[LGM] The transition
Susan Spencer
susan.spencer at gmail.com
Sat May 28 21:32:39 UTC 2016
Hi Louis,
This is beautiful.
Thanks for creating this road map and identifying the issues to be
addressed.
Susan
On Sat, May 28, 2016 at 1:46 PM, Louis Desjardins <
louis.desjardins at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> It is my understanding that the debate is closed about the switch to
> another organisation to handle our finances.
>
> Here’s a plan for that smooth transition.
>
> Only 8 days after the deadline. Wow!
>
> In short,
>
> We can act *now*, select the umbrella, sign the agreement with them,
> update our website. The only economic activity we have as of now is
> reimbursing and it’s under way. There is no more money coming in for this
> year’s LGM. As soon as we have sponsors or donators and money coming in to
> put in the bank, from now on, we use the umbrella. Once the reimbursements
> are completed, whatever is left will be sent to the umbrella. Meanwhile,
> all sponsorship activities can be organised; one very important step being
> to put together our long awaited annual report.
>
> In details:
>
> *Introduction*
> Structuring the finances using an umbrella organisation implicitly means
> structuring our organisation. This does not mean we have to legally
> constitute an organisation ; it means we, as a group, should establish the
> rules we want to follow, just like we have a Code of conduct.
>
> We suggested the creation of a *board* years ago but apparently people
> where not too keen about this word. Any word that suits will do. The result
> is there has to be an identifiable head to LGM. Why? Because we want to be
> able to administrate a budget and this means formalities. The good news is
> the work is already half done.
>
> What we do already is a good start. Each year at LGM, we have a meeting at
> the end of LGM. Provided it’s a bit more formal (keeping the* joyful tone
> of the meeting* but at the same time keeping in mind we need to keep
> track of certain decisions in a more official way), it’s in fact our *annual
> general meeting* (AGM). What we could do to formalise things and make
> them official to our sponsors, umbrella organisation and whoever is
> interested in LGM: nominate (or elect if necessary) a *president of AGM*
> who will help run the discussions according to the *agenda*, a *secretary*
> who will write the *minutes* of that assembly. The *agenda* should be on
> line at least a month prior to LGM. We can follow simple general meeting
> rules that already exists.
>
> - Opening of meeting
> - Confirmation of quorum
> - Nomination of the meeting’s officers (at least 2 people: president
> and secretary)
> - Reading of the agenda, adding to it if necessary
> - We are presented the previous year financial state.
> - We vote it so it becomes official.
> - We discuss what’s on the agenda, point by point, and make
> decisions
> - We vote when necessary
> - The next venue is agreed and officially voted (if possible).
> - The next budget is presented, discussed and made official by a vote.
> - We welcome and vote for new board members when necessary.
> - Board members have a 2-year mandate and can be re-elected
> (endlessly?), for 2-years mandate.
> - We can create as many committee as we need.
> - People are free to offer their help.
> - Committees that are asked for present their report, if any.
> - Since a budget is involved, the board has to be officially voted
> so LGM can speak with authority to our umbrella organisation and in turn
> our umbrella organisation is assured that it handles money that have a
> specific goal that is agreed upon by who represents the LGM community.
> - The committee members do not require to be elected unless we think
> so.
> - The minutes are kept for the next AGM when they will be made
> official.
> - The meeting finishes
>
> *Tasks*
>
> 1. *Create the Committee of **Finances, determine goals, tasks, etc.*
> 2. *Find people for this committee* (eg. Frank, Suzan, Nate, Louis,
> etc. I would suggest that this committee should always have on board the
> local organiser of the next year.)
> 3. *Select the umbrella organisation* (responsible: LGM organisation)
> 4. *Get the infos from them about the nuts & bolts of invoicing* (who
> does what, when, how is this handled, controlled), *getting the money*
> (there must be a follow-up mechanism that LGM org agrees upon), *using
> the money *(how orders to reimburse an expense are given by LGM org,
> who is entitled to give such orders, who controls what, how.)
> 5.
> *Update the sponsorship page on the website with the new infos. *
> 6. *Put together the annual report for 2016* — this is a *collective
> effort* from all the teams and should definitely include stuff about
> previous years. I suggest we ask specifically some of our best writers to
> help at least once with this task (Prokoudine? Nate? Greg?). The structured
> frame of this report will be used in the following years.
> 7. *Be ready to print n copies and to make available the report on the
> website as a PDF. *The report by the way should be made using either
> Scribus or Libre Office, as a suggestion. (My offer to print it for free is
> still on the table)
> 8. This report should be available to translators.
> 9. *Create a follow up on line document for sponsors’ contacts.*
> - Gather all the possible contacts from all our networks
> - Establish a list of past and present sponsors
> - Enrich that list, update it regularly, make it accessible to the
> members of the committee.
> 10. *Start the sponsorship process asap *(immediately after the
> umbrella association has been chosen and everything has been agreed upon —
> say, weeks from now).
> 11. *Pursue and conclude the discussion about membership* and *attendance
> fees* (or, if we do not like the idea of a membership or an attendance
> fee, a *voluntary contribution* — basically, people who can afford it,
> based on their sole evaluation, pay whatever they want and we can help them
> with some hints numbers).
> - In my view, this discussion is inevitable
> - A few comments cannot terminate that discussion. It’s not enough
> data.
> - We must gather a much larger array of facts and opinions about
> that idea.
> - A poll would greatly help gather this valuable info.
> - In addition to the ideas already proposed, a "project membership"
> could be envisioned. This means for instance that active contributors to
> projects could see their membership fees paid by their own organisation and
> not them personnaly + a bonus paid by the organisation itself. We can
> discuss that.
> - Or else, someone urgently needs to step in with a *better idea to
> secure an annual budget*, sustainably and high enough to cover
> needs that can go between 10K and 30K annually (and, once we get organised,
> these needs might increase).
> 12. *Complete the 2016 reimbursements* and any pending request
> before end of June 2016 (LD)
> 13. *Final financial report* (LD) by the end of July
> 14. *Umbrella org invoices AQDPLL for the remaining amount* so any
> money remaining after the last reimbursement is done will be transferred to
> the umbrella organisation. (This is how it was done between GNOME and
> AQDPLL in 2010).
>
>
>
> *Things to consider*
> *On site expenses (the local organiser)*
> (eg. renting of some equipment, printing, t-shirts, local transport, etc.)
>
> - The local organiser should be reimbursed just the same as a
> traveller.
> - The local organiser could use a personal credit card or cash or
> debit card, gather the invoices or receipt and submit a final expenses
> report and get reimbursed just the same as a regular submitter
> - The expenses are reviewed and accepted (the expenses should be
> agreed and accepted beforehand, so the local organisers are sure to be
> reimbursed if they pay from their personal credit card, for instance).
>
> *Off site expenses (the travellers)*
> They need to file themselves in, on the online form, and provide the
> relevant documents.
>
> *Reimbursement process in detail (task of the Committee of Finance)*
>
> 1. LGM organisation gives a one month delay after the termination of
> an LGM to participants who need financial support to provide their proofs
> of purchase.
> - Reason: since we pay in proportion of the budget and the needs,
> we need to gather all needs before we start reimbursing.
> - If we want that situation to change, we need to secure a budget
> that will be over our needs prior to LGM.
> - We would then be able to start reimbursing right away
> - In some cases, hand out the money before people buy their
> tickets.
> - A risk exists that the traveller cancels the trip and owes us
> money.
> - The money must be in the bank before LGM starts.
> 2. Each year, we must recreate from scratch the online form to
> gather the information from the participants at LGM in need of financial
> support to cover their travel only expenses to and from LGM (round trip).
> - The fields are all a necessity but there could be many less if
> the LGM organisation would decide to reimburse using Paypal only (thus, no
> bank address, no account numbers, no IBAN/SWIFT).
> - This is a discussion to have because some participants to LGM has
> expressed clearly they do not want to use Paypal. The actual proportion of
> submitters is more or less 50/50 depending on the year.
> - Paypal is by far the most efficient and simplistic way to
> transmit money anywhere in the world, to anyone.
> - Paypal handles more currencies than regular banks.
> - Paypal have no restriction on the time of the transaction as
> compared to banks where the transactions that need a currency rate are
> bound to the opening time of the markets, in the country we send the money
> from and also to the access to a rate, so, no holidays in the other
> country, no week-ends. This can become tedious.
> - Paypal is the cheapest mean, by far (10 times cheaper than the
> bank). Our money is better used when we use Paypal.
> - Paypal is the fastest mean, by far (up to 1000 times faster when
> things go wrong with the bank and average 10 times faster) because there
> is basically no form to fill, aside from the email address attached to
> people’s account.
> - We could ask Paypal to find out whether there are restrictions
> for some countries.
> - However those restrictions do not compare to those of the regular
> banking system which are very tight.
> 3. Once submitted, the form displays a message on the web page
> telling the submitter that the data has properly been sent.
> 4. The organisers receive an email.
> 5. The submitters should receive the same email (it was the case in
> previous years but not in 2016 — this needs to be fixed)
> 6. See if it is possible, from one year to another, to keep the form
> and move it to the new website. This would avoid errors and delay, and
> extra (unnecessary) work.
> 7. One member of the Committee logs in the website and downloads the
> CSV file from the on line form and all the uploaded documents.
> 8. The CSV is put in a calc sheet and submitted to the LGM local
> organiser who must check if all listed people are actually entitled to a
> reimbursement, if they showed up at LGM and if there is no-one missing in
> the list.
> - We don’t want administrative rules to push aside someone who made a
> mistake or who simply forgot.
> - We can make a reasonable attempt to communicate with that person
> if the case occurs.
> 9. Once checked, the list is returned to the Committee who can now
> check the documents for compliance, make all necessary recalls for
> documents, stamp them as OK to process, sign them and prepare the
> reimbursement orders.
> 10. The orders are transmitted at once to the Umbrella organisation by
> the mean of the same calc sheet. All relevant infos show on that list.
> 11. The documents are scanned, named following a strict name
> nomenclature to be established with the umbrella organisation and made
> available on a server to the umbrella organisation who will need those as a
> proof that the expense was actually done. They can download those documents
> at any time.
> 12. Reimbursement can take place.
> 13. Once done, the Umbrella organisation transmits the Committee a
> report that includes the real cost for each reimbursements (transaction
> fees and currency rates, total amounts).
> 14. The Committee reviews the report. If anything, we sort them out
> with our contact at the Umbrella organisation.
> 15. The Committee is ready to transmit the final report to the LGM
> board.
> 16. This report will be part of the annual report made to the General
> Assembly at next LGM, for its official approval by the Assembly.
>
> *About black listed countries:*
>
> If we know ahead of time that it will be problematic to transmit money to
> a certain country, we can reimburse on site in *cash*, provided we have
> all the relevant documents. A signed receipt attached to the invoice is all
> the accountant needs. We need to have access to cash, one way or another.
> This is a simple process. It can also be that the local organiser takes the
> money from an ATM and pays the participant, then gets reimbursed by
> electronic mean, by the Umbrella organisation.
>
> *About official receipts for tax deduction:*
>
> I think we should not care about the capacity of our umbrella organisation
> to emit official receipts for tax. My opinion is based on the fact that an
> organisation is tied to a specific jurisdiction. Hence, what is fiscally
> possible in one country or state has only an effect on the residents who
> pay their income tax in the same jurisdiction. This is why multinational
> corporations have companies in every country. The same would apply to us if
> we would care so much about emitting receipts for tax deduction. We would
> need to create a non-profit in every country where there are donators to
> LGM. Do we want that? I don’t think so.
>
> The amounts we will gather from individuals who donate are small (ie,
> below 500$ and even much less). The fiscal benefit (tax deduction) will be
> in proportion of that amount. So, if this becomes an issue, it’s an issue
> of principles. Not a significant impact on the financial situation of
> anyone and in any case we would be favouring people from one single
> country. For larger amounts (say, from 500$), the corporate world asks for
> invoices. To them, fiscally, it’s an expense, so, before their bottom line.
> It reduces their revenues. It reduces their income tax.
>
> On the part of the umbrella organisation that is a non-profit, there is no
> income tax so invoicing is not an issue. However there are rules that apply
> when an organisation reaches a certain level of financial activity. We
> should be informed at the very beginning of such rules and their effects.
>
> *About non-profits organisations:*
>
> Non-profits organisations have basically the same fundamentals in many
> countries but there can be quite a few differences from one jurisdiction to
> another as to the rules that apply to those entities. There is a fiscal law
> (generally, the most complicated law in each jurisdiction, hence the
> necessity for highly skilled tax experts) in every country and if the
> countries share *grosso modo* the definition of non-profit organisation,
> the rules that apply to them can be of a great diversity. So, it is
> advisable not to try to make general assertions about those organisations,
> from one country to another. The rules that run non-profits in the USA are
> not the same that rule them in Belgium, for instance, or in any other
> country. Wikipedia has a good article on that subject.
>
> Hope that helps.
>
> Louis
>
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