[LGM] Request For Comments - reorganizing financial tasks for LGM

Mon May 9 15:56:11 UTC 2016

Hi all,

I have put some short answers (yes!) between the lines.

I have also written more detailed answers that I will post in another email.

2016-05-08 18:40 GMT-04:00 Nathan Willis <nwillis at glyphography.com>:

> 0. Request for Comments
>
> 0.1 Preamble
>
> Libre Graphics Meeting (LGM) succeeds and thrives as an event because
> it brings a diverse assortment of people who care about free software
> and graphics into one place: teams as well as individuals, artists,
> designers, end users, and developers.
>
> Although we often do not talk about it publicly, making this happen
> every year requires that we raise funds and this disperse those funds
> to cover costs - primarily, reimbursing attendees for their travel
> expenses.
>
> It has been a while since LGM took a conscious look at how the
> nuts-and-bolts of those fundraising and dispersal processes work, so
> we held a voluntary discussion session at LGM 2016 to consider a range
> of options.  We'd like to present the outcome of that discussion here,
> to the list, and ask for comments.
>
> Since discussions on mailing lists can occasionally run ad infinitum,
> however, and we face a looming practical deadline by which we must
> make some sort of decision in order to start work on LGM 2017, we want
> to ask that everyone who wishes to contribute to the conversation do
> so by MAY 20, 2016.
>
>
> The proposal arising from the discussion session was that LGM should
> partner with a free-software "umbrella" organization that would provide a
> fiscal sponsor role only, leaving governance-style decisions to the LGM
> community. Software in the Public Interest (SPI) was thought to be the
> leading candidate among "umbrella" organizations.
>

About the need for a new org, more in my detailed answer, coming soon.

>
> 0.2 Questions
>
> The questions posed to the LGM community, therefore, are:
>
> A. Should we try to make a change in the way LGM currently fiscally
> operates?
>

> B. If so, what umbrella organization should we work with?
> (current proposal: Software in the Public Interest)
>
> C. What specific conditions should be met by the umbrella organization?
> (see: https://etherpad.openstack.org/p/LGM_Funding_Notes)
>
>
> What follows is a more detailed examination of those issues as discussed
> at the session in London.
>
> 1. What can we improve
>
> There are two halves to our financial operations: raising donations
> and reimbursing attendees for their travel.
>

There is a 3rd part, local budget, for local expenses.

>
> 1.1 Reimbursing
>
> Years ago, LGM had an arrangement with the GNOME Foundation through
> which the Foundation's accountants would handle the paperwork and
> red-tape of sending out reimbursements (be they checks or electronic
> payments of some sort).  LGM always retained the decisions about who
> (and how) correctly qualified for those reimbursements.
>
> GNOME Foundation no longer does this for us, though, and so for the
> past few years, the task of processing all of the travel documents and
> financial information has been left up to volunteers in their spare
> time.  It is a grueling and thankless task, far more so for a
> volunteer.  Every reimbursement request has its peculiarities, and
> everyone has a sense of urgency.
>

GNOME was with us for less that 2 years. We eventually switched to AQDPLL
(Canada-based non-profit corporation).

>
> If we can find a way to forge a new arrangement where the processing
> work could be offloaded to a professional bookkeeper, but one in which
> we as LGM still retain the decision-making part of the process, we
> believe we could speed up the reimbursement process and make it less
> painful over the long haul.
>

The only need here is to hire someone for a short period of time. Please
refer to my long answer from a previous email.

>
> 1.2 Fundraising
>
> An arrangement of that sort would also allow our volunteers to spend
> less of their time juggling competing bank-routing-system details and
> more of their time talking to potential donors.  Here again, in recent
> years, the job of soliciting donations has been left to a few
> volunteers, and it is a time-consuming process -- even for
> long-standing friends of the event who are strong supporters of free
> software.
>
> A corollary to the fundraising equation is that, since we no longer
> operate in conjunction with the GNOME Foundation, it is substantially
> more difficult to convince potential corporate donors to support LGM.
> This is because corporate financial officers prefer to work with
> established, well-known entities when significant sums of money are
> involved.
>

This is not exact. We do have the ability to invoice large corporations and
we have done it over years.

>
> This puts LGM, which is a loose coalition of like-minded projects and
> individuals, at a disadvantage.  Corporate donors expect to deal with
> "known quantities": organizations with an easily-verifiable public track
> record.  They also expect standard accounting practices: invoices for
> their donations that conform to generally accepted business rules, the
> ability to accept donations as bank transfers or corporate credit
> cards, and so on.
>

Credit cards is the only mean we cannot use for now because it would cost
us too much for the benefit. An invoice with a wire transfer is well
accepted.

>
> Our volunteers often have good contacts at potential corporate donors,
> but as the sponsorship requests move up the ladder internally, personal
> contacts mean less and less to those people who make company-wide
> decisions about marketing budgets, and legal formalities mean more and
> more.
>

> If we can forge an accounting arrangement under which an official
> non-profit organization (or for-profit company) can accept donations
> on behalf of LGM, our fundraising efforts will become easier and, in
> all likelihood, more successful.
>

Somehow, I wonder how that assertion made it into the present overview.
Some info was lost over time. We already have all that. Only, it is
Canada-based. We can already deal with most currencies and with basically
any corporation. We dealt satisfactorily with OIF, for instance, and with
Google, HP, PSF, FSF, Wikimedia CH, and other companies and organisations.

Questions we could raise are, would a Europe-based (which country)
non-profit be more helpful, and why? What is it that a Canadian-based
non-profit cannot do, with regards to LGM activity?

> 2. Options
>
> 2.1 Requirements
>
> In essence, we would ideally like to find an arrangement that provides
> us with two things:
>
> - a legal entity that can accept donations on behalf of LGM.
>

We have that already.

>
> - access to a bookkeeper or accountant who can process reimbursements.
>

I suggested to hire a bookkeeper (I could have had this idea long ago).
However, let’s not dream too much: incomplete documents will always happen
and will delay reimbursements. But it is true that the process can be
drastically accelerated if we hire a bookkeeper, which I will do this year,
starting May 15.

>
> Moreover, it was generally agreed upon that we do NOT want to enter
> into an arrangement that imposes additional structure or requirements
> on the LGM organizing team or participants (e.g., a sophisticated
> governance model or formal membership requirements for
> participation).  However, the primary issue is filling the fiscal
> requirements listed above.
>

I think *discussing about membership* is sane and will not add so much work
on the organisation. We’re speaking of a couple hundred of members,
annually. This cannot be considered a heavy work.

>
> 2.2 Some alternatives
>

Read me well, I am not disagreeing with the idea of switching from AQDPLL
to another entity. I only want to make sure we understand that such a
switch will not further dismiss us from the work we have to do in order to
access to more funds.

One of the main task we failed to do over the past 11 years was to put
together the *LGM Annual Report* telling what are the benefits for the
projects in a given LGM (with both quantitative and qualitative data) and
thus why should the corporate world support our activities. There were some
attempts, but we never came up with a finished product. I am not blaming
anybody — if I would, I would blame myself first. We were asked such report
by Bdale back in 2007. We tried to gather the info from the team and I
recall having received only one report, from one project.).

Speaking of priority, this one is high and it is urgent. Unless we see this
emergency, there is not much a new org will help us achieve that we cannot
do already.

>
> Several options were discussed, including
>
> - partnering with an existing, friendly free-software organization.
>
> - working with an organization that specializes in running
> free-software events.
>
> - associating with an "umbrella" organization that serves as fiscal
> sponsor to member projects.
>
> Options for partner organizations include the GNOME Foundation, KDE
> e.V., the Python Foundation, the Free Software Foundation Europe
> (FSFE), and several others.
>
> Options for event-planning organizations include The Linux Expo of
> Southern California (SCaLE), DevConf, and the Linux Foundation Events
> program.
>
> Options for umbrella organizations include Software In The Public
> Interest (SPI), Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC), the Apache
> Software Foundation (ASF), and the Linux Foundation (LF).
> In the subsequent discussion, several additional partner-organization
> options were asked about, including Constant VZW.
>
> 3. Recommendation
>
> 3.1 Umbrellas
>
> From a strictly structural standpoint, opinion favored the
> "umbrella" organization option.  Several of the umbrella organizations
> offer flexible agreements for new member projects, under which the
> project can agree only to a specific set of services (e.g., accepting
> donations and processing reimbursements).
>
> These umbrella organizations' membership rules also, generally speaking,
> allow member projects to end their association with the umbrella
> organization
> voluntarily. This was seen as a plus, because it would allow us to try
> working
> with an umbrella fiscal sponsor but allow us to change to a new model if
> that
> arrangement proves unsatisfactory.
>

Any mandate we give should have a specific unilateral "walk away" clause,
with no penalty.

>
> 3.2 Potential partners
>
> There was interest in SPI and SFC as potential umbrella fiscal sponsors, in
> particular, due to their flexible service-and-membership rules.  Other
> umbrella organizations, including ASF and LF, are substantially more
> rigid in their structure.
>
> Between the two, SPI was thought to offer some advantages, such as its
> existing relationship with Freedesktop.org, its association with X.Org
> (which,
> like LGM, is an organization that exists only to provide collaboration and
> conferences),
> and its broad international experience (through Debian and other large
> member
> projects). But the participants believed we should remain open to other
> umbrella
> organizations, too, if more options are suggested.
>
> 3.3 Asking questions
>
> The discussion ended with participants agreeing to formulate a single,
> shared list of questions we would like to ask potential umbrella
> organizations about how they function and about how a membership for
> LGM would operate.  That list of questions is available online at
> https://etherpad.openstack.org/p/LGM_Funding_Notes
>
> 4. Reaching a decision
>
> The LGM organizers (including those at the event and others who
> participated via email) believe that we should reach out to one or
> more umbrella organizations and, if all of our questions are
> satisfactorily answered, start the process of joining the most
> appropriate umbrella organization in the next few months.
>
> However, because LGM is fundamentally a community event, we want to
> solicit the comments of everyone who participates.
>
> Please take some time to review the subject matter, and reply to the list
> with your thoughts on the three discussion questions.
>
>
> Again, we would like to have all responses by MAY 20.
>
> After that date, we will determine the next stage of the process, assuming
> that
> the community favors moving forward.
>
>
> The questions, again, are:
>
> A. Should we try to make a change in the way LGM currently fiscally
> operates?
>
> B. If so, what umbrella organization should we work with?
> (current proposal: Software in the Public Interest)
>
> C. What specific conditions should be met by the umbrella organization?
> (see: https://etherpad.openstack.org/p/LGM_Funding_Notes)
>
>
> [Writing on behalf of the LGM organizing team and those who contributed to
> the
> discussion session in London,]
>
> Thank you!
>

Thank you, Nate! Nice work and lots of work too!

To all: I have put together a long answer (sorry, not much time to read
over and make it shorter — this takes time!) that I will post next.

I will be (kind of) offline most of this week and will be able to catch up
from May 14 and on.

Have a great day!

Louis

>
>
> Nate
> --
> nathan.p.willis
> nwillis at glyphography.com <http://identi.ca/n8>
>
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>
>
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