Finance Committee/Minutes/2024-02-28

OpenStreetMap Foundation

Finance Committee Minutes

28 February 2024

Present

• Craig Allan
• Guillaume Rischard
• Harrison Devine
• Roland Olbricht

Apologies

• None

Budget Process

Guillaume posted the budget to the OSMF-talk chat and the community forum. It is late, but this is the first year of this process – it will improve. OSMF has grown slowly from a tiny organisation to what we are now.

Promised contribution from Meta has been added to the budget as Meta is considered reliable. This reduces the overflow (shortage) amount on several items. Reserves to be cautiously maintained at not less than 1 year of expenditure. If there is new income it should be allocated half to reserves and half to expenditure. Ideally we will end the year with more than a year’s expenditure in the reserves.

In the event of a huge crisis we will cut back on expenditure so the reserve will in fact last much longer than a year. Noted that holding too much in reserve will convey the wrong message to donors. We are not a savings account, we will spend money at an acceptable “burn rate”. In particular, we are keen to eliminate the technical backlog in our systems and we want to hire an ED. That means spending more every year, and of course raising more every year.

Reporting on Expenses

Harrison has been looking at ways to report expenses using Xero, allowing monthly reports to the Board. Craig is looking at tracking commited funds – funds set aside when contracts are signed to avoid misrepresenting available funds.

We are still developing this and it is a steep learning curve.

Reporting regularly on expenditure and funds remaining unspent is about building financial controls and building trust. We have been fortunate that most problems seem to be misunderstanding each other rather than willfully doing bad things.

Fundraising Meetings

The budget process is closing. We need to move to fundraising mode. Remind Dani, Mikel. Fundraising advisors who will be contacted to plan for fundraising are: Allan Mustard, Allen Gunn, Courtney Williamson, Harrison Devine, Kate Varfalameyeva, Maggie Cawley, Tyler Radford.

February Board meeting

The Budget is published in advance of the meeting.

The motion to move the AGM and elections to October is published. This will move elections away from the key time for budget preparation.

Filing and Issue Tracking

Financial files are now in a visible folder on the Board system so more accessible.

GitLab financial items need to be situated to a position outside of the closed Board area so non-Board committee members can all access them.

Next meeting

Wednesday 6 February 2024 at 20:00 UTC

In the OSM Communication Working Group meeting room

https://osmvideo.cloud68.co/user/dor-mt1-8ei-26t

Minutes compiled by Craig