Upon initiating our bid for Debconf11, one of the first things we learned and realized is that we would need an NGO (non-governmental/non-profit organization), for the purpose of storing sponsorship money, and moving money from one place to another. For the purposes of this document, “money” refers to money received from sponsors in order to organize the conference.
After DebConf9 and my bid presentation for DebConf11 in Bosnia, I participated in building this NGO from the ground up. I’m also the author of the organization’s website, where you can find more information: www.diva.ba DIVA has helped us a lot in the past, and has led us throughout this process with their guidance and advice. Their role is also mentioned in our “Plan and Program Paper” (section 3.2 NGO 'DIVA' and DebConf 11 local team) which can be found on our website under the documents section or a direct link: http://debconf11.debconf.org/documentation/DebConf11-BanjaLuka-PlanandProgram-en.pdf The issue of whether Debian should trust DIVA with its money has been brought up on #debconf-team. I think this a completely unnecessary topic to be discussed. You can rest assured everything will be all right. DIVA has its accountant, SPI has theirs; this means that the money won’t disappear, particularly because I’m personally acquainted with these people. Second of all, all the money the Government gave us for DebConf10 in NYC came via DIVA. Besides this, all the money we got from Government will be allocated in DIVA, a sum of €150.000. Therefore, the issue of trust should not be questioned, in this matter. I personally vouch for the validity and legitimacy of this NGO. I’m even a bit surprised that this question is raised just now, because I thought it had been solved at the very beginning upon the NGO’s creation. Since the situation with sponsorships has not moved much in any direction, I’m taking over the sponsors team to get it moving. I’m planning to personally take care of the local sponsors, as well as invite the global ones. I could use your guidance with this, since I have couple of questions that could be answered regarding the global sponsors. Now the main question is, where should the collected money be accumulated? In SPI, DIVA, or both? Here’s what I was thinking: when collecting sponsorship, the potential sponsor would be allowed to choose whether to pay to SPI or DIVA. Alternatively they could also be separated geographically, so the global sponsorships (South/North American) should be collected by SPI, while European, and “local” (Balkan) ones can be collected by DIVA. For Asia and Africa and/or Other we could provide both options where they could give the funds. Now I wouldn’t worry about what each NGO will be paying for regarding DebConf11, but rather on just collecting as much money as we can. Later on we can talk who’s going to transfer what sum to who and for what purpose, right now we should only think about getting as much money as we can. It won’t go to waste either way, as these finances will go for realization of (the best DebConf :P) DebConf11 and by my calculations there should be money left for next DebConf as well :) Either way, I believe Debian and SPI should have full trust in DIVA and people behind it, in the realization of DebConf 11. We have some serious institutions involved here, and if we have issue of trust between these two, then we have a serious problem. It’s also worth mentioning that a lot of local team, generally much of “core-debconf11-team” signed papers with DIVA to be working on realization of DebConf 11. We expect to receive money from the Government shortly. Once this has been done, hopefully Penta will be finished at that point, so we can then start the registration process. Ideally, both of these things could and should be finished by next meeting we’re having on the 29th of this month. We’re also having a sponsorship meeting next week (15th), until then we plan to get this situation with NGO’s sorted, and by then I’ll email you again regarding the media sponsors and how we planned that one out. Adnan _______________________________________________ Debconf-team mailing list Debconf-team@lists.debconf.org http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-team
