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#container #sidebar.VMwareLawsuitAppeal ul li.VMwareLawsuitAppeal,

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body.conservancy-Compliance #navbar ul li.Compliance a,

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  $(document).ready(function() {

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    $('.toggle-content').hide();

    $('.toggle-control')

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     .bind('click', function() {

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        // if control has HTML5 data attributes, use to update text

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      .addClass('clickable')

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        $control.toggleClass('expanded');

        $control.find('.toggle-content').slideUp("slow");

        $control.find('.toggle-content').slideDown("slow");

    });

  });

</script>

{% endblock %}

{% block content %}

<div class="donate-sidebar">

<table style="background-color:#afe478;width:100%;">

<tr><td style="text-align:center;padding:10px;padding-bottom:10px;">

<div id="donate-box" class="toggle-unit"><h1 class="toggle-content">Donate Now!</h1></div>

<!--

<script type="text/javascript" src="https://js.balancedpayments.com/v1/balanced.js"></script>

<script type="text/javascript">

   // FOR DEMONSTRATION PURPOSES ONLY - if you already have a server you can POST to, replace

   //                                   the URL with the URL to post to.

   // go to http://requestb.in/

   // click create new request bin and COPY that URL without the ?inspect at the end

   var requestBinURL = 'http://requestb.in/1dk2x8y1';  // make sure it doesn't end in ?inspect

   var marketplaceUri = '/v1/marketplaces/TEST-MPMp7ZUPDpbj69vk2wGHRVY';

   //var marketplaceUri = 'https://www.balancedpayments.com/marketplaces/TEST-MPMp7ZUPDpbj69vk2wGHRVY';

   balanced.init(marketplaceUri);

var cardData = {

  "name": "Bernhard Riemann",                 // Optional

  "card_number": "4111 1111 1111 1111",

  "expiration_month": 4,

  "expiration_year": 2014,

};

function evbind(el, ev, handler) {

if(el.addEventListener) {

el.addEventListener(ev, handler, false);

} else if(el.attachEvent) {

el.attachEvent('on'+ev, function() {handler.apply(el);});

}

}

/*

   function responseCallbackHandler(response) {

      alert(response.status);

      switch (response.status) {

        case 400:

            // missing or invalid field - check response.error for details

            console.log(response.error);

            break;

        case 404:

            // your marketplace URI is incorrect

            console.log(response.error);

            break;

        case 201:

            // WOO HOO! MONEY!

            // response.data.uri == URI of the bank account resource you

            // should store this bank account URI to later credit it

            console.log(response.data);

            var $form = $("#bank-account-form");

            // the uri is an opaque token referencing the tokenized bank account

            var bank_account_uri = response.data['uri'];

            // append the token as a hidden field to submit to the server

            $('<input>').attr({

               type: 'hidden',

               value: bank_account_uri,

               name: 'balancedBankAccountURI'

            }).appendTo($form);

            $form.attr({action: requestBinURL});

            $form.get(0).submit();

        break;

    default:

        console.log(response.status);

        }

    }

   //alert('allo?');

   var tokenizeInstrument = function(e) {

        alert('what"s going on?');

        e.preventDefault();

        var $form = $('#bank-account-form');

        var bankAccountData = {

            name: $form.find('.ba-name').val(),

            account_number: $form.find('.ba-an').val(),

            bank_code: $form.find('.ba-rn').val(),

            type: $form.find('select').val()

        };

        balanced.bankAccount.create(bankAccountData, responseCallbackHandler);

    };

   $('#bank-account-form').submit(tokenizeInstrument);

*/

</script>

-->

$66,275 raised toward<br/>

our $75,000 goal.<br/>

<div id="progressbar" style="height:20px;"><span style="float:right; align:center; margin-right:40%">88.4%</span></div>

<p style="font-size: 75%">(Progress bar updated monthly.)</p>

<a id="donate" style="text-decoration:none"></a>

<h3>Help us reach our goal:</h3>

<!-- PayPal start -->

<form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post" target="_top">

<input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_s-xclick">

<input type="hidden" name="hosted_button_id" value="3VRTJALJ5PQRW">

<input type="image" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_donateCC_LG.gif" style="border:0" name="submit" alt="Donate Now!">

<img alt="" style="border:0" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/scr/pixel.gif" width="1" height="1">

</form>

<!-- PayPal end -->

<!-- Balanced start -

<div class="container">

- <form action="#" method="POST" id="bank-account-form" class="form-horizontal" onsubmit="balanced.card.create(cardData, function(response) { alert(response.status); });"> -

<form action="#" method="POST" id="bank-account-form" class="form-horizontal">

    <fieldset>

        <legend>Bank Account Information</legend>

        <p><label>Account Holder's Name

            <input type="text"

                   autocomplete="off"

                   placeholder="Bank Account Holder's name"

                   class="ba-name"

                   name="ba_name"

                   value="4111 1111 1111 1111">

        </label></p>

        <p><label>Routing Number

            <input type="text"

                   autocomplete="off"

                   placeholder="Routing Number"

                   class="ba-rn"

                   name="ba_rn"

                   value="4">

        </label></p>

        <p><label>Account Number

            <input type="text"

                   autocomplete="off"

                   placeholder="Account Number"

                   class="ba-an"

                   name="ba_an"

                   value="2014">

        </label></p>

        <p><label>Account Something

            <input type="text"

                   autocomplete="off"

                   placeholder="Account Something"

                   class="ba-as"

                   name="ba_as"

                   value="something someone">

        </label></p>

        <p><label>Account Type

            <select name="ba_type">

                <option value='' disabled selected style='display:none;'>

                    Select Account Type

                </option>

                <option value="checking" default>CHECKING</option>

                <option value="savings">SAVINGS</option>

            </select>

        </label></p>

        <button type="submit" class="btn">

            Tokenize

        </button>

    </fieldset>

</form>

</div>

<script type="text/javascript">

evbind(document.getElementById('bank-account-form'), 'submit',

  function(e) {

    e.preventDefault();

    console.log(this.ba_as.value);

    balanced.card.create(

 {

  "name": this.ba_as.value,

  "card_number": this.ba_name.value,

  "expiration_month": this.ba_rn.value,

  "expiration_year": this.ba_an.value,

/*

  "name": "Bernhard Riemann",                 // Optional

  "card_number": "4111 1111 1111 1111",

  "expiration_month": 4,

  "expiration_year": 2014,

*/

 },

    function(response) {

      console.log(response);

      console.log(response.data.uri);

      $.ajax("/campaign/?token=" + response.data.uri + '&amount=' + document.getElementById('bank-account-form').ba_an.value);

      alert(response.status);

    });

});

</script>

- Balanced end -->

<p>

Other donation methods:

<div class="toggle-unit">

    <h4 class="toggle-control" data-text="Wire Transfer" 

    data-expanded-text="Wire Transfer:">Wire Transfer</h4>

    <div class="toggle-content">

        Please

            contact <a href="mailto:accounting@sfconservancy.org">Conservancy

            by email</a><br/> for wire transfer instructions.<br/>

            Please Include your currency and country.<br/>

    </div><!-- /.toggle-content -->

</div><!-- /.toggle.unit -->

<div class="toggle-unit">

    <h4 class="toggle-control" data-text="Paper Check" 

    data-expanded-text="Paper Check:">Paper Check</h4>

    <div class="toggle-content">

    Send paper check donations to:<br/>

    Software Freedom Conservancy, Inc.<br/>

    137 MONTAGUE ST  STE 380<br/>

    BROOKLYN, NY 11201-3548<br/>

    Please write <q>NPO ACCOUNTING</q> in the memo line. 

    </div><!-- /.toggle-content -->

</div><!-- /.toggle.unit -->

<!-- Flattr start -->

<p><a href="https://flattr.com/thing/1296704/NPOAcct-to-develop-Free-and-Open-Source-Non-Profit-Accounting-Software" target="_blank"><img src="https://api.flattr.com/button/flattr-badge-large.png" alt="Flattr this" title="Flattr this" style="border:0" /></a></p>

<!-- Flattr end -->

</td></tr></table>

</div>

<!-- begin campaign text -->

<h2>Fundraising Campaign: Non-Profit Accounting Software</h2>

<img src="/img/conservancy-accounting-campaign-logo.png" alt="Conservancy accounting campaign logo" style="float:left;" />

<blockquote>

<p><strong>Update on 2014-12-03:</strong> As can be seen, Conservancy sadly

  never reached our fundraising target for this project.  However, as we

  promised below, we <a href="http://npoacct.sfconservancy.org/">continue to

  work on this project</a>.  We'd really appreciate more donations, as we've

  needed to make a lot of compromises in our plans since we didn't reach our

  fundraising goal.  We did complete Phase 0 described below

  (<a href="http://npoacct.sfconservancy.org/">results are on our wiki</a>),

  and Phase 1 now comprises the development of an REST API for double-entry

  accounting  which many applications (including this one) can use.</p>

</blockquote>

<br/>

<hr/>

<p>Conservancy has a plan to help all non-profit organizations (NPOs) by

creating an Open Source and Free Software accounting system usable by

non-technical bookkeepers, accountants, and non-profit managers.  You can

help us do it by donating now.

</p>

<p>To keep their books and produce annual government filings, most NPOs rely

on proprietary software, paying exorbitant licensing fees.  This is

fundamentally at cross purposes with their underlying missions of charity,

equality, democracy, and sharing.</p>

<p>You can help Conservancy fix this problem by <a href="#donate-box" class="donate-now">donating now</a>.  We seek to

raise $75,000 to employ a 

developer for one year to make substantial progress on this project.</p>

<p>This project has the potential to save the non-profit sector

millions in licensing fees every year.  Even non-profits that continue to use proprietary accounting

software will benefit, since the existence of quality Open Source and Free

  Software for a particular task curtails predatory behavior by proprietary

  software companies, and creates a new standard of comparison.</p>

<p>But, more powerfully, this project's realization

will increase the agility and collaborative potential

for the non-profit sector — a boon to funders, boards, and employees —  bringing the Free Software and general NPO communities

into closer collaboration and understanding.</p>

<p>Thanks in advance for <a href="#donate-box" class="donate-now">helping us</a> develop Free Software to benefit all

non-profit organizations, and the 

populations they serve.</p>

<p>Donors of $500 or more will be acknowledged in the THANKS file and other

  appropriate places in the codebase itself.</p>

<p><a href="#endorsements">Endorsers of this effort</a> include April, Fractured Atlas, The Free Software

Foundation, Mozilla Foundation, GNOME Foundation, OpenHatch, Open

Source Initiative, QuestionCopyright.org, and Software in the Public

Interest; all encourage you to <a href="#donate-box" class="donate-now">donate and support it</a>.</p>

<h3>Background</h3>

<p>Like many non-profit organizations (NPOs) in the USA, Conservancy's

  financial accounts are audited annually by an independent accounting firm;

  we recently completed our fiscal year 2011 audit.  As usual, our auditors

  asked plenty of questions about our accounting software.  Conservancy uses

  only Free Software, of course, centered around a set of straightforward reporting

  scripts that we created to run on top

  of <a href="http://www.ledger-cli.org/">Ledger CLI</a>. (Conservancy's

  current configuration using Ledger CLI

  is <a href="https://gitorious.org/ledger/npo-ledger-cli">publicly

  documented and explained</a>.)</p>

<p>Our auditors were only familiar with proprietary accounting software, and

  so our system seemed foreign to them, as it relies on Ledger CLI's text files, Emacs and

  version control.  During their questions

  about our setup, we asked them to hypothetically prescribe a specific

  proprietary software setup as a model for  managing Conservancy's

  accounts.  Our chief auditor started by mentioning a few well-known

  proprietary solutions.   But then he paused and continued:  <q>Given

  that Conservancy's a fiscal sponsor with so many temporarily restricted

  accounts, existing systems really wouldn't do that good of a job for

  you</q>.</p>

<p>Indeed, Conservancy reached out into the broader fiscal sponsorship

  community beyond the <abbr title="Free, Libre and Open Source Software">FLOSS</abbr>

  <abbr title="Non-profit Organization">NPO</abbr> community and discovered that many larger fiscal sponsors &mdash; even

  those willing to use proprietary components — have cobbled together

  their own unique systems, idiosyncratically tailored to their specific

  environments.  Thus, good, well-designed, and reusable accounting software

  for non-profit fiscal sponsorship is not just missing in the software

  freedom community; it's missing altogether.</p>

<p>The project that Conservancy proposes will take a modest step

  forward in creating a better solution for everyone. 

  <a href="#quotes">Many NPO leaders and academics agree</a> with Conservancy about the

  immediate need for work to begin on this

  effort.  <a id="endorsements"

  style="text-decoration:none"></a><a href="http://april.org">April</a>, <a href="https://www.fracturedatlas.org">Fractured Atlas</a>, The <a href="http://fsf.org">Free Software

  Foundation</a>, The <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/foundation/">Mozilla

Foundation</a>, The <a href="http://www.gnome.org/foundation/">GNOME Foundation</a>,  <a

        href="https://openhatch.org/">OpenHatch</a>, <a href="http://opensource.org/node/658">Open Source Initiative</a>,

  <a href="http://QuestionCopyright.org">QuestionCopyright.org</a>, and <a href="http://www.spi-inc.org/">Software in the Public Interest</a> have

  all endorsed Conservancy's plan, and they encourage you to <a href="#donate-box" class="donate-now">donate and

  support it</a>.</p>

<p>Conservancy is uniquely qualified to undertake this task.  Using only Free

  Software, Conservancy already meets the complex accounting challenges of

  earmarked, directed donations for over thirty different projects.  We've

  learned much about this work in our first seven years of

  operation, and we're prepared to apply what we've learned to solve

  this problem not just for ourselves, but for anyone who seeks a

  solution that both respects software freedom and handles non-profit

  accounting for all sorts of NPOs, including fiscal sponsors.  General NPO

  accounting is just a “base case” of fiscal sponsorship (i.e.,

  an NPO is just a fiscal sponsor for one and only one specific project),

  and Conservancy therefore believes a solution that handles fiscal sponsors

  will also handle the simpler case as well.</p>

<h3>The Plan</h3>

<p>Conservancy proposes to hire a software developer for one year to

  accomplish the first two phases of this project.  Conservancy seeks to

  raise $75,000 toward this project to help cover salary and benefits for a

  full-time staffer to work on this project.  We ask that you give generously

  via the donation buttons on this page to support our work.</p>

<h4>Phase 0</h4>

<p>Some Free Software accounting systems do exist.  A previous informal

  survey of these systems that Conservancy conducted in 2007 led us to the

  conclusion that, in general, these systems were heavily geared toward

  for-profit endeavors, ignored the unique needs of NPOs generally, and

  were completely hopeless for the specific needs of a fiscal sponsoring

  organization.  Conservancy's assessment at the time was that these

  challenges could be addressed only with a large rewrite of one of these

  systems.  Conservancy chose

  <a href="http://www.ledger-cli.org/">Ledger CLI</a> precisely because

  it provided flexibility and configurability not present in any other Free Software

  double-entry accounting system.</p>

<p>However, while that previous informal survey informs Conservancy's

  existing hypothesis that Ledger CLI is the right base system here,

  Conservancy will first test that hypothesis.  The first phase of this

  project (estimated to last approximately 6-8 full-time weeks) will produce

  a written survey of all known Free Software accounting systems, and

  indicate what challenges exist to adapt such systems for the needs of

  NPOs.  The <a href="https://fsf.org/">Free Software Foundation</a> has

  pledged their help in the evaluation of SQL-Ledger,

  and <a href="http://www.gnome.org/foundation/">the GNOME Foundation</a> has pledged their

  help in the evaluation of <a href="http://www.gnucash.org/">GNUcash</a> (which they

  currently use, respectively).</p>

<h4>Phase 1</h4>

<p>Phase 1 of the project will select the preferred codebase from Phase 0,

  and improve that system to create a basic accounting system for

  small-to-medium sized USA NPOs (i.e., Form 990-filers) — including fiscal

  sponsors — with the following features:

<ul>

<li>Basic accounts payable/receivable (with invoicing)</li>

<li>Tracking and reporting of non-profit income types (related business

  income, unrelated business taxable income, donations, etc.)</li>

<li>Basic backup documentation tracking for expenses and payments</li>

<li>Basic bank statement reconciliation reporting</li>

<li>Basic annual audit preparation reporting

  (A <a href="https://github.com/ledger/ledger/tree/next/contrib/non-profit-audit-reports">prototype

  of this portion is already complete</a> and has been relied on for

  real-life audits; but the prototype is just a hack and needs to be

  rewritten.)</li>

<li>Ability to easily handle all these features on a project-by-project

  subset of the accounts, and to easily export and excise that subset from

  the system. (i.e., support for temporarily restricted assets, earmarked for

  fiscal-sponsored projects)</li>

<li>Multi-currency support and reporting</li>

</ul>

<p>We will consider the first year of this project successful <em>only if all these

  functions can be performed by a bookkeeper who is generally qualified as a

  bookkeeper</em>, but not necessarily familiar with standard Free Software tools

  such as GNU/Linux, Emacs, version control, and command line scripts.  This

  requirement is essential: Conservancy's existing system using Ledger CLI

  already provides sufficient functionality to manage non-profit accounting,

  but our system requires a bookkeeper who is also adept with the

  aforementioned tools already.</p>

<p>Finally, while the first year of work focuses on USA NPO needs,

  Conservancy seeks to lead an international effort, and welcomes

  contributions and input from everyone in the non-profit community from

  around the world.  Conservancy has created

  a <a href="http://lists.sfconservancy.org/mailman/listinfo/npo-accounting">mailing

  list for discussion of this project</a> and

  a <a href="http://npoacct.sfconservancy.org">Wiki for collaboration</a>  and encourages interested parties

  from around the world to join the mailing list and contribute to the

  project!</p>

<h3>Why Conservancy Must Fund This Work</h3>

<p>As it stands, nearly all Open Source and Free Software NPOs either use

  proprietary software, or fully outsource their bookkeeping and accounting

  to third-parties.  Those that don't do so (such as Conservancy and the Free

  Software Foundation) have long complained that existing Free Software in

  this area is inadequate, and have been forced to develop customized,

  one-off solutions in-house to make the systems work.</p>

<p>It's highly unlikely that the for-profit sector will adapt existing Free

  Software accounting systems to meet the differing needs of NPOs (let alone

  the more complex needs of fiscal sponsors; based on

  advice from our auditors and other fiscal sponsors, Conservancy understands that <em>no existing

  solution &mdash; proprietary or Free &mdash; meets the requirements of fiscal sponsorship accounting</em>).  Fiscal sponsors like

  Conservancy must track a separate set of books for every project, keeping

  in mind that a project may leave at any time for another NPO and need to take

  their books with them.  Yet, the books of the entire organization are the

  aggregate of the books of all these projects, and internally, they need to

  be presented as a single set of books for those purposes.</p>

<p>Meanwhile, even if an organization is not a fiscal sponsor, non-profit

  accounting is <em>just different</em> than for-profit accounting, particularly in

  the USA.  For example, for-profit-oriented systems often make problematic

  assumptions about the workflow of accounting tasks (often because NPOs

  rely primarily on donations, rather than fee-for-service or widget-selling

  income).  Also, non-profit income is categorized differently than

  for-profit income, and the reporting requirements vary wildly from their

  for-profit equivalents.</p>

<p>Conservancy's existing system is working adequately, but requires daily

  the relatively more expensive time of a highly technical person to do the

  job of bookkeeping.  Also, the system cannot easily be adapted in its

  current form for another NPO, unless they also have a

  skilled technical employee to act as bookkeeper.  This project aims to build

  on what Conservancy has learned and produce a non-profit accounting system

  that corrects these flaws.</p>

<p>Finally, Conservancy's mission (as stated

on <a href="http://sfconservancy.org/docs/conservancy_Form-1023.pdf">our Form

1023 with the USA IRS</a>) includes producing Open Source and Free Software.

Thus, this project is a great way to pursue Conservancy's mission and address a

specific need that so many NPOs (including us) have.  If no one steps up to create Free Software to replace the widely used