Donations to SPI vs associated projects

[Martin Michlmayr]

The SPI donations page at http://spi-inc.org/donations/ currently
says:

> These donations can be made to SPI directly, or they can be marked
> for use by a particular member project.  It is preferred that the
> donations be made to SPI, as they can then be used wherever the need
> is greatest. Donations to SPI that are not marked for a particular
> project will be distributed to the projects that are currently
> affiliated with SPI as needed, and/or used for SPI's own expenses.

I'm not speaking for the board now, but personally I disagree with
this policy.  I think we should encourage donors to specify which
projects they want to support.  They are of course welcome to donate
to SPI to support overall operations, but the preference should be to
support our associated projects.  They know best how to spend their
money and donors know best which projects they want to support.

Maybe such a policy made sense when SPI had no reserves, but SPI is
sitting on a healthy cash reserve these days.  Also, I'm not aware of
SPI distributing cash to projects, at least not recently.  (SPI
supported Conservancy's non-profit accounting project, but that's not
even an SPI member project.)

What do other people think?

-- 
Martin Michlmayr
http://www.cyrius.com/