[OSGeo-Conf] FOSS4G-NA -- request for financial records

[Steven Feldman]

If the FOSS4GNA committee did not stipulate a requirement for LocationTech to report financial data post conference then there is no obligation on LT to do so even if an LT employee mis-spoke. 

That said, it does not prevent LT from providing some financial information in the interest of transparency and to support/inform future organisers of FOSS4G events (global and regional).

Surely LT could publish a simple form of accounts which could be a simple as:

Income
Early Birds
Full tickets
Discounted tickets (students, speakers etc)
Free Tickets
Sponsorship
Expenditure
Venue fees
Catering
Entertainment/Party
Marketing
Equipment hire
T-shirts etc
Credit card and registration service fees
Printing
Professional Conference Organiser fees
Other
Surplus

There is no expectation that these accounts should disclose people’s salaries and it is up to LT to determine the level of granularity of info provided that adequately protects their organisation's confidential matters.

Currently the Conference Committee has no involvement in the arrangements for regional events nor can we mandate any requirements for the use of the FOSS4G brand. Perhaps it is time to reconsider this laissez-faire approach?
______
Steven


> On 15 Jun 2018, at 08:17, María Arias de Reyna <delawen at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Fri, Jun 15, 2018 at 5:26 AM, Rob Emanuele <rdemanuele at gmail.com <mailto:rdemanuele at gmail.com>> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> My understanding of what is happening here is this: a LocationTech employee mis-spoke about the organization's intentions about reporting financial data, which was never a requirement put on the organization nor the intention of the organization. The result has been a set of valid questions, which should be answered clearly.
> 
> I can confirm that the FOSS4G NA core committee never required the Eclipse Foundation or LocationTech to report financial data as part of brining them on as the logistics organizer. 
> 
> Moving forward, if the community decides that it's right and fair that the organization receiving sponsor money and taking ticket money for the conference report on a specific level of P/L data, then that requirement can be put into place and clearly communicated before any commitments are made. We (the core committee) had asked LocationTech if it was possible to report financial data in past years, and they politely declined for the reasons listed (I believe fairly), and we dropped the issue. This could represent a failing on our part to uphold the ideal of transparency, and if that is the case, then this misunderstanding is on us. One could argue we should have forced the issue, and if LocationTech had not acquiesced, we should have not used them as the LO. I was not of that opinion at the time and remain that way, though I understand and respect why transparency is important, and could very possibly be wrong. However, I believe LocationTech ran great conferences with honest and hard effort, for the good of the community. I appreciate the work they put in, while simultaneously hoping that the next conference committee, LO, and the core committee can do better in the future.
> 
> Thanks,
> Rob
> 
> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> If I can give my 2 cents:
> 
> As a member of the community I would like to know all budgets. Not only from events, but from everything. This way, I will be sure that money is well spent. And, if I see something that could be improved, I can help in improving it. I like transparency in all my teams, my own company included. Maybe I won't read all of them, but, if I suspect something is not efficient enough, I can take a look and improve it. Or point any nasty thing, if there is such a thing.
> 
> As someone who wants to run conferences, I would like to know all budgets so I have input about the possible problems and outcomes that can surprise me when organizing one. If every LOC has to run based on their own experience, we will be reinventing the wheel every year.
> 
> And finally, as someone who has run several conferences as chair, I know that it is not easy to close the final budget right after the conference. I know that the bigger the conference is, the more it gets delayed. I wouldn't expect any reliable final data until three or four months after the conference ends. And that is if and only if the organizers keep working right after the conference closes. Which, in the case of volunteer work, that usually don't happen. I was once chair of a biannual event (every two years) and got some income money still running into the bank account from the previous (two years ago!) event while we were already running our own. So, yes, this things take time, specially when it is based on voluntary work, which is not usually constant.
> 
> So, if possible, I would like to ask all FOSS4G to be transparent and publish all their data. That will help us also in generating statistics of what are the best approaches and strategies for getting better conferences. Like the discussion on twitter about giving discounts to speakers or not. Does it really push better speakers to the front? Or it  is just money "wasted"? Is it better to invest on the TGP directly? Is it better to invest on... Without data, it is only guessing and wishful thinking. So, please please please, keep the data running, it is always useful.
> 
> Said this, on this particular situation: if LocationTech haven't promised any budget disclosure, we can kindly ask them, but not force them into anything. What we can do is impose a rule that says something like "If you want to use the FOSS4G name, you should comply with some community rules like transparent budgets.".
> 
> And I was completely out of the conversation, so I am trusting all of you about this situation in particular. That's why I am so quiet about what happened to FOSS4GNA: I have no first hand info.
> 
> Have a happy weekend!
> María 
> 
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