[Board] new Sponsors page draft

Fri Oct 16 07:43:23 PDT 2015

Hi Jeff, All,

Yes, I saw your note in the IRC logs suggesting that past sponsors be 
contacted, I was just surprised that this didn't happen before the 
removal of the logos on the website.

My previous mail was mostly to propose an alternative short term 
solution to avoid offending our past sponsors with a sudden logo 
removal, and also add more context for everyone to understand the full 
situation. As I wrote, I could/should have resolved this myself before 
leaving the treasurer role last year, so I was not trying to point blame 
at anyone at all. (i.e. My mail should be taken as an attempt to improve 
on the resolution and not as criticism, just in case the tone of the 
email was not clear).

Once again, thanks to Jody and the rest of the board for grabbing the 
ball on this.

Daniel

On 2015-10-16 10:03 AM, Jeff McKenna 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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-- 
Daniel Morissette
http://www.mapgears.com/
T: +1 418-696-5056 #201

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