[Board] Mid-summer financial review

[Dave McIlhagga]

Re. the off-the-wall idea -- I'm not so sure its that crazy. If OSGeo  
were to align with anyone though -- I'd suggest another open source  
foundation would be a better fit ... seems to me there is much more  
community overlap with the IT open source universe then the  
traditional GIS community.

On the original issue re. the financial situation -- I still wonder if  
we're doing enough on the fundraising side of the equation. It might  
be worth a mini-campaign to at least inquire from some of the obvious  
candidates to understand what would make membership attractive to them.

Dave




On 1-Jun-09, at 12:40 PM, Paul Ramsey wrote:

> At some point a budget-to-actual cash flow projection would be
> helpful. As you note, our "new revenue" assumptions appear to be
> disappearing (though it's always hard to predict). If we have a good
> prospect of $85K ongoing, we are not in completely dire straights. It
> remains unlikely that FOSS4G2009 will in fact lose the max, but it
> looks increasingly likely that they'll manage a concerted run at it
> (25? 35?). That puts us closer to an actual cash crisis, as we wait
> the 12 months for Barcelona to re-fill the coffers.
>
> (Speaking of which, early indications are that everyone and their dog
> is going to Barcelona, and we're still 16 months out. We should ensure
> the LOC manages us to a hefty profit by setting their break-even point
> at some low figure like 550 attendees.)
>
> If you want an off-the-wall idea for how to maintain many of the more
> demanding jobs of the Foundation while reducing expenses, freeing up
> time, aligning with a core mission and even potentially increasing
> revenues, I have one -- explore an organizational partnership with
> GITA. They already do non-profit accounting, they can do conference
> organizing in house, and their mission (education) is aligned to one
> of the core things OSGeo should be doing for the overall community
> (education about open source).
>
> Yours,
>
> Paul
>
> On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 6:25 AM, Jo Walsh <jo at frot.org> wrote:
>> dear all,
>>
>> Frank has talked on the finance list about his desire to
>> hold a mid-summer financial review for OSGeo.
>>
>> This is a summary of the situation as I see it:
>>
>> While Autodesk remain our main, sustaining sponsor,
>> they are no longer OSGeo's sugar daddy.
>> The financial crisis has hit sponsorship budgets,
>> and our good hopes of two more 30K+ sponsors
>> are not materialising. So far we have 85K coming
>> for the year.
>>
>> Due to decrease in travel and training budgets
>> we also face a possible loss on 2009's FOSS4G.
>> The worst case scenario is a 50K loss, though we
>> have funds to cover this and to seed 2010's event
>> which hopefully will be profitable again.
>> We also face the expense of proper tax preparation.
>>
>> In the meantime the prospect is that we cannot
>> afford to sustain a full-time staffer from late this year.
>> We have to figure out what to do about this,
>> as much for Tyler's peace of mind as OSGeo's plans.
>>
>> FOSS4G is quite late in the year and the prospect
>> of an F2F board meeting has been raised. Perhaps
>> it can be done with 2 groups in NA and EU with a
>> conference line in between. I don't really plan to
>> re-stand for the board this year but i want to make sure
>> that action is set up or i won't be meeting my current
>> responsibility.
>>
>> cheers,
>>
>>
>> jo
>> --
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