Re: GNOME Foundation Budget

[Luis Villa <luis villa gmail com>]

On 8/9/05, Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com> wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-08-09 at 09:17 +1200, Glynn Foster wrote:
> > Hey,
> >
> > On Mon, 2005-07-25 at 17:14 +1200, Glynn Foster wrote:
> > > Hey,
> > >
> > > > Budget information is trickling out, and we're engaging in concrete
> > > > plans to do things beyond GUADEC. We still need to be able to do
> > > > things like 'show what we spend money on beyond GUADEC and
> > > > administration', and enhance those aspects of our operation. Past
> > > > that, more than anything else, we need to push foundation PR- the
> > > > foundation needs to market itself to the community and convince the
> > > > community that it is relevant. I think we need to highlight
> > > > 'foundation money did this, foundation employee did that', and do that
> > > > repeatedly. We don't, and that makes people think foundation is
> > > > irrelevant, which is part of why we see such disinterest in becoming a
> > > > foundation member, I think.
> > >
> > > While we're on the subject, is there likely to be financial report
> > > anytime soon? Only asking as I uploaded a recent statement, and it would
> > > be good to get a mail from the Foundation to accompany it and explaining
> > > some of the details involved. Tim?
> >
> > Ping? Are are we just going to be treated to the figures in
> >
> > http://foundation.gnome.org/finance/gnome-foundation-fiscal-year-04-and-03.pdf
> >
> > and expect to know what they all mean?
> 
> I think people will have to tell us what they think needs explaining.

Some questions offhand (many of these are answerable by going through
the existing reports for 2003/2004, but I'd love to see them pulled
out and more easily discoverable.)

* what percentage of our money goes towards administration? Other
major expenditure categories?
* what was our surplus/deficit for the year? (in other words, how
vulnerable are we if one or two major sponsors pull out?)
* what percentage of revenue comes from different sources? (FOG,
GUADEC, Advisory Board, etc.?) And what types of revenue do we have-
in-kind, recurring pledges, one-time pledges, etc.? (that one is a
little more obscure, I'll grant :)
* what are our assets? Our balances? do we have outstanding
liabilities? (i.e. what resources can we draw on in a pinch, or if a
great idea comes to the board?)
* what are the trends on all of these? Are we making more money, less
money? more or less of our revenue coming from FOG? spending
more/less? are we saving money for a rainy day or big opportunity, or
are we draining our savings?

slightly OT:
* where is our money? if tim gets hit by a bus, who rescues it?
[linux.org.au posts this information their webpage, which reminded me
of this question.]
* when do we expect a proposed budget for the next fiscal year?

I'm sure I'll think of more.
Luis