[Board] [OSGeo-Conf] Financial limit on advances and guarantees to FOSS4Gs

[Steven Feldman]

Option 3 best summarises 2013, we had no seed money, we returned 85% of our surplus to OSGeo and used the remaining 15% to give money to the UK OSGeo chapter (which will be the seed money for our FOSS4G UK 2016 event) and made a small donation to our partners and event organisers the Association for Geographic Information.

BTW our accounts are publicly available, should we make publishing accounts for the community to view a requirement of our agreement with a LOC?
______
Steven


> On 24 Aug 2015, at 23:39, Eli Adam <eadam at co.lincoln.or.us> wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Aug 21, 2015 at 11:21 PM, Massimiliano Cannata
> <massimiliano.cannata at supsi.ch> wrote:
>> Dear all,
>> I want to share my personal view  just to make discussion starting.
>> 
>> I see two very different cases.
>> 
>> 1) organizers decide to make a foss4g conference to earn money. Remember not
>> only making profits but also get paid for organizing...
>> 
>> 2) organizars decide to make a foss4g conference for other reasons as
>> vilunteers.
> 
> I see a possible third option:
> 
> 3) Organizers decide to make a foss4g conference for other reasons as
> volunteers but after returning the seed money and some considerable
> amount like $100,000 the LOC and Local Chapter gets some small sum
> like $10,000 for funding future local OSGeo activities.
> 
>> 
>> In case 1 the financial losts shall almost completely be on the organizer
>> side: it is their business risk.
>> 
>> In case 2 the financial risk may be on osgeo since he get the full revenue.
>> Only reimbursement for members and all shall be public and fully
>> transparent...
>> 
>> I would love to see a table with for each foss4g a row expressing:
>> - year and location
>> - n. of participants
> 
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G#Overview_of_past_conferences_and_attendances
> 
>> - conference fee
>> - osgeo seed money amount
>> - conference costs
>> - conference revenue
>> - organizer revenue
>> - osgeo revenue
> 
> These additional aspects may be collected from other sources and would
> indeed help. They may be scattered over the wiki and other places.
> Conference fee can probably be dug up from old websites or attendees
> inboxes and receipts.  There are probably some individuals who may be
> able to better guess than others (current or past Treasurers might
> know seed money amount, and OSGeo revenue).
> 
> Also helpful might be a pie chart of all OSGeo revenue over the years.
> 
> Best regards, Eli
> 
>> 
>> That will explain a lot to me.
>> 
>> Best
>> Maxi
>> 
>> Il 21/Ago/2015 16:37, "Jeff McKenna" <jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com> ha
>> scritto:
>>> 
>>> Hi Steven,
>>> 
>>> Thanks for bringing this to the attention of the Board.  I think it is
>>> excellent that the OSGeo Conference Committee is committed to establishing a
>>> process for FOSS4G financial support.
>>> 
>>> In terms of tackling this at the next Board meeting, I've added this to
>>> the agenda[1].  Note though that the next meeting is not until October 15th,
>>> as we'll be going through Board elections (5 new members), through
>>> September.
>>> 
>>> So I don't think this should wait until October.  I encourage all Board
>>> members now to jump in and help Steven.
>>> 
>>> I believe we need an accurate look at our yearly expenses, to get an idea
>>> of how much we can set aside, in advance.  I've taken a look at our yearly
>>> budgets[2], and we can seem to expect costs of around 70k, not including
>>> this FOSS4G advance/seed money.
>>> 
>>> In terms of estimating revenue, that is more difficult because most of our
>>> revenue is tied to the FOSS4G profits, so this can change drastically each
>>> year.
>>> 
>>> I'm not sure how to tackle this, but I'm sure our Treasurer and others can
>>> jump in and help.
>>> 
>>> [1] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_Meeting_2015-10-15#Current_items
>>> [2] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Category:Budget
>>> 
>>> -jeff
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 2015-08-21 7:03 AM, Steven Feldman wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Board
>>>> 
>>>> You are aware that Till has requested an advance and a guarantee for
>>>> FOSS4G 2016 to protect the LOC and the German Chapter from liabilities
>>>> (apologies if my very short summary is inaccurate).
>>>> 
>>>> The Conference Committee are trying to draft a standard process for
>>>> financial support to FOSS4G events, a straw man will be available on the
>>>> wiki shortly. Regardless of the detail of that process there will be a need
>>>> for the OSGeo Board, presumably via the Treasurer, to set a financial limit
>>>> on the reserves available to support advances and guarantees. Could the
>>>> Board schedule a discussion at their next meeting to consider what % of
>>>> their funds they are willing to set aside to fund FOSS4G events. Given that
>>>> we will be making commitments to the 2016 event before we know the financial
>>>> outcome of the 2015 event (etc etc) prudence would suggest reserves might
>>>> need to cover 2 years advances and guarantees. If events are successful and
>>>> remit a significant proportion of their surplus back to OSGeo, the
>>>> proportion of reserves needed for advances and guarantees should decline
>>>> over time.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Cheers
>>>> ______
>>>> Steven
>>>> 
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>> 
>> 
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