[Noisebridge-discuss] Proposal: Discounted full-year dues
Miah Johnson
miah at chia-pet.org
Wed Jun 16 21:31:40 UTC 2010
If we're going to mention additional products (and those that we may work
for). I'm pretty sure Noisebridge could qualify for access to a limited
Salesforce interface through Salesforce Foundation. The Non-Profit pack
covers things like donations and recurring donations, members, fundraisers
etc.
http://www.salesforcefoundation.org/
http://foundation.force.com/products_donation_eligibility
http://wiki.developerforce.com/index.php/Nonprofit_Starter_Pack
FWIW, I believe we are not using one of these external interfaces because
people have concerns regarding data privacy and, lists of members.
Though I personally am a fan of 'less stuff to manage' and it seems like
adding accounting software to the infrastructure at Noisebridge would
require a bit of work (server,database,backup,security).
Additionally, I've mentioned before that NB could use me a bit and get
~$500/yr out of my company (Dollars for Doers -
http://www.salesforcefoundation.org/volunteers/grants).
We talk about fundraising and money problems, but nobody seems to be focused
enough to make it happen. Do-ocracy and all that. I'm personally not
motivated enough to make it all happen. I'm much better at doing things
people have asked me to do so getting 50hours of work out of me in a year at
Noisebridge wouldn't be too hard. I've done plenty of work at Noisebridge
and could do more. I wonder how many other people going to Noisebridge have
similar programs that could be taken advantage of. After my initial mention
of this months back at 83c nobody has ever approached me regarding it.
What I'm saying here is: I'd like to help, but somebody needs to drive
things.
-Miah
On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 12:44 PM, Ronald Cotoni <setient at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 3:40 PM, aestetix aestetix <aestetix at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Are we actually in the red?
> >
> > There's a big difference between not having a few months wiggleroom, and
> > having our checks bounce.
> >
> > On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 11:56 AM, Rachel McConnell <rachel at xtreme.com>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> oooh I had no idea! yeah i'll get in touch with them right away. i did
> >> search various open source repos and found nothing useful...
> >>
> >> Christie Dudley wrote:
> >> > Katie from Hacker Dojo was mentioning they'd put together a complete
> >> > open source package for managing things, including payment tracking
> and
> >> > so forth that they're interested in sharing. It might not be a bad
> >> > idea, and foster a bit of goodwill if we at least had a look at that,
> >> > don't you think?
> >> >
> >> > The problem may already be solved for us.
> >> >
> >> > Christie
> >> > _______
> >> > "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities.
> >> > The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly
> submit
> >> > to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his
> >> > intelligence." -- Albert Einstein
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 11:10 AM, Rachel McConnell <rachel at xtreme.com
> >> > <mailto:rachel at xtreme.com>> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > It's all done by hand right now, there's no automation. I mean
> the
> >> > bank
> >> > account (and paypal, etc) tracks that $X has shown up, but there
> >> > isn't
> >> > any system to associate it with a particular member. Sometimes a
> >> > payment comes with a note; if it's a check you have to go look at
> >> > the
> >> > name on the check, etc.
> >> >
> >> > jim wrote:
> >> > > Y'all have reminded me of payment, so there must
> >> > > be some tracking in place, yes?
> >> > >
> >> > >
> >> > >
> >> > > On Wed, 2010-06-16 at 10:29 -0700, Rachel McConnell wrote:
> >> > >> I like this in theory but in practice it would be folly to
> >> > officially
> >> > >> promote it until we have an accounting system that can support
> >> > it.
> >> > >> Already we don't know who is paid up and who isn't; work is
> >> > underway on
> >> > >> a system to manage this but let's get it working first before
> we
> >> > make
> >> > >> massive changes to it.
> >> > >>
> >> > >> Rachel
> >> > >>
> >> > >> jim wrote:
> >> > >>> (seems like a discussion of policy.)
> >> > >>> per the proposal and the points:
> >> > >>> * how much to discount for a one year pre-payment seems
> >> > >>> the difficult part: too little and no one goes for it;
> >> > >>> too big and we miss out on possible income; variable
> >> > >>> (maybe within some limits, hoping for generosity) may
> >> > >>> work....
> >> > >>> * if we don't have a "real accounting system", as long
> >> > >>> as we can track payments with respect to members, this
> >> > >>> seems a non-issue. for example, i pay by the quarter
> >> > >>> and haven't had any problems. if a payment is recorded
> >> > >>> as income for the current month, is there a tax
> >> > >>> implication?
> >> > >>> * we should certainly try to help our current cash
> >> > >>> crunch"; the overall downward trend scares me.
> >> > >>> * grabbing a year's supply of money may help the
> >> > >>> initially excited retain their interest over a longer
> >> > >>> time period, which seems an additional value.
> >> > >>> * i'm not convinced of your arithmetic, but certainly
> >> > >>> money today is worth a fair amount more than money
> >> > >>> some later day, especially if there's some question
> >> > >>> about getting money on those later days. a real
> >> > >>> answer to this might help settle the discount problem.
> >> > >>>
> >> > >>>
> >> > >>>
> >> > >>>
> >> > >>> On Wed, 2010-06-16 at 09:49 -0700, Shannon Lee wrote:
> >> > >>>> Hi All,
> >> > >>>> This idea has been brought up at several meetings now and no
> >> > >>>> satisfactory resolution reached, so obviously it's time to
> >> > expand the
> >> > >>>> conversation!
> >> > >>>> The specific proposal brought up last night was this:
> >> > >>>> If you pay your dues a year at a time, you can knock $20 off.
> >> > Or one
> >> > >>>> month's dues off. Or some amount of money.
> >> > >>>> Many perspectives were voiced on this. I think it's a good
> >> > idea;
> >> > >>>> others disagreed, primarily because, as we do not have a real
> >> > >>>> accounting system, this amounts to counting a year's dues as
> >> > this
> >> > >>>> month's revenue.
> >> > >>>> Again, I think this is a good idea, for the following
> reasons:
> >> > >>>> * it could help with our current cash cruch
> >> > >>>> * it means that people who get very excited about noisebridge
> >> > for just
> >> > >>>> long enough to be members and then never show up again have
> the
> >> > >>>> opportunity to pay a whole year's membership upfront
> >> > >>>> * the economic value of a bird in one's hand is double that
> of
> >> > a bird
> >> > >>>> in a bush
> >> > >>>> Thoughts?
> >> > >>>> --
> >> > >>>> Shannon Lee
> >> > >>>> (503) 539-3700
> >> > >>>>
> >> > >>>> "Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from
> >> > science."
> >> > >>>> _______________________________________________
> >> > >>>> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> >> > >>>> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> >> > <mailto:Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net>
> >> > >>>>
> >> > https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
> >> > >>>
> >> > >>> _______________________________________________
> >> > >>> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> >> > >>> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> >> > <mailto:Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net>
> >> > >>>
> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
> >> > >
> >> > >
> >> > _______________________________________________
> >> > Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> >> > Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> >> > <mailto:Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net>
> >> > https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
> >> >
> >> >
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> >> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> >> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> > Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> > https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
> >
> >
> FYI there are two other software solutions that could do this. One is
> Freshbooks. It is for accounting and the other is OfficeDrop. You
> can scan and upload your documents to officedrop and link them to
> freshbooks statements. I happen to work for the latter but this is
> exactly one of our use cases. We convert stuff into text searchable
> PDFS. We also provide a web interface for searching them. We accept
> documents via email, our web interface or physically sending them in.
> We do have a FREE offering that might be exactly what Noisebridge
> wants since you guys prolly have a scanner SOMEWHERE there. I don't
> know much about the freshbooks side of things but this could link both
> the physical piece of paper, paypal email or whatnot to a statement in
> your account.
> _______________________________________________
> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>
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