author_link = "https://sfconservancy.org/"

            return "https://sfconservancy.org" + item.mp3_path

        return "https://sfconservancy.org"

        # Never allow connection to the /admin part of the site without SSL

        if (not request.is_secure) and request.path.startswith('/admin'):

            url = 'https://sfconservancy.org%s' % request.path

            return http.HttpResponseRedirect(url)

<p>Lo&iuml;c Dachary has been involved with the Free Software Movement since

1987, when he started distributing GNU tapes to the general public in

France. In 2012, he founded <a href="http://upstream-university.org/">Upstream

University</a>, a nonprofit with the goal of teaching developers how to

contribute easily and efficiently. Dachary volunteers as a developer

for <a href="http://april.org/">April</a>, a grassroots organization

promoting Free Software. He maintains April's OpenStack cluster and organizes

contributions with agile methods. As President

of <a href="http://fsffrance.org/">FSF France</a>, he also provides technical

and legal resources to French Free Software developers. His day job is to use

and contribute to <a href="http://ceph.com/">Ceph</a> within OpenStack.</p>

<h2>Mike Linksvayer</h2>

<p>Mike Linksvayer serves on the boards of AcaWiki and OpenHatch,

and is chair of the Open Definition Advisory Council. From 2003 to

2012 he served as CTO and VP of Creative Commons, where he is now a

Senior Fellow. In 2000 he co-founded Bitzi, an early open content/open

data mass collaboration platform.</p>

{% extends "base_about.html" %}

{% block subtitle %}Evaluation Committee - {% endblock %}

{% block submenuselection %}Eval{% endblock %}

{% block content %}

<h1>Evaluation Committee</h1>

<p>The Evaluation Committee evaluates projects that have applied to become

members of Conservancy.

  Conservancy's <a href="/about/board/">Board of

    Directors</a> <a href="/news/2013/apr/23/linksvayer-and-eval-committee/">formally

    charters and authorizes</a> this Committee to offer <a href="/members/">membership to

  projects  <a href="/members/apply/">that apply</a>

    for membership in Conservancy.</p>

<h2>Jeremy Allison</h2>

<p>Jeremy Allison is one of the lead developers on the Samba Team, a group

of programmers developing an Open Source Windows compatible file and print

server product for UNIX systems. Developed over the Internet in a

distributed manner similar to the Linux system, Samba is used by all Linux

distributions as well as many thousands of corporations and products

worldwide. Jeremy handles the co-ordination of Samba development efforts

and acts as a corporate liaison to companies using the Samba code

commercially.</p>

<p>He works for Google, Inc. who fund him to work on improving Samba and

solving the problems of  Windows and Linux interoperability.</p>

<h2>Tom Callaway</h2>

<p>Tom Callaway has been working for Red Hat since 2001. He started in

Sales Engineering and has been the Fedora Engineering Manager since 2008.

He served three consecutive elected terms on the Fedora Board from 2007 to

2011. Tom also maintains or co-maintains a large number of Packages in

Fedora (currently 390) and is leading the Fedora Packaging Committee,

responsible for RPM Packaging Standards and Practices.  Additionally, he is

responsible for managing Fedora's Legal issues.  Tom frequently represents

Fedora and Free Software at conferences around the world, and tries his

best not to make too big of a fool of himself.</p>

<p>When not working, Tom enjoys geocaching, ice hockey, gaming, science

fiction, and pinball.</p>

<h2>Lo&iuml;c Dachary</h2>

<p>Lo&iuml;c Dachary has been involved with the Free Software Movement since

1987, when he started distributing GNU tapes to the general public in

France. In 2012, he founded <a href="http://upstream-university.org/">Upstream

University</a>, a nonprofit with the goal of teaching developers how to

contribute easily and efficiently. Dachary volunteers as a developer

for <a href="http://april.org/">April</a>, a grassroots organization

promoting Free Software. He maintains April's OpenStack cluster and organizes

contributions with agile methods. As President

of <a href="http://fsffrance.org/">FSF France</a>, he also provides technical

and legal resources to French Free Software developers. His day job is to use

and contribute to <a href="http://ceph.com/">Ceph</a> within OpenStack.</p>

<h2>Mark Galassi</h2>

<p>Mark Galassi has been involved in the GNU project since 1984. He

currently works as a researcher in the International, Space, and Response

division at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he has worked on the

HETE-2 satellite, ISIS/Genie, the Raptor telescope, the Swift satellite,

and the muon tomography project. In 1997 Mark took a couple of years off

from Los Alamos (where he was previously in the ISR division and the

Theoretical Astrophysics group) to work for Cygnus (now a part of Red Hat)

writing software and books for eCos, although he continued working on the

HETE-2 satellite (an astrophysical Gamma Ray Burst mission) part time. Mark

earned his BA in Physics at Reed College and a PhD from the Institute for

Theoretical Physics at Stony Brook.</p>

<h2>Mike Hostetler</h2>

<p>Mike Hostetler is an inventor, entrepreneur, programmer and proud

father. Having worked with web technologies since the mid 1990's, Mike has

had extensive experience developing web applications with PHP and

JavaScript.  Currently, Mike works as the Founder and CEO of appendTo, LLC,

the company dedicated to jQuery, based in Denver, Colorado. Heavily

involved in Open Source, Mike is an alumni of the jQuery Core team,

participates in the QCubed PHP5 Framework project, and participates in the

Drupal project. When not in front of a computer, Mike enjoys hiking,

fly-fishing, snowboarding and spending time with his family.</p>

<h2>Bradley M. Kuhn</h2>

<p>Bradley M. Kuhn began his work in the Free Software Movement as a

volunteer when, in 1992, he became an early adopter of the popular

GNU/Linux operating system, and began contributing to various Free Software

projects.  He worked during the 1990s as a system administrator and

software development consultant for Westinghouse, Lucent Technologies, and

numerous small companies.  He also spent one year teaching Advanced

Placement Computer Science (using GNU/Linux and GCC) at Walnut Hills High

School in Cincinnati.  In January 2000, he was hired by the Free Software

Foundation (FSF), and he served as its Executive Director from March 2001

until March 2005, when he left FSF to join the Software Freedom Law Center

(SFLC), where he worked as SFLC's Policy Analyst and Technology Director

from 2005 until October 2010, when he joined Conservancy as its Executive

Director.  Kuhn holds a summa cum laude B.S. in Computer Science from

Loyola College in Maryland, and an M.S. in Computer Science from the

University of Cincinnati.  His Master's thesis discussed methods for

dynamic interoperability of Free Software languages.</p>

<h2>Mike Linksvayer</h2>

<p>Mike Linksvayer serves on the boards of AcaWiki and OpenHatch, and is

chair of the Open Definition Advisory Council. From 2003 to 2012 he served

as CTO and VP of Creative Commons, where he is now a Senior Fellow. In 2000

he co-founded Bitzi, an early open content/open data mass collaboration

platform.</p>

<h2>Martin Michlmayr</h2>

<p>Martin Michlmayr has been involved in various free and open source

software projects for well over 15 years.  He acted as the leader of the

Debian project for two years and currently serves on the board of the Open

Source Initiative (OSI).  Martin works for HP as an Open Source Community

Expert.  In this role, he facilitates open source activities both

internally within HP as well as externally within the broader open source

community.  Martin holds Master degrees in Philosophy, Psychology and

Software Engineering, and earned a PhD from the University of

Cambridge.</p>

<h2>Evan Prodromou</h2>

<p>Evan Prodromou is the lead developer of pump.io and founder of E14N Inc.

He has previously worked on Free Software for web services like MediaWiki

and StatusNet.</p>

<h2>Karen Sandler</h2>

<p>Karen M. Sandler is currently the Executive Director of the GNOME

Foundation and prior to taking up this position was General Counsel of the

Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC). Karen continues to do <a

href="/about/outside#karen">pro bono legal work with Conservancy</a>, SFLC,

and Question Copyright and serves as an officer of both the Conservancy and

SFLC.  Before joining SFLC, Karen worked as an associate in the corporate

departments of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP in New York and Clifford

Chance in New York and London. Karen received her law degree from Columbia

Law School in 2000, where she was a James Kent Scholar and co-founder of

the Columbia Science and Technology Law Review. Karen received her

bachelor’s degree in engineering from The Cooper Union. She is a recipient

of an O'Reilly Open Source Award and also co-host of the <a

href="http://faif.us">&ldquo;Free as in Freedom&rdquo; podcast</a>.</p>

<h2>Tony Sebro</h2>

<p>Tony Sebro is a seasoned technology attorney with a broad base of

business and legal experience relating to technology, strategy, and

business development.  Before joining Conservancy, Tony was most recently a

Partner with the PCT Companies, a family of professional service firms.

Prior to that, he was Program Director, Technology & Intellectual

Property at IBM's Armonk, New York world headquarters, where he was

responsible for developing and executing licensing strategies in

partnership with IBM's Software Group.  In that role, Tony led negotiations

and structured deals with market leaders in the web technology, e-commerce,

retail, enterprise software, and financial services sectors.  Tony also led

various internal strategic initiatives, including an effort to provide

business leaders of key emerging market opportunities with coordinated

intellectual property development and monetization strategies, as well as

the revamping and supervision of IBM's corporate-wide process for

determining the value and availability of patents for sale.  Prior to his

tenure at IBM, Mr. Sebro practiced law in the New York office of Kenyon

& Kenyon, LLP, handling litigation and licensing matters for clients in

the medical, pharmaceutical and mechanical technology areas.  Tony received

his J.D. and his M.B.A. from the University of Michigan.  He received his

B.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Tony is a member of

the New York bar and registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and

Trademark Office. Tony is also an active participant in and supporter of

the non-profit community, and has served on the boards of multiple

non-profit organizations.</p>

{% endblock %}

  licensed as <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us">CC-By-SA-3.0

  USA</a>.  In some cases, the documents are dual-licensed

  (AGPLv3-or-later|CC-By-SA-3.0-USA-or-later), to make it more

  under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us">CC-By-SA-3.0

{% block subtitle %}Outside Counsel, et alia - {% endblock %}

{% extends "base_conservancy.html" %}

{% block subtitle %}Campaign - {% endblock %}

{% block category %}campaign{% endblock %}

{% block head %}

<link href="/jquery-ui.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>

<script src="/jquery.min.js"></script>

<script src="/jquery-ui.min.js"></script>

<style type="text/css">

  #progressbar .ui-widget-header { background: rgb(206, 31, 31); }

</style>

<script type="text/javascript">

  $(document).ready(function() {

    $("#progressbar").progressbar({ value: (41194 / 75000) * 100 });

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

    $('.toggle-control')

     .addClass('clickable')

     .bind('click', function() {

        var $control = $(this);

        var $parent = $control.parents('.toggle-unit');

        $parent.toggleClass('expanded');

        $parent.find('.toggle-content').slideToggle();

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

        if ($parent.hasClass('expanded')) {

            $control.html($control.attr('data-expanded-text'));

        } else {

            $control.html($control.attr('data-text'));

        }

    });

    $('a.donate-now')

      .addClass('clickable')

      .bind('click', function() {

        var $control = $('#donate-box');

        $control.toggleClass('expanded');

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

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

    });

  });

</script>

{% endblock %}

{% block content %}

<div style="position:fixed;top:180px;right:2%;width:18%">

<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>

</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>

-->

$41,194 raised toward<br/>

our $75,000 goal.</br>

<div id="progressbar" style="height:20px;"><span style="float:right; align:center; margin-right:40%">54.9%</div>

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

<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" border="0" name="submit" alt="Donate Now!">

<img alt="" 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="Google Checkout" 

    data-expanded-text="Google Checkout:">Google Checkout</h4>

    <div class="toggle-content">

<!-- Google Checkout start -->

<script type="text/javascript"> 

function validateAmount(amount){

    if(amount.value.match( /^[0-9]+(\.([0-9]+))?$/)){

        return true;

    }else{

        alert('You must enter a valid donation.');

        amount.focus();

        return false;

    }

}

</script>

<form action="https://checkout.google.com/cws/v2/Donations/622836985124940/checkoutForm" id="BB_BuyButtonForm" method="post" name="BB_BuyButtonForm" onSubmit="return validateAmount(this.item_price_1)" target="_top">

    <input name="item_name_1" type="hidden" value="Directed Donation for Conservancy's NPO accounting software project"/>

    <input name="item_description_1" type="hidden" value="This donation to the Software Freedom Conservancy, Inc. is directed toward Conservancy's NPO accounting software project.  Conservancy is a 501(c)(3) charity in New York."/>

    <input name="item_quantity_1" type="hidden" value="1"/>

    <input name="item_currency_1" type="hidden" value="USD"/>

    <input name="item_is_modifiable_1" type="hidden" value="true"/>

    <input name="item_min_price_1" type="hidden" value="6.0"/>

    <input name="item_max_price_1" type="hidden" value="25000.0"/>

    <input name="_charset_" type="hidden" value="utf-8"/>

    <table cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" width="1%">

        <tr>

            <td align="right" valign="top" style="padding-top:9px;" nowrap="nowrap" width="1%">&#x24; <input id="item_price_1" name="item_price_1" onfocus="this.style.color='black'; this.value='';" size="6" type="text" value="250.00"/>

            </td>

            <td align="left" width="1%">

                <input alt="Donate" src="https://checkout.google.com/buttons/donateNow.gif?merchant_id=622836985124940&amp;w=115&amp;h=50&amp;style=trans&amp;variant=text&amp;loc=en_US" type="image"/>

            </td>

        </tr>

    </table>

</form>

<!-- Google Checkout end -->

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

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

<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/Campaign-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" border="0" /></a></p>

<!-- Flattr end -->

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

</div>

<div style="align:left;width:80%;">

<!-- 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;" />

<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 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 <acronym title="Free, Libre and Open Source Software">FLOSS</acronym>

  <acronym title="Non-profit Organization">NPO</acronym> 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="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>

<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 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

proprietary software, NPOs in aggregate will pay <em>much more</em> money for

proprietary licensing than Conservancy will ever spend in developing a

replacement. Please <a href="#donate-box" class="donate-now">donate

generously</a> to help us do it!</p>

<a id="quotes"></a>

<h3>Statements of Support For This Project from Others</h3>

<p><q>As a national fiscal sponsor with over 3,000 arts and cultural projects

under our umbrella, Fractured Atlas is ecstatic about this effort's

potential. After 15 years wrestling with Quickbooks and other inadequate

options, the idea of an open source tool designed specifically for this niche

of the field is beyond welcome. We wholeheartedly support the Conservancy's

work on this front and look forward to seeing where it leads.</q> &mdash;