > It needs to be better
>> communicated how the money is used (see recent Mozilla
>> Foundation issue [1]). We are not in this situation but need
>> to avoid it from the beginning. There are many possibilities
>> to do it the right way and to avoid that people try to bypass
>> OSGeo (especially without asking us for explanations or hints).
>
> It is not my intention that OSGeo inserts itself in the loop for all
> money collected and spent around our projects.  If folks want to use
> a site like cofundos.org to collect and distribute monies for a  
> project
> then that is fine.  I'm not really clear what you mean by "to do it  
> the
> right way".
>
> Note, despite all this, I can live with the idea of project  
> sponsorship
> funds being collected and held strictly for the projects needs  
> instead of
> applying an OSGeo support portion.  If the general use percentage  
> is seen
> as significantly impeding our ability to collect otherwise willing  
> funds for
> projects then we should just do away with the concept of a 25%  
> general use
> amount.  Managing project monies would then be a pure service OSGeo  
> offers
> the projects and we would need to collect money for our various  
> needs in
> other ways.

Personally - I think this is a luxury we just can't afford at the  
moment. In truth - we are still an organization which is highly  
dependent on the generous funding we receive annually from a single  
organization. That continues to leave us vulnerable to the loss of  
that funding if that day should ever come to pass.

There is a collective need of all the projects in OSGeo, and all of  
it's members to strive for building up financial sustainability for  
the organization as one of it's key priorities. There is a practical  
need to give everyone the ability to "sleep well at night" knowing  
the future is secure -- and frankly, to convince the broader universe  
that OSGeo and it's projects are truly self-sustaining.

Dave