<h1>Project Membership Application FAQs</h1>

<p>The following are various questions that we typically get from project

  leaders that wish to apply to Conservancy.</p>

<h2>I sent in my inquiry letter and/or application a long time ago.  Why haven't you replied?</h2>

<p>Conservancy receives an overwhelming level of interest and we have very few

  <a href="http://sfconservancy.org/about/staff/">staff positions</a> to

  meet the interest and demand

  for <a href="http://sfconservancy.org/members/services/">Conservancy's

  services</a> to its member projects.  Meanwhile, Conservancy always

  prioritizes needs of

  its <a href="http://sfconservancy.org/members/current/">existing member

  projects</a> over new inquiries and applications.  Therefore, it

  sometimes can take quite a while to finish the application process and

  be offered membership, but please note that such delays mean that should

  your project ultimately become a member project, your project will then

  be a beneficiary of this policy.</p>

<h2>What are the key criteria our project must meet to join?</h2>

<p>In order to join, projects need to meet certain criteria.  A rough

  outline of those criteria are as follows:</p>

<p>

<ul><li>The project must be a software development or documentation

    project.  Non-software projects to advance the cause of software

    freedom, while important and useful, are beyond the scope of

    Conservancy.</li>

    <li>The project must be exclusively devoted to the development and

    documentation of FLOSS.  The project's goals must be consistent with

    the Conservancy's tax-exempt purposes, and other requirements imposed

    on Conservancy by the IRS' 501(c)(3) rules.  Namely, the goal of the

    project must to develop and document the software in a not-for-profit

    way to advance the public good, and must develop the software in

    public.</li>

    <li>The project must be licensed in a way fitting with software

      freedom principles.  Specifically, all software of the project

      should be licensed under a license that is listed both as

      a <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html">Free

      Software license by the Free Software Foundation</a> and as

      an <a href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical">Open

      Source license by the Open Source Initiative</a>.  All software

      documentation for the project should be licensed under a license on

      the preceding lists, or under Creative

      Commons' <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/">CC-By-SA</a>

      or <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/">CC-By</a>

      or

        <a href="http://creativecommons.org/choose/zero/">CC-0</a>.</li>

   <li>The project should have an existing, vibrant, diverse community

      that develops and documents the software.  For example, projects

      that have been under development for less than a year or only a

      “proof of concept” implementation are generally not

      eligible.</li>

</ul>

</p>

<p>While any project meeting the criteria above can apply, meeting these

  criteria don't guarantee acceptance of your project.  The Conservancy

  favors projects that are well-established and have some track record of

  substantial contributions from a community of volunteer developers.

  Furthermore, the Conservancy does give higher priority to projects that

  have an established userbase and interest, but also tries to accept some

  smaller projects with strong potential.</p>

<h2>Is our project required to accept membership if offered?</h2>

<p>Not at all.  Many projects apply and subsequently decide not to join a

  non-profit, or decide to join a different non-profit entity.  Don't

  worry about “wasting our time” if your project's developers

  aren't completely sure yet if they want to join Conservancy.  If

  membership in Conservancy is currently a legitimate consideration for

  your project, we encourage you to apply.  We'd rather that you apply and

  turn down an offer for membership than fail to apply and have to wait

  until the next application round when you're sure.</p>

<h2>What benefits does our project get from joining?</h2>

<p>We maintain a <a href="/members/services">detailed list of services

    that Conservancy provides to member projects</a>.  If you have

    detailed questions about any of the benefits, please

    ask <a href="mailto:apply@sfconservancy.org">&lt;apply@sfconservancy.org&gt;</a>.</p>

<h2>Conservancy seems to be called a &ldquo;fiscal sponsor&rdquo; to its

  member projects.  Does that mean you give our project money if we join?</h2>

<p>It's true that we would love to fund our member projects if it were

  possible, because we believe they deserve to be funded.  However, that's

  not typically what a fiscal sponsor does.  The term “fiscal

  sponsor“ is often used in non-profit settings and has a standard

  meaning there.  But, to those not familiar with non-profit operations,

  it comes across as a bit of a misnomer.</p>

<p>In this context, a fiscal sponsor is a non-profit organization that,

  rather than fund a project directly, provides the required

  infrastructure and facilitates the project's ability to raise its own

  funds.  Conservancy therefore assists your project in raising funds, and

  allows your project to hold those funds and spend them on activities

  that simultaneously advance the non-profit mission of the Conservancy

  and the FLOSS development and documentation goals of the project.</p>

<h2>What will the project leaders have to agree to if our project joins?</h2>

<p>Once you're offered membership, we'll send you a draft fiscal

  sponsorship agreement.  These aren't secret documents and many of our

  member projects have even chosen to put theirs online.  However, we wait

  to send a draft of this document until the application process is

  complete, as we often tailor and modify the agreements based on

  individual project needs.  This is painstaking work, and it's better to

  complete that work after both Conservancy and the project are quite sure

  that they both want the project to join Conservancy.</p>

<h2>If my project joins the Conservancy, how will it change?</h2>

<p>Substantively, member projects continue to operate in the same way as

they did before joining the Conservancy.  So long as the project remains

devoted to software freedom and operates consistently with the

Conservancy's tax-exempt status, the Conservancy does not intervene in the

project's development other than to provide administrative assistance.

For example, the Conservancy keeps and maintains books and records for the

project and assists with the logistics of receiving donations, but does

not involve itself with technical or artistic decision making.  Projects

are asked, however, to keep the Conservancy up to date on their

activities.</p>

<h2>Once our project joins, who holds its assets (money, copyrights, trademarks, etc.)?</h2>

<p>The Conservancy holds assets on behalf of its member projects and

manages and disburses those assets in accordance with the wishes of the

project's leadership.  Funds received by the Conservancy on behalf of a

project are kept track of separately for each specific project and the

management of those funds is directed by the project.  For example, if a

donor wanted to contribute $100 to Project Foo, they would formally make

the donation to the Conservancy and identify Project Foo as the desired

project to support.  The Conservancy would then deposit the check and

earmark the funds for use by Project Foo.  Project Foo would then tell the

Conservancy how that money should be spent.  As long as that expense is a

legitimate non-profit expense fitting with Conservancy's non-profit

  mission, Conservancy pays the expense on the Project's behalf.</p>

<p>Similarly, any copyrights, trademarks, domain name or other assets

transferred to a project can also be held by the Conservancy on behalf of

the project.  A significant service that the Conservancy provides its

members is a vehicle through which copyright ownership in the project can

be unified.  There are several advantages to having a consolidated

copyright structure, including that it makes enforcement activity easier

and more effective.  However, copyright, trademark, and domain name

assignment is not a requirement in order to join the Conservancy, rather,

it is an option for those projects that ask for it.</p>

<h2>If our project joins, must it be a member project of Conservancy forever?</h2>

<p>All agreements between member projects and the Conservancy stipulate

clearly that the member project can leave the Conservancy with a few

months' notice.  Federal tax exemption law, though, states that projects

must transfer their assets from the Conservancy in a way that is

consistent with the Conservancy's not-for-profit tax status —

meaning the assets cannot be transferred to an individual or a for-profit

entity.  Generally, a project would either find another fiscal sponsor or

form their own independent tax-exempt non-profit.</p>

<p>We fully expect that some Conservancy projects will ultimately wish to

  form their own non-profit 501(c)(3) organizations; that's why we design

  our agreements with projects to allow them to leave to another 501(c)(3)

  organization.  Typically, projects join Conservancy because the project

  leaders don't want the burdens of running a non-profit themselves.

  Often, as projects grow, leaders get interested in the non-profit

  management and organizational side of the activities and are then

  prepared to take on the additional work themselves.</p>

<h2>How are &ldquo;project leaders&rdquo; defined with respect to Conservancy?</h2>

<p>How leaders are chosen for projects varies greatly from project to

  project.  Our goal is to do our best to embody the “natural”

  leadership structure that evolved in your project into the formal

  agreement with Conservancy.  As part of the agreement drafting, we work

  carefully with you to understand your project's governance and write up

  formally with you the decision-making process you use. Most project

  contributors find this process of formalizing the leadership structure

  helps them clarify in their own minds the governance of their project,

  even though the process can be difficult.  Since it can be a complicated

  process, we suggest that you prepare your project community for this

  discussion once your project is accepted.</p>

<h2>How much does it cost us financially to join Conservancy?</h2>

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