[GRASS-PSC] Accounting and organization of sponsorship

[Jeff McKenna]

I've been following this closely and many foundations have switched to 
Open Collective, as it seems to be a good solution that handles 
invoices, tax receipts, distributing funds; whereas recently Github has 
fallen out of favor by foundations because it has recently stated that 
it will not produce tax receipts (sorry I don't have that link handy). 
I've heard success stories by foundations based out of the EU and the 
United States.

-jeff



-- 
Jeff McKenna
GatewayGeo: Developers of MS4W, MapServer Consulting and Training
co-founder of FOSS4G
http://gatewaygeo.com/




On 2021-03-13 12:10 p.m., Michael Barton wrote:
> Thanks for the ledger.
> 
> Open Collective looks interesting. Have you had previous experience with it?
> 
> Michael
> _____________________________
> C. Michael Barton
> Director, Center for Social Dynamics & Complexity
> Director, Network for Computational Modeling in Social & Ecological Sciences
> Associate Director, School of Complex Adaptive Systems
> Professor, School of Human Evolution & Social Change
> Arizona State University
> Tempe, AZ  85287-2402
> USA
> 
> voice: 480-965-6262 (SHESC), 480-965-8130/727-9746 (CSDC)
> fax: 480-965-7671(SHESC), 480-727-0709 (CSDC)
> www: http://shesc.asu.edu <http://shesc.asu.edu>, 
> https://complexity.asu.edu <https://complexity.asu.edu>, 
> http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton <http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton>
> 
>> On Mar 13, 2021, at 8:34 AM, Moritz Lennert 
>> <mlennert at club.worldonline.be <mailto:mlennert at club.worldonline.be>> 
>> wrote:
>>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> FYI, for our accounting I have created a continuous ledger in 
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nextcloud.osgeo.org/__;!!IKRxdwAv5BmarQ!Ky886vUYnPSDdAcnZ5MfhPOQYGZ75hgkbyygGbWyerc3w2Whifx2_ZHT7M5axLEkBzgijDU$ 
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nextcloud.osgeo.org/__;!!IKRxdwAv5BmarQ!Ky886vUYnPSDdAcnZ5MfhPOQYGZ75hgkbyygGbWyerc3w2Whifx2_ZHT7M5axLEkBzgijDU$> 
>>  -> GRASS-PCS -> Accounting and have filled it with all transactions 
>> in our PayPal and bank account since 2018. The idea is to use this as 
>> our central accounting tool and note all coming transactions in this 
>> ledger. This will allow to easily extract annual accounts and follow 
>> our current financial situation.
>>
>>
>> As already discussed we should also review the way we collect 
>> sponsorship money, for different reasons:
>>
>> - The current PayPal Money pool runs over my personal account which is 
>> not very bus-factor resilient.
>>
>> - Venka's experience has shown that from some countries it is not easy 
>> to contribute without a PayPal account, e.g. with a credit card.
>>
>> OSGeo uses a Github sponsorship system which we should advertise as 
>> people can dedicate their contribution to a specific project. However, 
>> AFAIU, the Github sponsorship system is limited to people with a 
>> Github account and only allows deciding on a continuous (monthly), not 
>> a one-shot donation.
>>
>> In light of this, I would suggest the following for our sponsorship 
>> system:
>>
>> - 
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://opencollective.com/__;!!IKRxdwAv5BmarQ!Ky886vUYnPSDdAcnZ5MfhPOQYGZ75hgkbyygGbWyerc3w2Whifx2_ZHT7M5axLEkZcgp-Ow$ 
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://opencollective.com/__;!!IKRxdwAv5BmarQ!Ky886vUYnPSDdAcnZ5MfhPOQYGZ75hgkbyygGbWyerc3w2Whifx2_ZHT7M5axLEkZcgp-Ow$> 
>>  for flexible one-shot, credit-card based sponsorships, including a 
>> series of different options and advantages (ex: receipts) for 
>> sponsors. How we organize this exactly (via fiscal host) is still to 
>> be determined (maybe OSGeo can become a fiscal host for all OSGeo 
>> projects ?).
>>
>> - 
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/sponsors/OSGeo__;!!IKRxdwAv5BmarQ!Ky886vUYnPSDdAcnZ5MfhPOQYGZ75hgkbyygGbWyerc3w2Whifx2_ZHT7M5axLEk7cbj_mU$ 
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/sponsors/OSGeo__;!!IKRxdwAv5BmarQ!Ky886vUYnPSDdAcnZ5MfhPOQYGZ75hgkbyygGbWyerc3w2Whifx2_ZHT7M5axLEk7cbj_mU$> 
>>  for recurring sponsorship.
>>
>> - Our bank account for direct money transfer, mostly within Europe.
>>
>>
>> Does this sound reasonable for everyone ? If yes, I will look into the 
>> details of Open Collective and create our system.
>>
>> Moritz
>>