<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>
<h3>News</h3>
<p><b>31 August 2016</b>: We're beginning work on a system for Payment and Reimbursement Requests. This is a smaller piece of the larger NPO Accounting project. Because it doesn't require much integration with larger accounting systems, we can help address this specific bookkeeping problem for NPOs sooner, and start building interest in the larger NPO Accounting project.</p>
<p>We haven't started writing code yet, so now's a great time to get in on the ground floor! Check the <a href="https://npoacct.sfconservancy.org/Reimbursements/Requirements/">Requirements document</a> we're putting together on the wiki. <a href="https://lists.sfconservancy.org/mailman/listinfo/npo-accounting">Join us on the mailing list</a> to let us know what's missing, and hear first other ways you can contribute as we start building the system.</p>
<h3>What is the Non-Profit Accounting Software Project?</h3>
<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>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><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 — 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