Re: [gentoo-project] Questions for Gentoo Council nominees: Gentoo Foundation - Treasurer Response!

[Michael Everitt]

On 03/07/19 07:12, Robin H. Johnson wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 01, 2019 at 09:34:06PM +0200, Andreas K. Huettel wrote:
>>>> Yes, I understand that.  However, I still believe that a contract
>>>> initiated between CPA and a single small-ish entity such a Gentoo
>>>> involves more costs than fees taken by umbrella dedicated to multiple
>>>> entities.  Please correct me if I'm wrong.
>>> Nobody knows yet. Different umbrellas work differently.
> The CPA we have engaged so far, Corporate Capital, has a standard
> preparation fee of USD1500 per fiscal year. We do have some estimates of
> Umbrella fees, plus the Financial Statements I prepared...
>
>> Sigh. I agree with the second statement. The first one, well...
>>
>> Here's the example of SPI (disclaimer, we do not know if they would take us):
>> * no direct costs associated
>> * 5% deduction from donations for SPI's overhead
>>
>> Big Hint, it helps to first research something and then talk / discuss. That's
>> however, rather rare on this list.
> The Trustees HAVE previously done _some_ of this legwork on the major
> umbrellas, I don't have a link to hand, but I do remember details,
> because it was in scope of my work as Treasurer; and we can combine
> these with the financial statements to compare against the CPA quotes to
> date. Further would should take the longer list of Umbrellas and
> comprehensively document their costs.
>
> As further concrete example:
> https://sfconservancy.org/projects/apply/
>>> How much does it cost us financially to join Conservancy?
>>> New Conservancy members are required to pay 10% of their revenue
> The umbrella fees I've seen range:
> - smallest: 5% of net revenue (income less expenses)
> - largest: 20% of gross income
>
> The exact definition of which expenses might be included/excluded by a
> given umbrella might also vary, I didn't find a clear public
> documentation on it.
>
> Basing that on the FY2018 fiscal, with the additional caveat that I
> don't have any value assigned to in-kind server/hosting services
> received by Infra; That would increase gross & net values.
>
> Gross Income: USD 28,600.15
> Gross Expenses: USD 9,292.95
> - Depreciation: USD 3,659.64 (it devalued assets but wasn't something we actually spent)
> - "Real" Expense: USD 5,633.31
> = Net revenue: USD 22,966.84
>
> 5% of net: USD 1,148.34
> 20% of gross: USD 5,720.03
>
> At an outward glance, this does imply that some umbrellas would be
> cheaper than a CPA, while others would be more expensive; but the
> equation is more complicated, because we need to be careful about the
> accounting of services that the umbrella would provide.
>
> The equation therefore should be more of:
> Cost(Umbrella) vs [Umbrella baseline without umbrella-provided expenses]
>
> Regardless of the scale of the numbers, the change would REDUCE the
> expenses, and increase the net revenue number (and thus also the
> Umbrella's actual fee).
>
Thank you very much for providing some indicative figures, and for the work
you have tirelessly done on the Gentoo finances, Robin.

I hope the council considers them wisely.