[Koha] Proposal for fund raising for Koha - to discuss/vote at December General Meeting.

[Brendan Gallagher]

Hello All -

After discussing with many of you within the Koha project for many years
and countless times, I'd like to bring forth the idea of having a
fund-raising organization for Koha.  It's about time the project raised
money to help meet the needs and goals of the community.  This idea and
concept can only be a strong option with the support and help of many of us
in the community.  We believe that we have great organization to stand
behind this great proposal in Horowhenua Library Trust (HLT) as a
non-profit-organization (NPO) to help manage the funds for the Koha
community in the most responsible way (For the good of the community).

Please read below for some of the ideas and thoughts - and I would like to
bring to this to a vote at the next General Meeting on if we should all as
a community move forward with creating a Koha-Fund to use towards and only
towards Koha.  These are just thoughts and ideas and we can all move
forward and work on the details and rules and laws etc after we get a "YES
LET'S RAISE MONEY HOWEVER WE CAN TO SPEND ON KOHA".


http://blog.bigballofwax.co.nz/2014/10/09/kohacon-14-day-3-funding-the-koha-project/


*Organization for Fund raising:*

Currently the Koha project generates more patches for enhancements and bugs
than the collective community has time to work on.  There is a need to
raise funds so that more resources can be purchased to accelerate
development.  All funds that are raised via the project are to be used for
improvement in the project.

Koha has become a large international free software and open source
software project.  There are many projects and needs for a project this
large.  Many of the responsibilities that are needed for the future need to
be funded and can not rely on the volunteer hours of the many participants
of the project.  For example, the current number of patches to be tested
far outnumbers the amount of volunteer hours that we as a project are able
to put towards that.  Also in the future there are many software fixes that
need to be completed that need funding, which can not be expected to be led
by the users of the project.  The current method of development and fixes
of the software are led by the funding from the users, I propose that we
fundraise from within the community and external to the community for being
able to solve many of these large un-met needs.

The fund raisin entity should be a non-profit organization so that all
donations are not taxed and if possible the donors can have tax-deductions
(if that is applicable for your local tax laws).  The goal of this fund
organization is to gather many many small donations to lead to an effective
pool of funds available to support Koha development.

Some thoughts so far towards identifying the appropriate fund raising
entity is using the Horowhenua Library Trust (HLT) (Which we now have the
full support of and Joanne can fill us in more about that).


*Governing board:*

This new fund should be governed by a board.  That board should be made up
of volunteers, that are interested to continue/champion fund raising
efforts for the Koha project.  The most important aspect of any board
member would be to introduce new avenues for pursuing donations.  Ideally
the board would be representatives from all around the world so that board
members could lead fund raising efforts in their local regions.  This board
will also be responsible with managing the funds that are donated, and will
look for recommendations from the general meetings in Koha.   The board
will also be responsible for reporting the status, funds available, and
goals of the Fund during each general meeting.


*Grants Committee:*

The Board will establish a Grants Committee, with the purpose of making
decisions about the allocation of funds to advance the work of the Koha
project.

Members of the Grants Committee may be members of the Board or other
persons with suitable qualifications and experience as determined by the
Board.  The Board will determine a Charter for the Grants Committee that
will describe the procedures to be followed to promote efficacy,
efficiency, equity and transparency in the allocation of funds.

The Board will publish at least annually the details of grants allocated
with sufficient detail to ensure transparency.


*Goals:*  (These can all be adjusted based on recommendations from Koha
Community)

First goal should be to hire a person to complete sign-offs and only
sign-offs for the community development process.

Further goals will be decided in time and as funds increase.  Board members
will decide on future improvements with recommendations from the Koha
community general meetings.

Another longer term possibility - is that the fund can sponsor some
community members for attendance at international conferences/hackfests,
students for attending local KohaCons, and sponsoring schools/universities
with leading 2 week Koha academy sessions for getting more people
interested/involved in the Koha project.


*Avenues for Fund Raising:*

Donate money now button on the homepage of Koha - and code for that button
will be made available for anyone to put that on their own home pages, etc.

Reach out to all support companies that are listed on the Koha community
website for donations to help seed the fund.

Board members from around the world will be responsible for leading
local/regional fund raising campaigns

Board members will pursue and write grant proposals for alternative fund
generation.  Think Mellon grants here.

This paper is presented to the community for endorsement of the idea, so
that we can move forward promptly toward this goal.  Let's definitely
discuss during the December General Meeting and we can vote then or if the
community decides - vote in January.  This will only be a vote on YES move
forward, NO do not do this (nothing about structure etc.).

Regards,
Brendan Gallagher, Bob Birchall and Paul Poulain