[Osmf-talk] Operating reserves

[Allan Mustard]

Thanks for all of this.  Yes, and this is why the Board intends to
create a fund-raising committee, precisely to address such issues. 

apm

On 12/15/2020 4:29 PM, Edward Bainton wrote:
> Congratulations on your election, Jean-Marc.
>
> I completely support these proposals. I'm sorry that I'm not financial
> enough to have a view on the level of reserves required. 
>
> I will say that in the UK charity sector, reserves are usually quoted
> as months of full expenditure in hand - so assume no mitigation is
> possible. (If it is possible, that's great, but you think about your
> reserves level as the number of months you could continue to operate
> at full expenditure with no income.)
>
> I think the point about perverse incentives for the sysadmin if their
> salary depends on one or two big donors is well worth discussion.
> (Influence of this sort is presumably part of many donors'
> calculations when deciding whether to donate. That's stated as a fact
> of life, not necessarily as an argument against their donations.)  In
> part, reserves are for ensuring you have space to maneuvre if a donor
> goes sour.
>
> I was the one who asked at the AGM about reserves (as a full member,
> not as a guest ;-) and I also asked about a donations policy. At the
> risk of diverting the thread, imo every donation-taking org should
> have a donations policy, which details 
> - who we will and won't accept donations from; 
> - what conditions, if any, we're prepared to accept;
> - approval & due diligence processes; 
> - how to avoid 'donor capture' by diversifying income streams (this
> last being relevant to the peverse incentives)
>
> That's another piece of work, but I think related.
>
> Edward
>
> On Tue, 15 Dec 2020 at 19:41, Craig Allan <allan at iafrica.com
> <mailto:allan at iafrica.com>> wrote:
>
>     Yes, noted.  Thanks Simon for the input.  The 'formal' version in
>     the AoA is strangely vague. Now I know why. 
>     And let me respond to that anonymous board member that there will
>     NEVER be enough open geo data! 
>     We have done so much, but have hardly scratched the surface of
>     what we could achieve in the long term.
>     CA
>
>
>     On 2020/12/15 20:48, Simon Poole wrote:
>>
>>     Am 15.12.2020 um 16:44 schrieb Craig Allan:
>>>     ....
>>>     THE FRAMEWORK
>>>     Policy can be seen as a set of rules to implement our
>>>     organisational strategy. Strategy is informed by our mission
>>>     (Section 3 of the AoA) and the long term vision of the
>>>     organisation (missing). So in any organisation there will be
>>>     likely be a hierarchy of plans, each more detailed than its
>>>     parent, ending eventually in a large list of short-term tasks.
>>
>>     Sorry to jump on this in a bit of an off topic fashion, but I
>>     believe you are misunderstanding something there.
>>
>>     The "Objects" section in the AoA, that is section 3, is legally
>>     required and deliberately vague and unrestrained because of that.
>>     When we were discussing the 1st revision of the AoAs many years
>>     ago there was a longer discussion if we should change 3. to limit
>>     the scope to OSM, but for the above mentioned reasons we decided
>>     against it. It is however clear that is not a sensible starting
>>     point for any kind of policy, setting of goals or anything similar.
>>
>>     This has led to misunderstandings in the past, including a board
>>     member, paraphrased, coming to the conclusion that once there is
>>     enough open geo data we could let OSM die.
>>
>>     A far more sensible starting point is the 1st paragraph of
>>     https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Mission_Statement
>>     <https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Mission_Statement>
>>
>>     Simon
>>
>>
>>
>>     _______________________________________________
>>     osmf-talk mailing list
>>     osmf-talk at openstreetmap.org <mailto:osmf-talk at openstreetmap.org>
>>     https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/osmf-talk <https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/osmf-talk>
>
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     osmf-talk mailing list
>     osmf-talk at openstreetmap.org <mailto:osmf-talk at openstreetmap.org>
>     https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/osmf-talk
>     <https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/osmf-talk>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> osmf-talk mailing list
> osmf-talk at openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/osmf-talk
-- 
-------
/Allan Mustard, Chairperson/
/Board of Directors/
/OpenStreetMap Foundation/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/osmf-talk/attachments/20201215/427cf37a/attachment.htm>