Allan Doyle wrote:
Regarding the income side of the budget, I recommend looking at IRS form
8734 [1], which will have to be filled out at the end of the 5th year of
being a 501(c)(3) organization. OSGeo will have to pass the "public
support test" of getting at least 33% of its support from "public
sources". That 33%, if I recall correctly must be made up of donations
of $5000 or less. That means $35,000 in chunks smaller than 5K for the
budget shown.
I think this is why Creative Commons had that huge donation push a
couple of years ago, when they realized they were about to bump into that.
It can be far harder to get a lot of little donations than a few big
ones. If OSGeo fails the test, it can cause some major tax and reporting
headaches.
Better to think about it now and build it into the fundraising.
Allan,
Conveniently the Silver sponsorship level for projects, and associate
sponsorship levels come in at $3000 and have proven reasonably popular.
So, for instance, the seven Silver GDAL sponsors bring in $21000 USD towards
that public support test.
The other thing is that we have been advised that registration at the
conference can be considered a contribution and that brings in hundreds
of thousands of dollars in small contributions ($500-$1000). So as long
as that is legitimate we should have no problem meeting the public support
test. Of course, we will need to document it properly.
Best regards,
--
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up | Frank Warmerdam, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush | President OSGeo, http://osgeo.org
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