[OSGeo Finance] Re: MapGuide Open Source Project Donations

[Frank Warmerdam]

Trevor Wekel wrote:
> Hi Frank,
> 
> I would be interested in having an phone/email conversation about using the
> OSGeo Sponsorship mechanism for MapGuide Open Source.  I think a number of
> the MapGuide PSC members are concerned about the $500 minimum donation
> amount and would like to see smaller donations accepted.
> 
> I mentioned to the PSC that I would be willing to take on the responsibility
> (at least initially) for handling the donations.  As such, I would like to
> update the Sponsorship RFC based on our discussion(s).  Since I am now a
> private consultant trying to drum up work, my schedule is fairly open.

Trevor,

I'm available now and through this evening or tomorrow morning up to
about noon eastern time.

  +1 613 754-2041

I think it would be good for me to bring Tyler on the discussion by
email since he operationally does all the bookkeeping.

---

Tyler,

The MapGuide folks seem *super keen* on supporting small donations
and I told them that if one responsible person from the project was
willing to put in some sweat equity helping with the financials I'd
be willing to try and arrange something.

Trevor seems to be calling my bluff. :-)

What can we do to handle smallish donations efficiently but still
have them associated with a project as sponsorship funds?  Would it
help if we said that donations of less than $500 can only be done
via paypal, that you and I would not keep track of who the donor is
(that is we would not create invoices, or have a specific "customer"
for the donor)?

Perhaps if we got a donation for MapGuide (as indicated presumably in
the comments associated with the paypal payment) we would bounce
the paypal email to Trevor and you would enter the payment in the
system attributing it to the project?

It would then be up to Trevor to keep track of who the donor is, thank
them and do anything else in that regard?

This still leaves us (ok, well, you) in the position of having to do
some quickbooks accounting for each payment.  But it would mean there
is no invoicing, no getting cheques or other payments to the bank,
and no tracking of the donor (for annual followup).  This is in contrast
with how we would have substantial (ie. $500+) sponsors.

Does this sound plausible?

Obviously, if we offer this to GRASS we will need to make it available
to other projects participating in the sponsorship program.

I had contemplated having Trevor responsible for all the quickbooksonline
data entry for small contributions but I'm concerned that might be fairly
risky in terms of messing stuff up - especially when extended to other
projects.

Best regards,
-- 
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I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent