On 7 August 2014 09:57, David King <amigad...@amigadave.com> wrote: > Hi > > On 2014-08-06 20:19, Emmanuele Bassi <eba...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> On 6 August 2014 19:49, Michael Hill <mdhil...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> "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." -- Ryan Lortie >>> >>> Result: day to day operations of the Foundation disrupted. >> >> >> the disruption has been put in place to recover reserves that we >> burned through; those reserves were burned through because of a >> reduction in the cash flow of the Foundation in general — i.e. our >> finances have been shrinking for the past few years. the OPW was an >> expenditure to make up for invoices not being paid, but *any* >> expenditure (hackfest, conferences, travel assistance) could have >> caused the freeze. > > > I sit on the travel committee, and witness a large part of the Foundation's > expenditure on travel assistance and hackfests, as well as approving > (together with other members of the committee) those expenses within > boundaries set by the Foundation board. To my knowledge, the travel > committee has not exceeded its event budgets since I have been a member. > > While it is possible for any expenditure to trigger an emergency situation > (given a sufficiently large amount), it is probably better to concentrate on > situations where spending limits have been exceeded, and to reduce the > likelihood of those situations occurring in the future. > > >> in general, the freeze that has less to do with OPW and more with our >> own issues in tracking payments and invoices, and handling our own >> accounting. the whole issue could have just as easily happened if we >> didn't have OPW, to be fair. in a way, the OPW growth and this whole >> finance situation has forced the board to get a better handle on the >> foundation's own funding and processes, to streamline them, document >> them, and track them. > > > According to the Foundation board's FAQ about the financial situation when > it was first announced, the Foundation "had to front the costs of OPW": > > https://wiki.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/CurrentBudgetFAQ#Why_had_this_happened.3F > > While the issue could have occurred without the OPW, in this case it > happened because of the OPW, and the board put it rather unequivocally: > > "The GNOME Foundation had a temporary lack of reserves due to processing the > funds for the Outreach Program for Women (OPW)." > https://wiki.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/CurrentBudgetFAQ#What_is_the_situation.3F > > >> now that things are tracked properly the remaining effect of the OPW >> growth is the administrative burden on our own administrative >> infrastructure; that still needs to be fixed, and it would be good to >> have ideas on how to increase our volunteer base. > > Does that mean that all the outstanding invoices for OPW have been paid? If > not, there is a financial burden as well as an administrative one.
There are still a few invoices which are unpaid for previous rounds, but there are also some invoices which have been paid for the upcoming round. >> we also still need to build up cash reserves, so that we can unfreeze >> the expenditures of the foundation. > > > It seems reasonable to expect that OPW is subject to spending freezes just > like the rest of the non-essential expenditure of the Foundation, including > hackfests, travel and so on. However, there are very few minuted discussions > of OPW payments from the board since the freeze. I can find no record of a > decision for sending out the second part of the stipend for the current > round of OPW: > > https://wiki.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen/2014/MayAugust#Payments_Schedule > > I would have expected a decision some time before the 7th July stipend > payment, but I can only see an inconclusive discussion and partial vote from > the start of June: > > https://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2014-June/msg00004.html > > As the payment date has now passed, did the board vote on the expense, and > were the payments sent? No, the board did not vote on the expense, but the payments were sent. > -- > http://amigadave.com/ > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-list mailing list > foundation-list@gnome.org > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list > _______________________________________________ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
