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January 2016

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[Inkscape] Seeking help re:Conservancy Supporter fundraiser
by Bryce Harrington 12 Jan '16

12 Jan '16

We apologize that we're interrupting the usual content on this mailing list with a fundraising message, but the non-profit home of Inkscape, Software Freedom Conservancy, is in urgent need of your immediate support: https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/ Inkscape receives a variety of important services (see https://sfconservancy.org/members/services/ ) from Conservancy. Inkscape has relied on Conservancy since 2006, and we hope you can help them out. They also support an array of other important Open Source projects, including Git, Samba, Wine, and dozens of others - see http://sfconservancy.org/members/current/ for the entire list. While Inkscape and these other projects each contribute 10% of their gross revenue to Conservancy's general fund, this doesn't add up to enough to even employee one full time person, let alone the already overworked staff of three that Conservancy has. Conservancy's fundraiser is asking people who support our principles to donate donate $120/year ($10/month), to support the organization. Conservancy seeks about 2,500 Supporters to continue its current work, and 750 Supporters to continue a "bare minimum" of services to its projects. Already as of the time I write this, 721 people have signed up, so your donation might be the one that ensures the basic community services continue forward or it could start paving the way towards establishing a solid commons for protecting our license freedoms. Whenever I make donations, I like to know how it is tangibly helping achieve progress on things that I care about. Here are some specific things that Conservancy has done for Inkscape over the past few years: * Handling all of our Google Summer of Code payments and travel, tending to the financial transactions with Google to receive and then disperse the money. We're planning on GSoC involvement again this year, and will be depending on Conservancy to handle all the financial bits in order to help make it all proceed smoothly. * Coordinating travel reimbursements for Inkscape contributors to attend conferences. They were instrumental in directly helping us plan, organize, and arrange the 2015 Inkscape Hackfest, and will be helping us organize another hackfest in 2016. * Receiving and tracking all donations. We've received tens of thousands of dollars in donations from you (thank you!) and without Conservancy, our attentions would be consumed by financials instead of remaining focused on the software development. The Conservancy provides access to their ledger system, giving Inkscape great transparency over our finances, while unburdening us from the responsibilities of handling all the individual donations and transactions. * Collaborate with us in crafting the legal policies to establish a Funded Project system for Inkscape. This new system will enable donors to choose specific development tasks to pursue with their money, giving the Inkscape community a powerful way to directly influence the future of the project. * Recovering lost money in Inkscape's paypal account. * Handling book royalties from publishers of Inkscape manuals. * Handling thank-you gifts to developers. In 2015 we distributed programming manuals to Inkscape's top contributors, which proved to be a very cost effective educational effort! * Keeping the non-profit status for us so that Inkscape doesn't have to form its own org and file its own paperwork. In 2015 Conservancy helped us revise our legal charter, the Fiscal Sponsor Agreement (FSA), that defines how Inkscape operates under non-profit rules, board elections, and so forth. Beyond these basic services, Inkscape also benefitted from Conservancy's wider category of license protection services. These services are currently at risk and will only continue if the 2500 membership mark is attained by the community. * Protecting the Inkscape trademark and logo. They helped us finally get the Inkscape name and logo officially trademarked in the U.S. This benefits users by preventing various knock-off scams that purport to sell Inkscape or market scammy services or products using our name. * Enforcing the GPL for Inkscape. Unfortunately we've had a few instances of companies attempting to rebrand Inkscape and sell it as their own proprietary product. We don't have a problem with companies re-distributing Inkscape, so long as it is done according to the GPL license. When nefarious entities seek to subvert that, Conservancy provides the legal muscle necessary to stop it. As you can see, Inkscape relies on the important work of Conservancy. Please donate to Conservancy - if you do so before January 31, the donation will be counted double thanks to a generous matching donation provided by Private Internet Access. (Conservancy is a 501(c)(3) charity incorporated in New York, and donations are typically deductible on U.S. taxes.) Please visit: https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/ And please also support Inkscape's SVG Standards work here: https://inkscape.org/en/support-us/svg_working_group/ Bryce

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