[gentoo-nfp] You need to pay them

[Daniel Robbins]

Hi Everyone,

I'd like to propose that people consider having a couple of paid Foundation
positions. Yes, I know what some of you are thinking. Blasphemy, right?
Well, if you want people to run the Foundation and stay on top of finances,
paperwork, etc, it takes a lot of time. If people devote a lot of time to
the Foundation, it takes time away from their day that they would otherwise
spend earning money.

So without some modest compensation, trustees can only make a 'best effort'
and they can't really guarantee a certain amount of hours to trustee duties
per week. And we know from experience that that results in. That is just
reality and will exist in any not-for-profit... ultimately most people use
their time to make money, so if you want their ongoing assistance in the
form of time -- for free -- they will lose money from their generosity, and
this will be hard to sustain, regardless of the goodness of their
intentions.

But isn't that illegal!??!?!

Absolutely not! It is perfectly legal for a not-for-profit to pay salaries.
If you have ever donated to the Wikipedia Foundation (aka. Jimmy Wales
beg-a-thon), you are giving them funds so they can have offices in San
Francisco, computers, servers, desks, employees with regular salaries,
benefits, paid time off, health care, retirement, etc. Yes, quite lovely,
and nothing at the level we would offer our trustees -- I'm just making the
point that not-for-profits are not vows of poverty. The organization itself
isn't supposed to make a profit, but there can be expenses associated with
running the organization and pursuing its mission.

Isn't that against the bylaws!?!?

Yes, a provision was added to the bylaws after the creation of the
Foundation to prevent trustees from being financially compensated, with the
expectation that the trustees would hire paid officers to do a lot of the
heavy work of running the Foundation. In reality, the trustees don't even
have enough time to find the right people to help with the work, so this
isn't working well in practice. I would propose a modification to the
bylaws to allow a modest compensation for the President and Secretary, to
compensate for time. This amount could be equivalent to a fraction of a
typical full-time salary in the country of residence of the trustee, but is
at least *something* to compensate for loss of contracting/consulting
opportunities due to time devoted to taking care of Foundation business.

Won't we use up the Foundation money?!!

I would argue that the Foundation money is there to run the Foundation
properly. We have had ongoing issues with trustees being able to devote
necessary time to the Foundation. I would argue that this is not because
these people are jerks but because the reality of life is such that it is
hard to make a sustained large donation of time without financial
compensation unless you happen to be independently wealthy, and few of us
are.

What about the future?

In the early years of the Foundation, I think Gentoo developers were overly
concerned about Gentoo being "bought" or people "profiting from" Gentoo. In
reality, money used wisely and managed properly with appropriate
transparency and accountability allows things to get done, people to devote
time to thorny problems, organizations to be well-managed, etc.

How much to pay them?

I would suggest something like 1/2 to 2/3rds of the mean wage of the
country the trustee lives in, with some kind of cap. That way it is not a
full-time salary, and quite a bit less than typical technology work, but
still something significant enough so it can help pay for maybe a solid 10
hours per week of time spent running the Foundation. I believe this is
necessary to keep everything in good standing. Not all positions need to be
paid but I think we should have at least the President and Secretary have
modest compensation. And then the members can expect a higher level of
commitment from these positions, since it is no longer a purely volunteer
"when you can find time" position.

Is this sustainable?

I would say, yes, very much so. And as the Foundation starts getting on top
of things and then actively looking at how to improve itself, there are
plenty of opportunities to actually turn the Foundation into a resource for
Gentoo rather than a liability.

For example, many not-for-profits have people who are devoted to fund
raising for their foundation, and these people get paid a percentage of the
donations they solicit from companies -- no salary -- they get paid based
on how much money they bring in. So if a person were to arrange for
organizations to donate $500,000 in a given year, maybe they would get 10%
of this as their compensation. This way it costs the Foundation nothing to
launch fund raising and grant application efforts. There are people who are
quite good at this and do this as their profession. Then the Foundation
stops being an ongoing "issue" and starts to turn into a tremendous
resource to help Gentoo grow and expand. This can all be done ethically
while all the while maintaining not-for-profit status.

I would like everyone to think about this, especially if you have been
disappointed by the historical performance of the Gentoo trustees. I think
that we simply need to be realistic and understand the realities of modern
life.

Best,

Daniel