[Board] new Sponsors page draft

Fri Oct 16 07:14:48 PDT 2015

I can certainly provide either you or Jody invoicing abilities (via
quickbooks) (or both).

I'm very pleased that Jody has offered to work on this and I can certainly
work on this together with Jody (or you but I think you have too much on
your plate already).

Mike

On 10/16/15,  10:03 AM, "Board on behalf of Jeff McKenna"
<board-bounces at lists.osgeo.org on behalf of jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com>
wrote:

>Hi Daniel,
>
>The board did have a good discussion on this yesterday.  It is indeed
>unfortunate that OSGeo sponsors haven't been invoiced since 2012, but I
>feel it is good to be open with this now and keep an uptodate record of
>this on the public page (note that if you check the logs of the meeting
>this wasn't my idea at all, however I do agree with it).  I can commit
>my time to working with past sponsors as well as building new
>relationships, and it is really great that Jody is championing this.
>Can I and/or Jody be given powers to invoice?  I would like to start
>this today, no sense in waiting any more, especially as 2016 is
>approaching.
>
>-jeff
>
>
>
>
>On 2015-10-16 10:23 AM, Daniel Morissette wrote:
>> Hi Board,
>>
>> I was surprised to read this morning that all sponsors had been removed
>> right away with no effort to contact them. After all this has been on
>> hold for about a year (since the IRS saga resolution), so there was no
>> urgency to remove anyone from the website right away. It is our (OSGeo)
>> problem if they were not invoiced, none of them are in fault for not
>> paying their sponsorship invoice since they didn't receive one.
>>
>> I think it would have been polite to contact each sponsor and give them
>> a few weeks to confirm their intention to stay or not before removing
>> them from the page. My personal apologies to Jeroen/GeoCat and other
>> past sponsors for not addressing this situation and following up with
>> invoices last fall before leaving the treasurer seat.
>>
>> How about putting them all back online for now and removing only those
>> who fail to confirm their intention to renew their sponsorship after a
>> reasonable (few weeks) notice? Those who have already expressed their
>> intention to NOT renew (I'm aware of at least one) should be removed
>> right away of course.
>>
>> With respect to the situation of sponsors billing vs IRS, etc, the "free
>> ride" mentioned in this thread was only discussed offlist as a potential
>> solution and never formally approved, but the overall situation was
>> mentioned publicly in my treasurer report last year at the AGM and on
>> the mailing list here, so this is not news and the whole community was
>> aware of it:
>>
>> https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2014-September/012066.html
>>
>> """
>> Short term actions:
>> -------------------
>>
>> ...
>>
>> - Invoice sponsors for 2013-14. We have not invoiced sponsors while we
>> were waiting on resolution of our non-profit status from IRS since it
>> was not clear at the time if their contribution would be taxable, so I
>> preferred to wait. Now that the non-profit status is confirmed it's time
>> to get back on track with our sponsors.
>> """
>>
>> All that being said, thanks a lot to the new board for grabbing the ball
>> and addressing the sponsors situation, something that I/we should have
>> done a year ago after the IRS situation got resolved.
>>
>>
>> Daniel
>>
>>
>> On 2015-10-16 8:47 AM, Jeff McKenna wrote:
>>> Hi Jeroen,
>>>
>>> As Jody mentioned, I am sorry for this confusion.  I will try to
>>> summarize the situation here, and OSGeo treasurers can correct me, but
>>>I
>>> think it is important that we speak of this openly (I don't think this
>>> has ever been publicly spoken of, since I've been on the board since
>>> 2009).
>>>
>>> I believe OSGeo's long battle to resolve the non-profit tax status
>>> (thank you Tyler and Daniel for resolving) affected our invoicing of
>>> sponsors in 2013.  We are now of course 501(c)(4) exempt, but that came
>>> in late 2013, and even then I remember there were some complications
>>>and
>>> further steps needed to clear up.
>>>
>>> It was then decided that existing sponsors would not be invoiced for
>>> 2013 to 2014 (a "free ride" so to speak).  The same I believe happened
>>> for 2014 (no new invoices were sent out to existing sponsors).
>>>
>>> So as far as I am aware, that brings us to 2015-2016.
>>>
>>> Yesterday during the OSGeo Board meeting, sponsors were discussed
>>> (search for "sponsor" text in the logs at
>>> http://irclogs.geoapt.com/osgeo/%23osgeo.2015-10-15.log) and the OSGeo
>>> board decided to update the sponsors page listing the current sponsor
>>> thinkWhere, and then list all past sponsors below that.  Then, late
>>>last
>>> night I updated the sponsors page as we agreed in that meeting.
>>>
>>> I believe we/OSGeo must now contact all past sponsors and possibly
>>> invoice.  Thankfully Jody is interested in championing this and will
>>> work with the current OSGeo treasurer Mike Smith.
>>>
>>> I hope this clarifies what has been happening through the years, and I
>>> am sure others will speak up now and correct me where I made improper
>>> assumptions, but it is good to speak about this publicly, and improve
>>>on
>>> it for 2015-2016.
>>>
>>> Jeroen I too don't like not seeing the GeoCat logo there.  Maybe we can
>>> fast-track all this and you can phone me today and we can work through
>>> this together?
>>>
>>> -jeff
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 2015-10-16 2:55 AM, Jeroen Ticheler wrote:
>>>> Hi Jeff,
>>>>
>>>> I'm confused... GeoCat has always been a sponsor and to the best of my
>>>> knowledge still is. If this is not the case according to OSGeo it is
>>>> because no recurring invoice was send to us. We may not be the only
>>>> sponsor dropping off the list if this is the case. Can you put GeoCat
>>>> back on instead of on a list of previous sponsors? We've been sponsor
>>>> since GeoCat was founded in 2007 and will likely continue to do so in
>>>> the future.
>>>>
>>>> It would be nice to see a new plan where company size is taken into
>>>> account indeed.
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Jeroen
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> GeoCat Bridge for ArcGIS allows instant publishing of data and
>>>> metadata on GeoServer, MapServer, PostGIS and GeoNetwork. Visit
>>>> http://geocat.net for details.
>>>> _________________________
>>>> Jeroen Ticheler
>>>> GeoCat bv
>>>> Veenderweg 13
>>>> 6721 WD Bennekom
>>>> Tel: +31 (0)6 81286572
>>>> http://geocat.net
>>>>
>>>>> Op 16 okt. 2015 om 01:43 heeft Jeff McKenna
>>>>> <jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com> het volgende geschreven:
>>>>>
>>>>> Hi Board, all,
>>>>>
>>>>> As discussed in today's Board meeting, I've updated the Sponsors page
>>>>> to list our current sponsor (thinkWhere) and list all of the previous
>>>>> sponsors: http://www.osgeo.org/content/sponsorship/sponsors.html
>>>>>
>>>>> This would have to be verified by the Treasurer.  I tried very hard
>>>>> to list all past OSGeo sponsors, I went through many old documents,
>>>>> as far back as 2006.  Please let me know if I made any mistakes.
>>>>>
>>>>> I'd like to thank Alan Moore of thinkWhere
>>>>> (http://www.thinkwhere.com/) for their current sponsorship, and each
>>>>> and every past sponsor of OSGeo:
>>>>>
>>>>> 1Spatial
>>>>> 2ndQuadrant
>>>>> ASTUN Technology
>>>>> Autodesk
>>>>> Boreal-Information Strategies (Borealis)
>>>>> Camptocamp
>>>>> First Base Solutions Inc.
>>>>> GeoCat
>>>>> INGRES
>>>>> Institut Geographique National (IGN) France
>>>>> Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE) Brazil
>>>>> Karttakeskus
>>>>> LizardTech, A Celartem Company
>>>>> Metaspatial
>>>>> Ordnance Survey
>>>>> PCI Geomatics
>>>>> WhereGroup
>>>>>
>>>>> -jeff
>>>>>
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