Re: Donations to SPI vs associated projects

On 13 July 2015 at 05:24, Stefano Zacchiroli <zack(at)debian(dot)org> wrote:

> >> Donations to SPI that are not marked for a particular project will be
> >> distributed to the projects that are currently affiliated with SPI as
> >> needed, and/or used for SPI's own expenses.
> - What are the criteria for deciding on the "and/or"?
> - How would money be distributed among projects?
> - What does it mean "as needed"?
> Etc.
> I think SPI should just let donors decide to which affiliate project
> donate; serving those projects is the main reason of SPI's existence
> after all. If SPI needs to increase its own funds, the way to go would
> be to increase the cut the organization takes from incoming donations to
> affiliate projects.​

How about a middle-ground: let people donate to SPI, but if there are more
funds in SPI's bucket than are needed for overhead, let the SPI membership
vote on which projects the funds go to.

Benefits:
- people can donate to SPI in general without an earmark and still have
their money go to productive places (eg, smile.amazon.com can send a cut to
SPI, but doesn't provide earmarks AIUI)
- there's more value in being an individual member of SPI
- there's more value in being an SPI associated project
​ - the 10% cut of earmarked donations is no longer just for overhead, it's
for supporting other SPI projects too
- potentially it provides a way for SPI to support a project without it
going through all the rigmarole of being an associated project?

​Cheers,
aj​

--
Anthony Towns <aj(at)erisian(dot)com(dot)au>