Donations to SPI vs associated projects

[Hilmar Lapp]

I agree with Martin. What's particularly troubling IMO about this recommendation is that there seems to be no process at all through which projects can submit proposals for receiving funds, and according to which such proposals would get reviewed, evaluated, and prioritized. Until that's in place, there should be a strong recommendation to specifically earmark donations.

-hilmar

Sent from away

> On Jul 12, 2015, at 2:45 AM, Martin Michlmayr <tbm at cyrius.com> wrote:
> 
> 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/
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