Re: [Spi-private] Very long wait for funds transfer

On 12/09/2016 04:34 PM, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> Board,
>
> On October 6th, I as Liaison of PostgreSQL.Org requested that 5k USD be
> transferred to PgUS for their Diversity Scholarships.
>
> On October 14th, the bank info for ACH was delivered to the Treasurer.
>
> On November 7th, the Treasurer of PgUS requested a status update on when
> the transfer would be made.
>
> On December 9th, the Treasurer brought to my attention that this
> transfer has still not been made
>
> I understand that we are all volunteers but this delay is a bit overkill
> isn't it?

It is now the 15th and I as Liaison of PostgreSQL.Org have had zero
correspondence in regards to this issue. I request that at a minimum the
board respond, preferably the Treasurer with an ETA of resolution.

Sincerely,

JD

>
> Sincerely,
>
> JD

--
Command Prompt, Inc. http://the.postgres.company/
+1-503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Everyone appreciates your honesty, until you are honest with them.
Unless otherwise stated, opinions are my own.

Seconded. I think we’re all in the same boat here, and I’ll go out on a limb here and say that we all collectively know that what Joshua reported is by no means an isolated incident but a pattern that has been festering. Plus, we are probably all agreed that of all functions SPI carries out on behalf of its associated projects, disbursing the funds earmarked for them in a timely and low-overhead manner is the single most important one. It is the one that _has_ to work, or SPI isn’t a functioning fiscal sponsor in any sense of what that means.

I myself have had to follow up on almost every treasurer ticket, sometimes multiple times. I now keep a copy of every ticket receipt and create myself a reminder on my todo list 3 weeks into the future, rather than just considering the reimbursement done when I hit send on the initial request. I can do that, and my expenses needing reimbursement aren’t large enough to not allow several months delay. But it does make evident a very poor professional reliability of SPI as a fiscal sponsor that disburses project-earmarked funds.

-hilmar

> On Dec 15, 2016, at 1:46 PM, Joshua D. Drake <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com> wrote:
>
> On 12/09/2016 04:34 PM, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>> Board,
>>
>> On October 6th, I as Liaison of PostgreSQL.Org requested that 5k USD be
>> transferred to PgUS for their Diversity Scholarships.
>>
>> On October 14th, the bank info for ACH was delivered to the Treasurer.
>>
>> On November 7th, the Treasurer of PgUS requested a status update on when
>> the transfer would be made.
>>
>> On December 9th, the Treasurer brought to my attention that this
>> transfer has still not been made
>>
>> I understand that we are all volunteers but this delay is a bit overkill
>> isn't it?
>
> It is now the 15th and I as Liaison of PostgreSQL.Org have had zero correspondence in regards to this issue. I request that at a minimum the board respond, preferably the Treasurer with an ETA of resolution.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> JD
>
>
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> JD
>
>
> --
> Command Prompt, Inc. http://the.postgres.company/
> +1-503-667-4564
> PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
> Everyone appreciates your honesty, until you are honest with them.
> Unless otherwise stated, opinions are my own.
> _______________________________________________
> Spi-general mailing list
> Spi-general(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org
> http://lists.spi-inc.org/listinfo/spi-general

--
Hilmar Lapp -:- lappland.io

On 12/15/2016 11:58 AM, Hilmar Lapp wrote:
> Seconded. I think we’re all in the same boat here, and I’ll go out on a limb here and say that we all collectively know that what Joshua reported is by no means an isolated incident but a pattern that has been festering. Plus, we are probably all agreed that of all functions SPI carries out on behalf of its associated projects, disbursing the funds earmarked for them in a timely and low-overhead manner is the single most important one. It is the one that _has_ to work, or SPI isn’t a functioning fiscal sponsor in any sense of what that means.
>
> I myself have had to follow up on almost every treasurer ticket, sometimes multiple times. I now keep a copy of every ticket receipt and create myself a reminder on my todo list 3 weeks into the future, rather than just considering the reimbursement done when I hit send on the initial request. I can do that, and my expenses needing reimbursement aren’t large enough to not allow several months delay. But it does make evident a very poor professional reliability of SPI as a fiscal sponsor that disburses project-earmarked funds.

While we have plans to get better software, that's a minority of the
problem. We could really use paid staff for the routine paperwork.
Relying entirely on a volunteer treasurer doesn't scale to the size SPI
is now.

--Josh

+1 for solving this problem.

--matt

On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 11:58 AM, Hilmar Lapp <hlapp(at)drycafe(dot)net> wrote:

> Seconded. I think we’re all in the same boat here, and I’ll go out on a
> limb here and say that we all collectively know that what Joshua reported
> is by no means an isolated incident but a pattern that has been festering.
> Plus, we are probably all agreed that of all functions SPI carries out on
> behalf of its associated projects, disbursing the funds earmarked for them
> in a timely and low-overhead manner is the single most important one. It is
> the one that _has_ to work, or SPI isn’t a functioning fiscal sponsor in
> any sense of what that means.
>
> I myself have had to follow up on almost every treasurer ticket, sometimes
> multiple times. I now keep a copy of every ticket receipt and create myself
> a reminder on my todo list 3 weeks into the future, rather than just
> considering the reimbursement done when I hit send on the initial request.
> I can do that, and my expenses needing reimbursement aren’t large enough to
> not allow several months delay. But it does make evident a very poor
> professional reliability of SPI as a fiscal sponsor that disburses
> project-earmarked funds.
>
> -hilmar
>
> > On Dec 15, 2016, at 1:46 PM, Joshua D. Drake <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com>
> wrote:
> >
> > On 12/09/2016 04:34 PM, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> >> Board,
> >>
> >> On October 6th, I as Liaison of PostgreSQL.Org requested that 5k USD be
> >> transferred to PgUS for their Diversity Scholarships.
> >>
> >> On October 14th, the bank info for ACH was delivered to the Treasurer.
> >>
> >> On November 7th, the Treasurer of PgUS requested a status update on when
> >> the transfer would be made.
> >>
> >> On December 9th, the Treasurer brought to my attention that this
> >> transfer has still not been made
> >>
> >> I understand that we are all volunteers but this delay is a bit overkill
> >> isn't it?
> >
> > It is now the 15th and I as Liaison of PostgreSQL.Org have had zero
> correspondence in regards to this issue. I request that at a minimum the
> board respond, preferably the Treasurer with an ETA of resolution.
> >
> > Sincerely,
> >
> > JD
> >
> >
> >>
> >> Sincerely,
> >>
> >> JD
> >
> >
> > --
> > Command Prompt, Inc. http://the.postgres.company/
> > +1-503-667-4564
> > PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
> > Everyone appreciates your honesty, until you are honest with them.
> > Unless otherwise stated, opinions are my own.
> > _______________________________________________
> > Spi-general mailing list
> > Spi-general(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org
> > http://lists.spi-inc.org/listinfo/spi-general
>
> --
> Hilmar Lapp -:- lappland.io
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Spi-general mailing list
> Spi-general(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org
> http://lists.spi-inc.org/listinfo/spi-general
>

Everyone wants a solution. Is there anything we can do to help resolve
the issue?

Philip

On 12/15/2016 02:26 PM, Matthew Ahrens wrote:
> +1 for solving this problem.
>
> --matt
>
> On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 11:58 AM, Hilmar Lapp <hlapp(at)drycafe(dot)net> wrote:
>
>> Seconded. I think we’re all in the same boat here, and I’ll go out on a
>> limb here and say that we all collectively know that what Joshua reported
>> is by no means an isolated incident but a pattern that has been festering.
>> Plus, we are probably all agreed that of all functions SPI carries out on
>> behalf of its associated projects, disbursing the funds earmarked for them
>> in a timely and low-overhead manner is the single most important one. It is
>> the one that _has_ to work, or SPI isn’t a functioning fiscal sponsor in
>> any sense of what that means.
>>
>> I myself have had to follow up on almost every treasurer ticket, sometimes
>> multiple times. I now keep a copy of every ticket receipt and create myself
>> a reminder on my todo list 3 weeks into the future, rather than just
>> considering the reimbursement done when I hit send on the initial request.
>> I can do that, and my expenses needing reimbursement aren’t large enough to
>> not allow several months delay. But it does make evident a very poor
>> professional reliability of SPI as a fiscal sponsor that disburses
>> project-earmarked funds.
>>
>> -hilmar
>>
>>> On Dec 15, 2016, at 1:46 PM, Joshua D. Drake <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 12/09/2016 04:34 PM, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>>>> Board,
>>>>
>>>> On October 6th, I as Liaison of PostgreSQL.Org requested that 5k USD be
>>>> transferred to PgUS for their Diversity Scholarships.
>>>>
>>>> On October 14th, the bank info for ACH was delivered to the Treasurer.
>>>>
>>>> On November 7th, the Treasurer of PgUS requested a status update on when
>>>> the transfer would be made.
>>>>
>>>> On December 9th, the Treasurer brought to my attention that this
>>>> transfer has still not been made
>>>>
>>>> I understand that we are all volunteers but this delay is a bit overkill
>>>> isn't it?
>>>
>>> It is now the 15th and I as Liaison of PostgreSQL.Org have had zero
>> correspondence in regards to this issue. I request that at a minimum the
>> board respond, preferably the Treasurer with an ETA of resolution.
>>>
>>> Sincerely,
>>>
>>> JD
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Sincerely,
>>>>
>>>> JD
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Command Prompt, Inc. http://the.postgres.company/
>>> +1-503-667-4564
>>> PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
>>> Everyone appreciates your honesty, until you are honest with them.
>>> Unless otherwise stated, opinions are my own.
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Spi-general mailing list
>>> Spi-general(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org
>>> http://lists.spi-inc.org/listinfo/spi-general
>>
>> --
>> Hilmar Lapp -:- lappland.io
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Spi-general mailing list
>> Spi-general(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org
>> http://lists.spi-inc.org/listinfo/spi-general
>>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Spi-private mailing list
> Spi-private(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org
> http://lists.spi-inc.org/listinfo/spi-private
> Unsubscribe using https://members.spi-inc.org/
>

I think the issue is that the treasurer isn't able to dedicate the time
to do all the admin required (and maybe it's a lot of admin). It's a
volunteer position and we are all busy so that leads to him/her making a
prioritisation choice and it likely always gets pushed to the bottom.

I think Josh has hit the nail on the head that it should be a funded
opinion. It doesn't need to be a full time job necessarily.

Maybe during the next set of elections, the candidates should make it
clear how much time they can dedicate to the position. If one candidate
says he/she does have the time and the other doesn't then that should play
heavily into the voters choice.

Just to make it clear that I have a stake in this, ArduPilot lost a $1k
partnership donation because I couldn't get an answer from the treasurer on
how to do a wire transfer. I don't believe I ever got an answer to that
question actually.

I'm a bit new here so sorry if I'm stepping on toes by voicing my
opinion. I'm sure the people involved are not negligent, probably just
overworked.

-Randy

-----Original Message-----
From: spi-private-bounces+rmackay9=yahoo(dot)com(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org
[mailto:spi-private-bounces+rmackay9=yahoo(dot)com(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org] On Behalf
Of Philip Balister
Sent: December 16, 2016 7:29 AM
To: Matthew Ahrens <matt(at)mahrens(dot)org>; Hilmar Lapp <hlapp(at)drycafe(dot)net>
Cc: SPI Treasurer <treasurer(at)rt(dot)spi-inc(dot)org>; SPI Private List
<spi-private(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org>; spi-general(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org
Subject: Re: [Spi-private] Very long wait for funds transfer

Everyone wants a solution. Is there anything we can do to help resolve the
issue?

Philip

On 12/15/2016 02:26 PM, Matthew Ahrens wrote:
> +1 for solving this problem.
>
> --matt
>
> On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 11:58 AM, Hilmar Lapp <hlapp(at)drycafe(dot)net> wrote:
>
>> Seconded. I think we're all in the same boat here, and I'll go out on
>> a limb here and say that we all collectively know that what Joshua
>> reported is by no means an isolated incident but a pattern that has been
festering.
>> Plus, we are probably all agreed that of all functions SPI carries
>> out on behalf of its associated projects, disbursing the funds
>> earmarked for them in a timely and low-overhead manner is the single
>> most important one. It is the one that _has_ to work, or SPI isn't a
>> functioning fiscal sponsor in any sense of what that means.
>>
>> I myself have had to follow up on almost every treasurer ticket,
>> sometimes multiple times. I now keep a copy of every ticket receipt
>> and create myself a reminder on my todo list 3 weeks into the future,
>> rather than just considering the reimbursement done when I hit send on
the initial request.
>> I can do that, and my expenses needing reimbursement aren't large
>> enough to not allow several months delay. But it does make evident a
>> very poor professional reliability of SPI as a fiscal sponsor that
>> disburses project-earmarked funds.
>>
>> -hilmar
>>
>>> On Dec 15, 2016, at 1:46 PM, Joshua D. Drake <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 12/09/2016 04:34 PM, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>>>> Board,
>>>>
>>>> On October 6th, I as Liaison of PostgreSQL.Org requested that 5k
>>>> USD be transferred to PgUS for their Diversity Scholarships.
>>>>
>>>> On October 14th, the bank info for ACH was delivered to the Treasurer.
>>>>
>>>> On November 7th, the Treasurer of PgUS requested a status update on
>>>> when the transfer would be made.
>>>>
>>>> On December 9th, the Treasurer brought to my attention that this
>>>> transfer has still not been made
>>>>
>>>> I understand that we are all volunteers but this delay is a bit
>>>> overkill isn't it?
>>>
>>> It is now the 15th and I as Liaison of PostgreSQL.Org have had zero
>> correspondence in regards to this issue. I request that at a minimum
>> the board respond, preferably the Treasurer with an ETA of resolution.
>>>
>>> Sincerely,
>>>
>>> JD
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Sincerely,
>>>>
>>>> JD
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Command Prompt, Inc. http://the.postgres.company/
>>> +1-503-667-4564 PostgreSQL Centered full
>>> stack support, consulting and development.
>>> Everyone appreciates your honesty, until you are honest with them.
>>> Unless otherwise stated, opinions are my own.
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Spi-general mailing list
>>> Spi-general(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org
>>> http://lists.spi-inc.org/listinfo/spi-general
>>
>> --
>> Hilmar Lapp -:- lappland.io
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Spi-general mailing list
>> Spi-general(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org
>> http://lists.spi-inc.org/listinfo/spi-general
>>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Spi-private mailing list
> Spi-private(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org
> http://lists.spi-inc.org/listinfo/spi-private
> Unsubscribe using https://members.spi-inc.org/
>
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On 12/15/2016 02:29 PM, Philip Balister wrote:
> Everyone wants a solution. Is there anything we can do to help resolve
> the issue?

A big help I think would be to use modern infrastructure. Up until
recently SPI used a spreadsheet to manage finances. We are now using Ledger.

We could empower a Treasurer's committee of the board (TCB) that has the
power to perform reimbursements.

We could have an application that allows Reimbursements and the required
documents to be uploaded and stored in a queue for processing by the TCB.

* This could be configured similar to RT but instead of a single queue,
have a queue per project.

* Perhaps sign a member of each the TCB to a group of projects and it
is their responsibility?

We could use modern infrastructure for payments.

* Paypal
* Google Wallet
* Venmo
* Xoom
* USForex

Even if we don't have the TCB have authority over payments. We could
have the TCB be in charge of all pre-auth. In short, before the
transaction gets to the Treasurer, the TCB makes sure that the Treasurer
has *everything* they need to just make the payment.

The short (not easy) route would be to hire staff but:

* We need someone to manage that staff (not impressed with that idea
with the current board performance *on this specific topic*)

* Find someone who is willing to interface with Ledger. If I was a
professional book keeper I would laugh my way out of the room if you
told me that was what I was going to be using.

Here is the short and blunt skinny for me. Command Prompt is a 7 figure
company. We process hundreds of invoices a month. We process multiple
dozens of payments. We process multiple full accounting including
payroll, bank rec, collections etc... We have dozens of vendors and
hundreds of customers.

We do that with *one*, *part-time*, *accountant*.

How? Modern and collaborative infrastructure.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

--
Command Prompt, Inc. http://the.postgres.company/
+1-503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Everyone appreciates your honesty, until you are honest with them.

On 12/15/2016 10:46 AM, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> On 12/09/2016 04:34 PM, Joshua D. Drake wrote:

>> I understand that we are all volunteers but this delay is a bit overkill
>> isn't it?
>
> It is now the 15th and I as Liaison of PostgreSQL.Org have had zero
> correspondence in regards to this issue. I request that at a minimum the
> board respond, preferably the Treasurer with an ETA of resolution.

It is now the 20th and we still have zero response from the board. This
is a unnerving. I am trying to be reasonable but as others have pointed
out, the board's performance in this manner is unacceptable. It isn't
just angry-JD making noise here.

Sincerely,

JD

--
Command Prompt, Inc. http://the.postgres.company/
+1-503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Everyone appreciates your honesty, until you are honest with them.
Unless otherwise stated, opinions are my own.

Joshua D. Drake writes ("Re: [Spi-private] Very long wait for funds transfer"):
> On 12/15/2016 10:46 AM, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> > It is now the 15th and I as Liaison of PostgreSQL.Org have had zero
> > correspondence in regards to this issue. I request that at a minimum the
> > board respond, preferably the Treasurer with an ETA of resolution.
>
> It is now the 20th and we still have zero response from the board. This
> is a unnerving. I am trying to be reasonable but as others have pointed
> out, the board's performance in this manner is unacceptable. It isn't
> just angry-JD making noise here.

Would every board member please reply to this thread, explaining what
steps should be taken (both immediately, and in the medium and long
term) to remedy the situation.

An emergency board meeting, and a determination to take positive
action, rather than simply making further enquiries, would seem to be
the minimum starting point.

Ian.

--
Ian Jackson <ijackson(at)chiark(dot)greenend(dot)org(dot)uk> These opinions are my own.

If I emailed you from an address @fyvzl.net or @evade.org.uk, that is
a private address which bypasses my fierce spamfilter.

* Ian Jackson <ijackson(at)chiark(dot)greenend(dot)org(dot)uk> [2016-12-20 18:14]:
> Would every board member please reply to this thread, explaining
> what steps should be taken (both immediately, and in the medium and
> long term) to remedy the situation.

I think we all agree that SPI's handling of reimbursements needs to be
improved and that this is the top priority given that this is what
SPI's associated projects rely on most.

I cannot speak about the specific issue Joshua raised and hope
Michael will comment. I can speak about the situation in general,
though.

While there are clearly problems that need to be fixed, what people on
this thread don't realize is that major improvements are being made.
Over the last six months or so, there has been a lot of progress in
moving away from a spreadsheet that only Michael understands to a
ledger-based system to which several board members actively
contribute. I'd like to thank Michael, Martin, Dimitri, Tridge and
others who have worked on this.

I know there have been several calls to "just hire paid help", and
while I agree that this might be a good solution long-term, "just"
going out and hiring something isn't something you can do. We need to
understand the current system, where the bottlenecks are, how we're
going to manage the contractor, etc, before we can implement a
solution. SPI has had some paid help in the past and it didn't work
well, so we have to make sure a contractor can be effective before we
get one. Again, progress is being made in these areas, but I am aware
this is not very visible.

Furthermore, SPI donated some money to Software Freedom Conservancy to
help with the creation of tools that will make reimbursements easier.
While there hasn't been a lot of progress until recently, Conservancy
hired someone a few months ago so we're also expecting to see progress
in that area.

We'll have another face-to-face board meeting in February and these
topics (reimbursements, treasurer reports, getting paid admin help)
are a big item on the agenda.

Martin

President, Software in the Public Interest, Inc.

On 12/20/2016 12:50 PM, Martin Michlmayr wrote:

> We'll have another face-to-face board meeting in February and these
> topics (reimbursements, treasurer reports, getting paid admin help)
> are a big item on the agenda.
>

Martin,

This is all great but what will you do for PostgreSQL, *now*? As
PostgreSQL Liaison, I don't care about the operational issues that
should have already been solved. I care about the project I am
responsible for and the fact that the NPO PostgreSQL is working with is
not providing the most basic of services that we require.

I as a voting member, and as a Liaison am asking for direct intervention
by the President to get the problem *FIXED*, *NOW*. I am not asking for
a solution (that can come later).

I don't care if you use a pigeon to transfer the money. I care that the
money hasn't been transferred in a timely manner and that communication
has been non-existent after repeated attempts.

SPI has been negligent on this issue since October 14th 2016. That is 67
days.

Sincerely,

JD

--
Command Prompt, Inc. http://the.postgres.company/
+1-503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Everyone appreciates your honesty, until you are honest with them.
Unless otherwise stated, opinions are my own.

I'm an SPI member since 2002, but most of the email below is about how my
work at my day job relates to SPI. I've tried not to conflate the too roles
too much.

Martin Michlmayr wrote:
> Furthermore, SPI donated some money to Software Freedom Conservancy to
> help with the creation of tools that will make reimbursements easier.
> While there hasn't been a lot of progress until recently, Conservancy
> hired someone a few months ago so we're also expecting to see progress in
> that area.

Indeed, to "name names" -- specifically both Brett Smith and I at
Conservancy are heavily focused on the huge problem of how to run a fiscal
sponsor with Open Source and Free Software. It's harder than it looks.

And, Martin's point about paid bookkeeping staff failing is no surprise at
all:
> SPI has had some paid help in the past and it didn't work well,

If you hire a "bookkeeper off the street", they won't understand fiscal
sponsorship. They won't have the software [0] they need to properly
cross-categorize expenses against account and temporarily restricted funds
simultaneously. Plus, most bookkeepers that you can hire part-time at a
reasonable contract rate don't know a thing about keeping books for a
charity and how it differs from for-profit. Even *if* you hire
charity-specialist bookkeepers (who are rare), they are not likely familiar
with fiscal sponsorship, and they *certainly* won't know how to communicate
with geeks seeking reimbursements who, say, are going to be annoyed at
things like top-reply, Word document attachments, and the like.

Conservancy is younger than SPI but we grew faster (we're about to enter our
FY 2015 audit cycle and we're looking at having in excess $1.6mil in assets
managed for projects during the FY under audit). Thus, we already hit these
growing pains problems a few years ago and have focused on solving them in
the last few years [1]. We've made progress, but there's much work left to
do for both organizations.

SPI and Conservancy are natural allies on this matter because, on the fiscal
sponsorship vector, we both have almost exactly the same needs, similar
user/constituent bases, and a shared ethos -- e.g., neither org is going to
run out to buy a Windows box and a Raiser's Edge or Abila [0] license.

I understand people's frustrations with late payments, but I encourage
everyone to be realistic. At Conservancy, I'm the primary person handling
all outgoing payments. I pride myself on delivering Conservancy payments on
NET-30 terms, and do rarely drift to NET-45 in busy months, but I keep on
schedule because when reimbursement request load is heavy (e.g., after a
conference), I drop everything else in my work (*and* my personal life) and
turn my attention solely to reimbursements. I can only do that because
Conservancy is my full-time job.

Yet, I still get regular complaints -- much like the ones in this thread --
that Conservancy is not responsive enough, etc. After years of doing this,
my take is simply this: people waiting for money from you who are unsure on
precisely when it'll arrive [2] won't be happy unless you're completely
perfect, and of course no on one on earth is. So, both organizations and
reimbursement requestors should be realistic about expectations.

Conservancy and SPI are kindred spirits, and, in fact, at Conservancy, SPI
has been on our minds for at least three years now regarding this problem.
Any solutions that we implement for Conservancy must create a rising tide
that raises SPI, too. tbm, zobel, and others have worked with me to study
what I do with Ledger CLI that allows me keep Conservancy's books as
hyper-efficiently as possible. SPI's leadership have done a good job
implementing those solutions that are working at Conservancy -- particularly
given that SPI folks are all volunteers.

As we build more bookkeeping solutions at Conservancy, Brett and I see SPI
as our key and first "not us" user base. If we build something that
Conservancy can use that SPI can't, I consider it a major failure because
SPI and Conservancy are so much alike on the fiscal-sponsorship vector that
a solution that doesn't help both orgs is by-default broken.

Finally, speaking from my experience helping run a Free Software fiscal
sponsor for a very long time (for about 3/4ths of which I was paid and about
a 1/4th of which I wasn't) -- I'm in *awe* that SPI is still going as well
as it is without staff. Even though the delays are annoying, we should be
thankful to the volunteers who are doing what I know first-hand to be a
truly thankless job. In particular, I think it's unfair that some in this
thread accused SPI's leadership of treating their work only as only a hobby
project [3] -- with the (IMO incorrect) implication being that SPI's
leadership are failing to carry out their work in a highly professional
(albeit volunteer) manner. By contrast, I think they've been *very*
professional about this work, but are time and resource constrained.

It's tough to bootstrap a non-profit charity, particularly a fiscal sponsor.
Conservancy could have *easily* ended up where SPI is now: an essential
organization that appears to the untrained eye as merely a volunteer
initiative between a few friends -- due to constant lack of resources to
expand to meet community needs. For Conservancy, it was basically only
sheer force of will (mixed with some lucky breaks) that I bootstrapped
Conservancy into a funded organization, now with four staffers -- including
someone else other than me in charge.

It's easily said -- but *not* easily done -- to convert a volunteer-only
charity into a staffed one when its community needs grow, and merely "hiring
a part-time person to handle the urgent stuff" rarely works, as tbm
pointed out. Those us who have spent our careers working for and with
non-profits have seen that almost every non-profit has struggled in this way
in its history. Non-profit leadership needs to see these challenges plainly
and take them on, which I think the SPI's current leadership is doing. The
road through won't always be smooth, but SPI seems to be moving in the right
direction to me, and I hope to help, both as part of my day job and as a
volunteer, in the next year to come.

[0] Brett and I both have, at different times separated by years, done
careful analysis of what software is available to do fiscal sponsorship
bookkeeping. There are basically only three proprietary packages that
handle fiscal sponsorship: Fund-EZ, Rasier's Edge, and Abila. I even
went so far as to go to an Abila demo/marketing day -- which was useful
if only to see that other than a weak-forms-based Windows GUI, Abila's
functionality is not more featureful, and is in some ways less
feature-ful, than Conservancy's Ledger-CLI-based home-grown system.
(Abila's system has no way to record and hold reimbursement payments
while awaiting specific approvals, for example).

The Open Source solutions are in a worse state, because not *one* is
designed to handle books for a charity, and most of the codebases are
baroque messes of features that you need to hire a consultant just to
deploy them. Of course, they all tell that you can handle fiscal
sponsorship easily if you "just use Cost Centers!" -- as if the round
peg of temporarily restricted assets smoothly fits that particular
square hole.... I could go on, but the npo-accounting mailing list is
probably a better venue for such discussions:
https://lists.sfconservancy.org/mailman/listinfo/npo-accounting

[1] My political opponents love to talk about how I'm sitting around all day
hatching new ways to enforce the GPL, but frankly the majority of my time
in the last 5 years has spend on *this* problem of scaling fiscal
sponsorship with software solutions.

[2] I live on the other side of this, too. Speaking as someone who
hasn't even submitted my DebConf reimbursement to SPI yet, I'm actually
glad that SPI doesn't follow Conservancy's rules fully, as Conservancy
wouldn't be so forgiving at my late submission (Conservancy has a strict
must-submit-90-days-after-travel rule). I admit hearing that early
submitters hadn't gotten reimbursed yet for DebConf made me feel like
"eh, what's the point in doing it sooner rather than later?".

Then, having worked for so long on the other side, I know that late
reimbursements end up being even more work than timely ones for various
bookkeeping reasons, which makes me feel shameful and guilty for not
submitting my SPI request sooner -- and thus I keep avoiding the 20
minutes of work of putting together my reimbursement request. I face
these types of scenarios every day in my day job, yet even I can fall
into the vicious cycle -- such is very difficult to avoid here. We'll
need to work together and cooperate to avoid it.

[3] Although I think SPI, like Linux, should be proud of its roots as
starting primarily as a hobby project. The best projects we have in
Free Software were hobby projects that people took seriously and gave to
them lots of professional volunteer time, and they make strong projects
because they have both a hobbyist and professional culture together.

--
-- bkuhn
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