On Sun, Jan 03, 2016 at 01:18:49PM +0100, Tavmjong Bah wrote:
On Fri, 2016-01-01 at 18:17 -0800, Bryce Harrington wrote:
A majority vote of the current board members is required for approving this budget.
Overall this looks like a good proposal so I vote [a].
Just a few comments:
- Overall, I like the idea of splitting the budget out into pools...
just as long as we don't go overboard and that the main fund-raising button points to the General Fund.
Right, the main reason to do this is in support of the funded projects. Beyond that, stuff like the hackfest and svg meetings that are distinct with clear values and involve large ongoing expenses, I'm hoping it'll enable stronger fundraising, and also make the budgeting clearer.
- To be explicit, am I correct that the three initial funded projects
are being allocated an additional $250 so the total allocated from the General fund is $500 (half from 2015, half from 2016)?
Yes.
- The estimated "Donation Income" for each project seems to be quite
small.
You're right, I've guestimated on the conservative side there, in hopes the targets can easily be exceeded. I'm open to ideas for better estimates, though.
Recalling how the hackfest fundraising turned out, my guess is a modest amount of effort in making calls for donation may significantly improve the fundraising. Perhaps we could talk about this more at the next meeting.
4. Marc Jeanmougin has already reduced the number of GList's and GSList's in the Inscape code by a substantial amount. This leads to two observations: the required funds to finish this task should be a lot smaller, and Marc is the obvious person to do this task.
That's great, let's get him signed up to do the remainder, under the funded project rules. I think we can go through the process manually where we already have an individual identified to do the work. I'll review the process doc and suggest steps we can take.
You may be right that a smaller amount for the project would probably be adequate, but I also consider that if he undertakes it, he'll also be guinea-pigging the funding process. So I'd actually be ok with paying out the larger amount in this case, especially if we can get his help solidifying the process, and perhaps blogging about his experience so we have a nice case study to point to.
- I think we should consider giving SFC a one time gift to help with
their funding campaign. I'll put this into another email.
Thanks, good idea.
By the way, Samsung has a matching donation program, and SFC is one of the available approved charities (I just did a donation through this last month). It would be a good idea for donors to check if their employer has a similar thing - great way to double the benefit SFC receives.
I offered to Karen also to post a note to our website about the funding need for SFC, and will follow up on getting something posted.
(On a more doleful note, it occurs to me that we may want to do a little contingency planning just in case worse comes to worse here.)
Bryce
Tav
Proposal:
1. Adoption of the Rev1 budget in the attached spreadsheet for use as guidance in 2016 finances.
2. Align the 2016 budget to the Software Freedom Conservancy's fiscal year, which runs 3/1/2016 to 2/28/2017. We will stretch the 2015 budget to cover expenses through 2/29/2016.
3. Formalize the division of Inkscape's funds into distinct "pools", each carrying balances year to year, and registered in Paypal to allow donors to directly target the pool they wish to fund, as we did in 2015 for hackfest:2015 donations. We will still have a General Fund for general expenses and untargeted donations.
4. Generalize last year's Hackfest:2015 pool to cover future Hackfests. The money in this pool will be used exclusively for Hackfest sponsorship and related organizational costs. Assume an increase of 150% in the budgeted amounts over last year, to make provision for increased attendance. Since the hackfest-targeted fundraising has proven successful, no additional money is being allocated from the General Fund; we'll rely on the balance from last year and ongoing fundraising to cover these expenses.
5. Establish a new SVG Working Group funding pool. Seed this pool with $2250 from the General Fund, usable retroactively (i.e. the pool can be used to cover the Feb 3-6 meeting in Sydney, Australia.)
6. Allocate $250 each to the three existing funded project proposals, and to three new funded projects (to be determined in a subsequent board vote). Each funded project will have its own pool, in order to track per-project donations.
7. Other budgeted expenses follow the 2015 budget. An OSUOSL grant, Developer Education (details tbd), and sponsorship for LGM and SCALE are budgeted with the same amounts as 2015. The Contingency line item from 2015 is eliminated since we didn't have a use for it, and its $500 is lumped into Other Events.
8. Board chairman will document the budget on the Inkscape website, and follow up with subsequent votes on individual expenses as appropriate or as they come up.
[ ] a. Yes, adopt budget as described in "Rev #1" (below) [ ] b. Revise budget with the following changes recommended: _____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________ [ ] c. Do not establish a budget for 2016
Background:
At the end of 2015 we have a balance of $38,000, with $11,613.10 of that allocated to the Hackfest "pool", and $750 allocated to three funded project efforts.
As detailed above, the 2016 budget is an evolution from 2015. The most notable change is the formalization of funding pools. This structural change to the budget is partly to facilitate the funded project system currently under development, but also helps establish the philosophy of empowering our donors in helping guide Inkscape's future through their contribution choices.
The attached spreadsheet shows two tables. First is a listing of expenses including allocations of money from the General Fund to other pools (with expense amounts indicated in blue), and estimates for the expenses. The second table summarizes the expenses, expected donation income, and allocations between pools (with income amounts indicated in blue). Numbers in italic indicate the amounts are just guesses, and will be revised when actual amounts become known.
The budget is more complex this year, I hope the spreadsheet helps make it comprehensible and apologize if it doesn't. (Advice for helping make it clearer would be appreciated.)
Votes:
Resolution:
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