[Qgis-psc] Improving the effectiveness of my role

[Tim Sutton]

Hi


On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 9:37 AM, Andreas Neumann <a.neumann at carto.net>wrote:

> Hi,
>
> How about splitting the marketing from the financing. Effectively there
> is a split already these days - as Horst does a lot of the finances.
>
>
How do you mean 'split'? The intention is that PSC members self organise
their teams to achieve their tasks, which Paolo has done by co-opting
Horst. But I think it is still important that Paolo have direct visibility
into the bank accounts and keeping of books otherwise we are basically
asking him to do his job in the dark.


> As to the country to have a legal entity I think Switzerland would be a
> good place. It is relatively easy to found an association. There is
> however a threshold value regarding taxes. If the association has a
> total revenue >100'000 CHF it has to pay taxes. Also you have to pay
> taxes on profits (excl. membership fees) if those are not re-invested.
>
> There are also other forms of legal entities, e.g. a "Genossenschaft"
> (like a cooperative), which is a bit more formal than an association but
> still on the non-profit side.
>
> Switzerland also honors the European banking norms - they are even more
> European than the EU countries, as some EU banks still ask for
> transaction fees for cross-border SEPA transactions while most of the
> Swiss banks don't.
>
> In any case, we will have to do accounting and taxes at some stage.
>
>
Andreas would you be willing to go through the process of creating such an
organisation for us? I think it is important that whatever we establish can
support the idea of salaried members at some point in the future - I would
like to see that at some point we have people working full time to pursue
the interests of QGIS and paid for by the non-profit. I guess that is
supported by these types of non-profit entity?

Regards

Tim



> Andreas
>
> Am 10.01.2014 08:10, schrieb Paolo Cavallini:
> > Hi all.
> > QGIS is growing noticeably in many respects, and I feel the role of
> > marketing and financial advisor should be strengthened and improved
> > accordingly, to intercept more resources to fill up chores nobody wants
> > to do, and to improve our perceived credibility as partners for larger
> > institutions and enterprises.
> > To do so, I believe the basic functioning should be smoother, so it will
> > be easier to concentrate on the outreach. I'm therefore proposing to:
> > * automatize the processing of donations (Juergen kindly offered to help
> > with this - danke!)
> > * have a formal book keeper, so to have the current situation and the
> > historical trends ready at hand.
> > To do so, I think two steps are sooner or later necessary:
> > * being a legal entity (NGO-like, I suppose)
> > * having an individual bank account.
> > Obviously, our finances being still small, we must keep costs down for
> > all the above (also, we want the money to go into code, not into paper,
> > right?).
> > I would greatly appreciate your opinions about this. If we agree this is
> > the right course of action, any suggestions on where to establishing the
> > NGO and opening a new account (or how to get additional info) would be
> > precious.
> > Given that most of our activities (many sponsors, most developers, HFs,
> > etc.) are in Europe, I suspect this area could be our first choice.
> > All the best.
> >
>
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Tim Sutton - QGIS Project Steering Committee Member
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