Finance Committee/Minutes/2024-10-23

From OpenStreetMap Foundation

OpenStreetMap Foundation

Finance Committee Minutes

23 October 2024

Present

  • Craig Allan
  • Roland Olbricht
  • Guillaume Rischard
  • Dani Waltersdorfer Jiminez

Apologies

  • None

Part 1: Fund Raising

Sovereign Tech Fund, Update

We are currently going through complex procurement vetting process with the STF. This scrutiny is required to clear us prior to any award of funds. Craig has signed documents certifying that OSMF are not criminally involved and that we are not breaking EU sanctions against Russian entities. If we are awarded funds the funds will be disbursed by STF and from STF only after we submit invoices so the grant will not appear on our books as a cash transfer. We are seeking information on how to represent this 'availability of funds' on our books?

To do: Roland will discuss with Michelle.

Donor funds for SotM events

Arnalie has been working with LCCWG to allocate funds to SotMs. There is a small residual, which may be allocated to Board travel to SotMs. Mikel is in contact with the donor and the distribution plan has been approved.

To do: Find out the procurement process that will work with this donor. In the past emails have worked. To be discussed on the GitLab.

CiviCRM - setting up a Dev machine for Fundraising.

Craig has been experimenting with a local copy of CiviCRM to manage donor engagements. This is a simpler use case than Membership so fewer problems are expected. General agreement to use a Dev copy that is firewalled from Membership CiviCRM. The risk of crashing Membership is foremost in all our minds. If the Donor CiviCRM works well we may consider merging the data into one instance. We are aware that we may migrate Membership from CiviCRM and will deal with that when it happens. We are likely to get opposition from Operations, who are reluctant to run further instances of Wordpress as it is high maintenance and considered insecure.

To do: Dani to discuss this proposal with Grant.

Part 2: Fund Spending

Fire Bank

OSMF maintains an account with Fire Bank. It seems to be dormant and running up unnecessary fees. We are not sure if it is used by any software as a transaction processing service. We need a decision to shut it down, keep it dormant or keep it alive for some still to be discovered use-case.

To do: Do nothing. This is not urgent. We will review it in a future meeting.

Accounting

Reporting - new processes.

Harrison has been producing routine monthly reports for us. This is contrary to his personal preferences, which are to only develop new systems. We would like to move the reporting workload to other people and reduce our dependence on Harrison. The immediate need is to get a script of instructions from Harrison to do the monthly reports. That script might be integrated into Xero for automatic reporting.

To do: Roland to contact Harrison and ask him for the necessary step by step script.

Pledges, Allocations and Commitments accounting

We have not solved the problem of recording pledges, budget allocations and commitments to spend in Xero. We need to determine the 'correct' way to record these on Xero, if it is even possible. If not we need to set up a parallel accounting system to deal with these intangible amounts. It is suggested that we have a system of ‘shadow’ accounts, from which money is drawn into the bookkeeping accounts.

Budget Planning

Publicity and information releases.

It was agreed to circulate budget progress announcements to the members and to the Board.

To do: Craig to send existing reports on https://hackmd.io/@craigallan/B1NwZucAR to the CWG and to the Board.

WG and Board Funding Request Templates

Harrison was going to produce templates but has been delayed. Roland will send emails to the Working Groups.

To Do: Roland sends emails to all the WG asking their budget needs for 2025

Expenses falling within EWG for Mikel

Mikel asked for a list of expenses falling within Engineering Working Group. This was not provided. The budget requests circulation by Roland may have superceded this request as it lists cost centres.

AOB

No other business

Next meeting

Wednesday 30 October 2024 at 20:00 UTC

https://osmvideo.cloud68.co/user/cra-0rm-ctu-gih

Minutes compiled by Craig

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