[Qgis-psc] Discussion around changing sponsors to members in QGIS.ORG

[Andreas Neumann]

Dear PSC (and active contributors),

I would like to discuss if we could change our statutes again (sorry 
about that - and of course only if you agree - we can vote on it).

The idea is to change our current sponsorships we have to a membership 
in the future. As it is now it would be purely voluntary - and they 
wouldn't have voting rights. We could call them "sustaining members" or 
"supporting members" and we could still keep different membership 
categories. Instead of calling them gold/silver/bronze, we would could 
them something like small (the current bronze), normal (the current 
silver), large (the current gold) - or something similar (perhaps you 
have better ideas about the naming) - just to make sure it is not a 
sponsorship anymore - and gold/silver/bronze is quite attached to 
sponsorships.

Why would I suggest such a change?

* There is a good chance that our sponsorship payments will reach a 
limit (150k CHF = approx. 130k €), if we would surpass that limit, then 
we would have to charge VAT on the sponsorship payments

* on the other hand membership fees of an association are not subject to VAT

* a membership could be easier for public authorities to pay, instead of 
a sponsorship

* Maybe organizations are more likely to renew a membership fee than a 
sponsorship (maybe more commitment) - but not sure about that.

* we would still have a public listing of sustaining members (with their 
logos, website and location), but we wouldn't call them sponsors anymore

* Members are welcome to add a donation on top of the membership fee. 
This would be similar to now. Some bronze sponsors maybe voluntarily pay 
1500 instead of 500, but are still listed as bronze, until they would 
surpass the threshold of the next level.

We can discuss or think about if we can give such sustaining/supporting 
members some additional benefits (which would help attract more of them) 
- e.g. a small member could name 2 bugs that get prioritized during bug 
fixing time, for normal it would be 5 and for large some maybe 10. Or 
maybe you would have some other ideas about benefits for such members 
instead. I think they shouldn't have voting rights - that should stay 
with the current voting members (the active contributors, user groups 
and developers).

Thoughts?

Greetings,

Andreas