[OSGeo-Conf] FOSS4G 2014 Budget Sharing

[Eli Adam]

tl;dr FOSS4G financial success is vital and important to OSGeo, FOSS4G is
more financially successful than you think it is, should the OSGeo board
consider redirecting some of the FOSS4G financial success into greater
emphasis on other OSGeo Mission aspects?, my opinion on FOSS4G profit
splitting/redirection.

I think that as OSGeo's main funding mechanism, FOSS4G proceeds are
important to the OSGeo Board of Directors.

In many years, FOSS4G proceeds have been higher than expected and to my
knowledge have always gone to OSGeo (although sometimes apparently very
late or slowly).  I see Gavin's email explains that this has not always
been the case and this is good to document.  This should also be apparent
from previous contracts, although I can't find those contracts in svn where
I would expect them.

I also like the idea of the Local OSGeo Chapter in some cases getting some
of the proceeds which could help at future local conferences for funding
OSGeo Live USB printing and other items.

What I think would be ideal would be for the first portion of proceeds to
go 100% to OSGeo to some amount (in 2014, I think that amount should
probably be $75,000+), then 100% to the Local OSGeo Chapter for future
events (up to $10,000), then a 90% OSGeo 10% any other entity for anything
else.  (I agree with Andrew's previous statement, "Perhaps it is
appropriate to consider a percentage when the organizer covers any loss and
one for when OSGeo covers the loss.")

The above is just my opinion of how it would ideally work, this should
really be determined by the Board of how to best align these FOSS4G aspects
with the OSGeo Mission and Goals (with input from the conference committee
of course).

In cases of very successful conferences, I would like to see more emphasis
on lowering the price, offering more developer registrations (to qualify,
1000+ loc to an OSGeo project in the last year, or some other measure), and
funding the local chapter so chapters can easily fund subsequent events
with OSGeo Live USBs, OSGeo swag, etc.  The budgeting of FOSS4G is always
very conservative which leads to higher than expected proceeds and caution
towards lowering the price, developers registrations, student
registrations, etc.  I think that the DC and PDX proposals both keep this
tradition of conservative estimates (although the PDX one acknowledges this
as large proceeds back to OSGeo).   One way to overcome the chicken and egg
situation of lowering the price and erring on the side of caution for
FOSS4G budgeting would be to cap the proceeds from FOSS4G ($125,000?) and
then put the rest into lowering the price of next year's FOSS4G to be
applied to the registration expense after the budget is determined.

Best Regards, Eli



On Sat, Jul 6, 2013 at 10:18 AM, Dave Patton <davep at confluence.org> wrote:

> On 2013/07/06 10:04 AM, David Percy wrote:
>
>> I always thought that all profit went to OSGeo from the international
>> event! Did BC, South Africa, Australia, Barcelona, or Denver retain
>> any profit for the local organizers?
>>
>
> The 2007 Victoria BC FOSS4G passed on all of the
> profit to OSGeo (approx $100,000).
>
> --
> Dave Patton
> Victoria, B.C.
>
> Degree Confluence Project:
> Canadian Coordinator
> Technical Coordinator
> http://www.confluence.org/
>
> Personal website:
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