Re: Current state of Foundation finances
On 14 April 2014 05:19, Jim Campbell wrote: > Hi All, > > On Sat, Apr 12, 2014 at 7:45 AM, Ekaterina Gerasimova > wrote: >> >> On 12 April 2014 05:29, Sindhu S wrote: >> > On Sat, Apr 12, 2014 at 5:02 AM, Ekaterina Gerasimova >> > wrote: >> >> >> >> The board expects that you may have some questions or would like to >> >> know more details about the problem, please read >> >> https://wiki.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/CurrentBudgetFAQ and contact >> >> the board at board-l...@gnome.org if you have any further questions. >> > >> > >> > I want to ask questions. >> > >> > Was this situation visible or known before or at the time funds for Dev >> > X >> > Hackfest were being allocated? >> >> No, it wasn't know. If it had been known, spending would have been >> frozen by then and a budget for the hackfest would not have been >> approved. > > > The email and the FAQ do not address the impact of the spending freeze on > previously-approved hackfests [0]. Could the board address whether > previously-approved hackfests will proceed or not? It would also be helpful > to address the impact of this "go / no go" decision on intended hackfest > participants (regardless of whether or not they had been approved for a > GNOME-sponsored travel stipend). Hi, I assume that you would like me to expand on "All Foundation members who expect to receive reimbursements within the next three months have already been informed of the issue and most have responded positively. The board will prioritise these pending reimbursements over other expenses." from the first email in this thread: The hackfests will proceed, and all the sponsored attendees were informed on Tuesday-Friday last week that their reimbursements will be later than expected. There are currently two outstanding reimbursements which were due to be paid last week, and these will be our priority as soon as we have enough cash to cover operational costs for April. There will be 18 reimbursements due for events happening now and at the end of April. Of these 18 reimbursements, 2 have requested that their reimbursements are sent as soon as possible and will be prioritized next. There will be an additional 19 reimbursements due at the start of June. All of those that have replied have said that they are happy to wait for reimbursements until the Foundation has more cash reserves. The board is currently not voting on any event expenses, but will continue voting on events to be designated as official GNOME events. For example, the Location hackfest was approved at the last meeting and it will currently not be affected by the freeze as no budget was requested for the hackfest at the time. > Also, in reviewing recent board meeting minutes, I do not see details that > would give an indication of overall financial status. Even if they aren't > disclosed publicly as part of the minutes, are things like "aging summaries" > provided or discussed as part of a treasurer's report during the meetings? There are a number of items in the minutes since October 2013 that indicate that there has been no budget for the 2014 financial year. Looking at the public minutes, it is mentioned in minutes from 2013-11, 2013-12, 2014-01 and 2014-02. The board spent 2013-03 meeting for two hours on a weekly basis to ensure that the Executive Director leaving will not affect the running of the Foundation. I did bring up the lack of budget during some of those meetings as well. There is also mention of the budget in private minutes from 2013-09 and 2013-10. The treasurer is supposed to present the board with a monthly budget, but this was not possible as I did not have the necessary information. I pointed this out almost every time that there was a vote for spending. As the treasurer, I did warn the board when votes came up with that we did not have a budget for the expense. In general, votes for hackfests and events proceeded, while votes for other types of expenses did not proceed. > Thanks, > > Jim > > [0] https://wiki.gnome.org/Hackfests/ ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Current state of Foundation finances
On 14 April 2014 10:02, Dave Neary wrote: > Hi Kat, > > Has any thought been Hi en to charging an administrative handling fee for > Women's Outreach? Clearly it is taking a lot of time to administer, it does > not seem fair that the GNOME Foundation shoulder all of the financial burden > of managing it. Yes, GNOME charges participating organisations $250-500 per intern in administrative fees, of which at least $100 usually goes on bank charges. Most organisations pay $250. When the GOPW started, the administration involved sending 30-60 payments per year. Once the OPW expanded to take in other organisations, the administrative overheads included invoicing sponsors in addition to sending payments. For example, in the 2014 financial year, I estimate that the Foundation would need to send around 250 payments and send around 30-35 invoices. It was or will be the Foundation's first time invoicing some of those companies, which entails extra work in figuring out how to do it. In practical terms, the money itself comes close to covering the hours that our administrative assistant needs to spend on the OPW. Our administrative assistant was at full capacity when sending an extra 30-60 payments per year, but the extra work which resulted in the program expanding put her over capacity. The board is currently taking on some of these tasks and other administrative tasks to ease the load on our administrative assistant. This would normally be done by our Executive Director, but we currently do not have one. > Cheers, > Dave. > > On Apr 12, 2014 1:32 AM, "Ekaterina Gerasimova" > wrote: >> >> Dear Foundation members, >> >> Due to a shortfall in the budget, the Foundation board voted on >> 2014-04-08 to freeze all expenditure which is not essential to the >> running of the Foundation. This freeze affects sponsorship expenses >> which are unpaid at this time, but it does not affect the funds which >> we hold for other organisations. >> >> By keeping our expenditures to a minimum while we regain some delayed >> revenue, we aim to have things back to normal within a few months. All >> Foundation members who expect to receive reimbursements within the >> next three months have already been informed of the issue and most >> have responded positively. The board will prioritise these pending >> reimbursements over other expenses. >> >> The issue has been caused by a number of factors. These include >> increased administrative overheads in the last few years due to the >> increased turnover which has been caused by to the Outreach Program >> for Women (OPW), and the associated payments going out while the >> associated income has been slow to come in. >> >> The board expects that you may have some questions or would like to >> know more details about the problem, please read >> https://wiki.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/CurrentBudgetFAQ and contact >> the board at board-l...@gnome.org if you have any further questions. >> ___ >> foundation-list mailing list >> foundation-list@gnome.org >> https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Current state of Foundation finances
Olav Vitters wrote: > On Sat, Apr 12, 2014 at 12:32:12AM +0100, Ekaterina Gerasimova wrote: >> The board expects that you may have some questions or would like to >> know more details about the problem, please read >> https://wiki.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/CurrentBudgetFAQ and contact >> the board at board-l...@gnome.org if you have any further questions. > > Could you slightly change this and clarify what "cash flow" means? ... I agree that the FAQ is generating some misconceptions. I've attached a revised version which I think is clearer - can we update the page with it? Allan <> == What is the problem? == The GNOME Foundation has a temporary lack of reserves due to processing the funds for the Outreach Program for Women (OPW). As is typical for this type of program, sponsoring organizations send in money after funds have been sent out to end recipients. As the OPW has grown, this has created a temporary shortfall while we wait to receive payments. Since our financial reserves are currently in a depleted state, the board voted on 2014-04-08 to freeze Foundation spending that is not essential to the running of the Foundation. The board aims to have things back to normal within a few months. == Does this affect organizations for whom GNOME handles funds? == No, the freeze and the budget shortfall do not affect organizations for whom GNOME handles money and donations. These organizations should not experience any changes or delays. == What is the board doing to fix it? == Primarily, the board is working to bring in the funds that are needed to continue the work of the Foundation. This includes: * Invoicing our Advisory Board members for their annual subscription fees. * Invoicing our conference sponsors. * Following up on unpaid invoices more actively. * Taking on the Executive Director's administrative and fundraising duties. * Invoicing the OPW sponsoring organizations for the upcoming round immediately. * Increasing our general fundraising efforts for the Foundation and its events. * Some of the OPW administrative workload is being shifted from Foundation employees to the OPW organizing team. == How can you help? == If you have thought about donating to the Foundation but never got around to it, then this is the time when it will help the Foundation most. The Foundation accepts [[https://www.gnome.org/friends/|Paypal]], [[https://www.gnome.org/friends/other-ways-to-donate/|check and bank/wire transfer]] donations. You can also support the Foundation financially by using the [[https://www.gnome.org/friends/amazon/|using the GNOME referral link on Amazon]]. The Foundation is also currently looking for sponsors for GUADEC and GNOME.Asia. If you know of any companies, especially in France and China, that may be interested in sponsoring our two biggest conferences, please reach out to those companies or tell the board about them. The OPW is also currently looking for more people to join the organizing team. Please contact the organizers for more details. If anyone is familiar with Guile/Scheme, the Foundation would benefit from a custom printable invoice stylesheet for !GnuCash. Contact the board for a PDF of what it needs to look like. == When will this be resolved? == The situation has already improved as some 2014 Advisory Board fees and outstanding invoices have been paid. The board expect more to be paid within the next 4 weeks. If there are no unexpected issues and no delays, the freeze should be lifted by July. == What is the board doing to make sure it does not happen again? == The board is examining the issues associated with administering a multi-organization OPW with two internship rounds per year. This includes: * Documenting OPW processes. * Sharing the invoice tracking duties between the board and OPW organizers so that unpaid invoices can be followed up more effectively. * Efficient invoicing for each OPW round by a team of board and community members, to ensure taht invoices are sent out no later than a week after internship acceptances are made. * Invoice paying dates will be agreed upon with each organization with the goal of having the payments come in before the first intern payments are due out. * Invoice payments will be tracked on a weekly basis. In addition, we will track the time spent by the Foundation administration on handling OPW and will re-examine whether the administration fees, which are currently $150-400 per intern after the cost of payment transfers, are sufficient for the increased demands on the administration's time. As the Foundation cannot continue to shoulder the responsibility of paying interns out of the Foundation budget and wait for other organizations to reimburse us, OPW organizers will be communicating with the sponsoring organizations and the board expects that a solution can be found which enables the continuation of the outreach efforts without undue consequences for GNOME in the futu
Re: Current state of Foundation finances
On Sat, Apr 12, 2014 at 12:32:12AM +0100, Ekaterina Gerasimova wrote: > The board expects that you may have some questions or would like to > know more details about the problem, please read > https://wiki.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/CurrentBudgetFAQ and contact > the board at board-l...@gnome.org if you have any further questions. Could you slightly change this and clarify what "cash flow" means? It seems a lot of people are reading this and assuming that we ran out of money due to spending all our money on OPW. While in practice, it is just the financial boring bit that the money on the bank account is lower because the money hasn't been coming in as quickly as handing it out. But that'll resolve once we focus upon it. Or in brief: we are not the best with sticking with financial followup. I think changing the wording would help a lot in changing the impression that we spent too much money. A lot of people don't know about "cash flow", etc. -- Regards, Olav ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Current state of Foundation finances
Hi Kat, Has any thought been Hi en to charging an administrative handling fee for Women's Outreach? Clearly it is taking a lot of time to administer, it does not seem fair that the GNOME Foundation shoulder all of the financial burden of managing it. Cheers, Dave. On Apr 12, 2014 1:32 AM, "Ekaterina Gerasimova" wrote: > Dear Foundation members, > > Due to a shortfall in the budget, the Foundation board voted on > 2014-04-08 to freeze all expenditure which is not essential to the > running of the Foundation. This freeze affects sponsorship expenses > which are unpaid at this time, but it does not affect the funds which > we hold for other organisations. > > By keeping our expenditures to a minimum while we regain some delayed > revenue, we aim to have things back to normal within a few months. All > Foundation members who expect to receive reimbursements within the > next three months have already been informed of the issue and most > have responded positively. The board will prioritise these pending > reimbursements over other expenses. > > The issue has been caused by a number of factors. These include > increased administrative overheads in the last few years due to the > increased turnover which has been caused by to the Outreach Program > for Women (OPW), and the associated payments going out while the > associated income has been slow to come in. > > The board expects that you may have some questions or would like to > know more details about the problem, please read > https://wiki.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/CurrentBudgetFAQ and contact > the board at board-l...@gnome.org if you have any further questions. > ___ > foundation-list mailing list > foundation-list@gnome.org > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list > ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Current state of Foundation finances
Matthew Garrett wrote: ... > GNOME exists because people contribute to it. OPW has demonstrated a > strong track record of creating long-term contributors. The mere > existence of OPW has caused people who might otherwise not be > enthusiastic about contributing to GNOME to contribute to GNOME, even > without the board spending any money on them. Spending money on creating > the impression that GNOME is a safe space is an excellent way to > increase the pool of potential contributors, and this has succeeded far > beyond spending the same amount of money on full-time developers. > > So, by every reasonable metric, OPW has proven to be directly beneficial > to the goals of the project. I'm sure that the board is willing to > consider alternatives, as long as those alternatives are equally > compelling. So far, I haven't seen any. ... It has been beneficial in other ways too. One of the defining features of the GNOME project is that we work closely with other projects, and we work to promote Free Software in general. OPW is strongly aligned with that, and I think it helps us to communicate our core mission to the wider world. OPW has prompted major organisations to notice the positive impact that GNOME has on the wider ecosystem. In short: this initiative has really helped us to tell a positive story about what GNOME is about and why it matters. I personally feel proud that GNOME is so closely associated with OPW, and I think that many others in the project feel the same way. Allan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
