Re: Mission Statement

[Ekaterina Gerasimova <kittykat3756 gmail com>]

On 06/08/2014, Pascal Terjan <pterjan gmail com> wrote:
> On 6 August 2014 17:05, Máirín Duffy <duffy fedoraproject org> wrote:
> > On 08/06/2014 11:57 AM, Ryan Lortie wrote:
> > > I was disappointed (but not completely surprised) to learn that,
> > > although OPW has expanded to many projects beyond GNOME, GNOME is left
> > > handling all of the money for all participants at all organisations.
> > > This hasn't only exposed us to substantial financial risks; it has
> > > caused actual financial problems for the project.  This year, GNOME
> > > temporarily ceased funding of hackfests in order to recover from the
> > > cashflow problems caused by the size of OPW.
> >
> >
> > I'm sensing a general lack of information in your post (which should
> > absolutely be provided to you) about the program and its affect on GNOME
> > and
> > its finances, so I thought it would be worth pointing out that GNOME does
> > charge a per-intern administrative fee to each non-GNOME project
> > participating in OPW. So GNOME is far from taking on this extremely
> > helpful
> > and beneficial work without compensation.
>
> I personnally have no problem with GNOME managing OPW but given that's
> it getting bigger than GNOME itself it may make sense to have an
> independant foundation.
> Apart from that, regarding the time consumed, is the charge enough to
> hire someone part time dedicated to it?

Hi, this is something that the board has considered a number of times
over the last half year… There are two main components to OPW which
incur costs: banking fees and administration time.

Banking fees are not difficult to estimate based on the number of
payments sent. We cannot get a 100% accurate number up front as every
time a payment is returned and has to be resent, we incur a fee, but
some payments are free for us to send (checks in the US).

Estimating the exact amount of administration time that is associated
with OPW is considerably more difficult. The time is spent on a number
of different areas, for example invoicing when instructed to do so
(invoicing is not always a matter or producing a PDF and emailing it
over; it can become very complex with some of the larger companies),
setting up accounts with new sponsors (only applicable to large
companies), chasing up invoices (this is currently being partially
handled by the board and OPW companies, but this is not sustainable),
collecting payment details from interns (this is currently being
handled by OPW organisers), checking which interns can be paid (also
OPW organisers now), sending out reimbursements, checking if any
payments been returned, resending returned payments, tracking travel
sponsorship funds, sending out travel sponsorship reimbursements and
more.

The OPW administrative fee (after taking off banking costs) is not
enough to hire someone half time, but it is enough to hire someone for
a few hours per week. A few hours per week is not enough time to cover
all of the administrative load. The other issue with a few hours per
week is that the person will need to be set up with access to all of
the Foundation's accounts, infrastructure, accounts with suppliers
(sponsors) and be trained to use our tools. This in itself is not a
trivial task and it would be considerably more worthwhile to do these
things for a half time employee than for someone only working a few
hours per week.

I personally don't think it is practical to hire someone right now.
The situation would change if there were more administrative fees
coming in from OPW, for example, enough to cover a half time employee
and other costs associated with the program.