Dear Foundation members,
The 2009 yearly budget has been released. For the past couple of years the GNOME Foundation has been running a healthy surplus in contributions. As a result, year after year we have been expanding GNOME related activities and events. Last year we had the opportunity to further increase the Foundation’s value to its members by hiring the highly respected Stormy Peters as our Executive Director. When that decision was made no one could have predicted the global economic downturn and the impact it would have on our industry.
While Stormy has managed to get a number of new corporate sponsors and we have enough to keep paying her for this current budget cycle, we are still projecting that without a significant influx of steady contributions we will be unable to keep an Executive Director on the payroll without cutting into the activities budget.
As the economy persists on this roller coaster of ups and downs, the Foundation is rolling with the punches and looking for ways to best serve our members. While we can look at this downturn as a time to tighten our belts, I would much rather look at this as an opportunity for the community to take a stake in the future of the Foundation and show that we are not exclusively reliant on corporate coffers to grow GNOME.
If you haven’t donated in the past, now is the time to start by becoming a Friend of GNOME or donating at any of the contribution levels. If you do currently donate to GNOME, look to see if you can contribute a tiny bit more on a monthly basis. Every little bit helps. Remember these funds go to programs like hackfests and putting on local conferences. It also goes to paying for our staff of two who along with the part time and overworked board construct the strategies for facilitating the growth of GNOME.
The Foundation has served us well over the years and will continue to serve us regardless of the outcome of the current economic climate. The real tragedy would be to no longer have the funds to retain Stormy’s services. Stormy’s contributions in kicking our butts to finish ongoing projects as well as start new ones and bringing in new streams of funding are remarkable in themselves, and even more so in the current climate. Losing Stormy now would be sort of like having this shiny new plane but neglecting to build the runway long enough for it to take off. The best of what Stormy has to offer has yet to be seen. I can tell you for a fact that without her the Foundation will be less effective in its mission.
Please go to the Friends of GNOME site to donate. We need your ongoing support. Donations allow us to accelerate the adoption and development of GNOME while our paid staff allows us to be more effective with those donations. Whatever you can give will ensure the continued good works of the GNOME Foundation.
Thanks on behalf of the Board,
John (J5) Palmieri
Just donated $25 with a suggestion! You guys are doing wonderful work! Thanks. You know Miro has the adopt a line a code thing which was pretty interesting… wondering if that would work well with gnome or be too much work. Ars just had an article on it you can find at http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/04/cutest-funding-move-ever-adopt-a-line-of-miro-code.ars
Comment by Eric Pritchett — April 30, 2009 @ 3:07 pm
[...] has put out a call for donations for GNOME. I’ve been a Friend of GNOME for years and I find it to be a great [...]
Pingback by UbunTube » Jorge Castro: Please consider donating to GNOME - 78th Edition — April 30, 2009 @ 6:11 pm
According to the budget file on the list: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2009-April/binDvlf3ZJovM.bin (save it as .ods), Stormy makes $96,000 + 25% bonus on surplus.
I personally would be ecstatic to make half that. Why not knock off $20,000 to $30,000 from her pay?
Comment by Matt Jones — April 30, 2009 @ 6:27 pm
[...] GNOME Foundation has posted a call for help to keep operating at its current level in a hostile economy. “As the economy persists on this [...]
Pingback by The GNOME Foundation is looking for help | Open Source Pixels — April 30, 2009 @ 6:56 pm
It’s weird that Executive Director, whose task is fundraising, cannot raise funds for herself. Or is this blog post a part of her fundraising strategy?
Quite unpopular and weird ask. I’m less willing to donate money to Gnome _after_ reading this, than before.
Comment by RCL — April 30, 2009 @ 6:58 pm
If you read the budget, she has raised funds, but with the downturn in the economy the corporations who had been saying yes to our expanded activities plans (including hiring a sysadmin) suddenly didn’t have the extra money to contribute. Also a number of companies who have funded us have either gone belly up or have been absorbed by other companies.
The other thing to put into perspective is we are not an industry trade group we are a non-profit. If all of our funds came from corporations we would be a trade group governed by another set of laws. However our individual donations are a fraction of what the corporations give us. This post was a shout out to individuals to start taking more of an interest in the well being of the Foundation instead of relying on the whims of corporate interests.
Fund raising still goes on (but I can tell you even the best fund raisers at big charities are having a hard time). And no it is not the ED’s only task to fund raise. It is the whole boards task. I am the treasurer so I am the mouthpiece for the board when it comes to money matters.
The idea is not to raise money for her. The idea is to raise money so we can grow GNOME. It just so happens when the choice comes down to cutting costs we either cut activities or we cut paid personnel and we don’t want to cut activities. So if we don’t reach enough to support an ED we will have to part ways but that money will still go to good use. We however feel that losing Stormy will have a vast impact on our ability to increase growth when the economy does turns around and fund raising becomes easier.
Being a board member is a hard and pretty much thankless job. Losing our only full time employee (our other employee is part time and keeps the books for us) just makes the boards job a lot harder. So we want to keep her (she has been doing an amazing job BTW). The organization is just too big right now to rest on the shoulders of a part time, unpaid board.
Comment by J5 — April 30, 2009 @ 10:40 pm
Eric,
Thanks. Ya, that Miro idea is pretty awesome.
Comment by J5 — April 30, 2009 @ 10:50 pm
Matt,
You read the budget correctly though I think you draw the wrong conclusions. Compared to most ED’s she comes in at the low end of the pay grade. We wouldn’t be paying her that salary if we didn’t think she was worth it. When we hired her we were on track to rapidly grow the Foundation and then the economy tanked and our plans were derailed. When I put out the preliminary “wishful thinking” budget late last year it reflected a growth in activities such as hackfests while still ending the year well in the black. Companies were very excited about the prospect but when they had to tighten their own budgets that enthusiasm went from “how much do you need” to “tell me when you have something coming up and we will see if we have any funds available”. So now we are asking for funds from the communities so we can better ride out the economic downturn. The choice is theirs as I have spelled out the consequences of us not meeting our funding goals which is to lose our ED which would be a major blow to the board’s growth strategy. Stormy is really the only person who we trust has the ability to fill that ED position at this time.
Comment by J5 — April 30, 2009 @ 11:16 pm
[...] This post was Twitted by LeahRosin – Real-url.org [...]
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Pingback by La GNOME Foundation ha bisogno del nostro aiuto! - Crismon’s Blog — May 1, 2009 @ 4:06 am
$96K + salary is too much. This is a non-profit, not a cash cow for those fortunate enough to work there. I believe in GNOME, I’ve contributed, I use it daily, and I would be happy to do her job for $40K a year.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Stormy’s blog posts and I’m sure she works hard. But if she doesn’t bring in 1/3 of her salary this year, and prospects are down, I’d rather see her employed on a part time basis, or link her compensation to a percentage of incoming donations with a reasonable cap and floor.
Hell, why isn’t Stormy reducing her own salary?
I will certainly not be donating to GNOME until this all plays out. That budget sheet is scary.
Comment by Angry Pseudonym — May 1, 2009 @ 5:45 pm
[...] The GNOME Foundation Needs Your Help [...]
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Sponsor: “Hmm. We’ll do more good by supporting GNOME-related events when asked, rather than funding someone’s salary.”
It’s not the economy, stupid.
Comment by Jesus H. Christ — May 1, 2009 @ 8:23 pm
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Pingback by RTFM! — May 2, 2009 @ 2:40 am
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Pingback by A Fundação GNOME precisa da sua ajuda — May 2, 2009 @ 10:00 am
It would be nice to have everything just “happen” in the open source world but in truth it takes leadership and direction to go beyond a certain point.
If GNOME is getting it for only 96K + 25% bonus it’s getting a bargain.
If the GNOME community wants to be without this leadership then that’s fine.
But if you really want a strong GNOME Foundation then please look to the future and do what it takes. In three, four, five years or so when Stormy has had a chance to really make a difference then judge whether or not she is worth the money. She’s been ED for less than a year.
BTW – I’m not a GNOME supporter. I don’t like it. But I believe in FLOSS and support GNOME, KDE, FSF, EFF, etc because it helps us all to have a broad base of strong open source communities with interfaces to governments, businesses, universities and each other.
Comment by byter — May 2, 2009 @ 4:07 pm
I would be glad to donate to the Gnome foundation as soon as Mono is removed.
Comment by Lusitan — May 2, 2009 @ 4:58 pm
O salário é muito alto, reduzam para 1/3 e conseguem pagar !
Her salary is some high, reduce this to 1/3 and gnome will pay.
Foda !
Comment by Nick Marinho — May 4, 2009 @ 2:11 am
[...] J5’s Blog The GNOME Foundation Needs Your Help – - Rockefeller [...]
Pingback by - — May 4, 2009 @ 2:20 am
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Pingback by GNOME, en problemas financieros | MuyLinux — May 4, 2009 @ 10:12 am
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Pingback by GNOME, en problemas financieros « Tecnologia, Actualidad,y mucho mas…. — May 4, 2009 @ 12:08 pm
[...] significativo de contribuciones sostenidas”. Y para eso prepararon un articulo titulado “The GNOME Foundation needs your help”, con el que pretenden incentivar los [...]
Pingback by El Proyecto GNOME necesita tu ayuda | Fondos en Lineup — May 4, 2009 @ 1:21 pm
[...] In the month of April we raised $3,316, for a total of $10,027.13 since January 1, 2009. (We had a big day on April 30th when John Palmieri posted The GNOME Foundation Needs Your Help.) [...]
Pingback by Friends of GNOME update « GNOME Foundation — May 4, 2009 @ 1:22 pm
@Lustian got my point in first. Ditto, I was a long-time GNOME user but see danger in building critical Open Source infrastructure on a Microsoft foundation. If not legal danger, then certainly creative. So, at this point I’m donating to KDE, even though the user experience is much rougher at this point. I can’t speak to the corporate sponsors’ motivations, but consider the possibility.
Comment by Bill McGonigle — May 4, 2009 @ 2:16 pm
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Pingback by GNOME, podría tener problemas de liquidez en el futuro — May 4, 2009 @ 4:29 pm
Somehow, this is so typical Gnome … unable to communicate with it’s own community.
Comment by CSIG — May 4, 2009 @ 6:47 pm
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Pingback by Bitácora de un Cybernauta » GNOME tiene problemas económicos — May 6, 2009 @ 3:26 pm
Bill McGonigle: I believe the Mono integration into GNOME is more or less gone, don’t see much Mono garbage in e.g. Fedora stack, just Tomboy nothing else. Any other serious examples of Mono infiltration?
Comment by Michal Nowak — May 6, 2009 @ 4:52 pm