[OSGeo-Conf] [Board] FOSS4G North America 2013

[Daniel Morissette]

On 12-08-21 8:18 AM, Jeff McKenna wrote:
> On 12-08-21 1:00 AM, Cameron Shorter wrote:
>>
>> Daniel Morissette, as treasurer, can you please explain how much money
>> OSGeo has, what our current commitments are, and as such what is the
>> maximum amount we are in the position to loose.
>>
>>
>
> Hi Cameron,
>
> Daniel is on vacation this week, but a few weeks ago he did update the
> OSGeo budget: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_Budget_2012 (pdf)
>

Thank you Jeff. As you wrote the current and projected financial 
information is there. More specifically the PDF linked from that page is at
http://wiki.osgeo.org/images/1/1a/Osgeo-budget-2012-revised-20120809.pdf

The short answer is that our projection is to have ~84k$ net cash 
reserve at the end of 2012. We should also keep in mind that there will 
be zero FOSS4G 2012 income, so we will eat some of that cash reserve in 
2013 unless we have other sources of income or reduce our expenses. 
FOSS4G-NA is exactly this type of other source of income that I welcome 
to help our finances.

With respect to Cameron's other questions:

- "what our current commitments are" and "what you think would be a 
maximum exposure we would consider we acceptable."

FOSS4G-NA and FOSS4G Nottingham would be our two only commitments of 
this type for this year. David already provided details about the 
exposure for FOSS4G-NA which I estimate roughly to 50k$ in the very 
worst and improbable scenario (unless we fail miserably in tracking the 
event), but my reasoning is that the risk is relatively low since both 
events experienced teams behind them and we have good communication with 
both. (I'd add that we should be open in the future to supporting other 
events the same way if they can prove similar level of confidence, but 
for this year we'll probably be at or close to full capacity.)

Another important variable that comes into play in my decision to 
support this is that 50% of the FOSS4G-NA profits will go to OSGeo's 
general budget (and the other 50% be earmarked for future NA events), so 
this should be seen as an investment for OSGeo and not just as a 
financial backstop for an event.

-- 
Daniel Morissette
http://www.mapgears.com/
Provider of Professional MapServer Support since 2000