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Substantial update of Member Project Application page.

Browse source 
This page had much out of date material, particularly the timeline
and the types of projects we seek, but also the FAQ section did not
include standard information that we're now regularly giving projects
during intake.

This update attempts to address many of those issues.
This commit is contained in:
Bradley M. Kuhn 2020-09-16 12:50:50 -07:00
parent c276442d5c
commit 52b676e3dc
1 changed files with 87 additions and 38 deletions
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125
www/conservancy/static/projects/apply/index.html
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@ -5,18 +5,45 @@
<h1> Applying to Join Conservancy as a Member Project</h1>
<p>Conservancy's Evaluation Committee considers applications monthly on a
rolling basis. Currently, Conservancy has dozens of projects in
various stages of the application process.</p>
<p>Part of Conservancy's activity is through its member projects. These
projects become formally part of Conservancy and have a close relationship
with our activity. Most of our projects are purely software projects, but
we also occasionally accept initiatives designed to advance software
freedom, such as Outreachy.</p>
<p>The application process is somewhat informal. New applicants should
write an initial inquiry email
<p>The situation for non-profit homes for FOSS activities has improved
greatly since Conservancy was founded in 2006. In the USA, options now
exist for 501(c)(3), 501(c)(6) and even for-profit fiscal sponsorship, and
there are other options around the globe as well. Prospective member
projects should carefully consider what type of structure is right for
them.</p>
<p>For our part, Conservancy seeks projects that dedicate themselves to the
advancement of software freedom and focus their projects on the rights of
users to copy, share, modify and improve their software. Being a FOSS
project under an OSI-approved and DFSG-free license is mandatory, but not
the only criteria. Given the many options available for fiscal
sponsorship, we are selective and often refer projects to other fiscal
sponsors that are a better fit. Nevertheless, we encourage projects to
that need a non-profit home to apply to many fiscal sponsors.
<p>Conservancy's Evaluation Committee considers applications on a rolling
basis. Conservancy generally has dozens of projects in various stages of
the application process. We do not move rapidly to accept new projects, as
we have found that consideration of joining or forming a non-profit
organization for your project is best done with careful consideration over
a period of many months rather than rapidly.</p>
<p>Conservancy's application process is somewhat informal. New applicants
should write an initial inquiry email
to <a href="mailto:apply@sfconservancy.org">&lt;apply@sfconservancy.org&gt;</a>
with a very brief description of their project and a URL to their
project's website. We'll send back initial questions (if any), and
after those questions are answered, we'll send the full application
materials. Applications should be submitted in plain ASCII text via
email.</p>
with a very brief description of their project and a URL to their project's
website. We'll send back initial questions, and after those questions are
answered, we'll send the full application materials. Applications should
be submitted in plain ASCII text via email. Your application will be
assigned a ticket number in our ticketing system, and please be sure to
include the proper ticket number details in the Subject line of your
emails to ensure they are routed to the right place.</p>
<p>Projects are reviewed by Conservancy's Evaluation Committee, which is
chartered by Conservancy's <a href="/about/board/">Board of
@ -41,7 +68,9 @@
sometimes can take quite a while to finish the application process and
be offered membership, but please note that such delays mean that should
your project ultimately become a member project, your project will then
be a beneficiary of this policy.</p>
be a beneficiary of this policy. Also, generally speaking, we encourage
care and consideration when joining a non-profit and we do not believe
a rapid membership process is in the interest of projects.</p>
<h2>What are the key criteria our project must meet to join?</h2>
@ -49,25 +78,23 @@
outline of those criteria are as follows:</p>
<ul><li>The project must be exclusively devoted to the development and
documentation of FLOSS. The project's goals must be consistent with
Conservancy's tax-exempt purposes, and other requirements imposed
on Conservancy by the IRS' 501(c)(3) rules. Namely, the goal of the
project must to develop and document the software in a not-for-profit
way to advance the public good, and must develop the software in
public.</li>
documentation of FOSS. The project's goals must be consistent with
Conservancy's tax-exempt purposes, and other requirements imposed on
Conservancy by the IRS' 501(c)(3) rules. Namely, the goal of the project
must to develop and document the software in a not-for-profit way to
advance the public good, and must develop the software in public, and
strategically advance software freedom for all users.</li>
<li>The project must be licensed in a way fitting with software
freedom principles. Specifically, all software of the project
should be licensed under a license that is listed both as
a <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html">Free
Software license by the Free Software Foundation</a> and as
<li>The project must be licensed in a way fitting with software freedom
principles. Specifically, all software of the project should be
licensed under a license that is listed both as as
an <a href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical">Open
Source license by the Open Source Initiative</a>. All software
documentation for the project should be licensed under a license on
the preceding lists, or under Creative
Source license by the Open Source Initiative</a> and
as <a href="https://www.debian.org/legal/licenses/">DFSG-Free
license</a>. All software documentation for the project should be
licensed under a license on the preceding lists, or under Creative
Commons' <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/">CC-By-SA</a>
or <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/">CC-By</a>
or
or <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/">CC-By</a> or
<a href="https://creativecommons.org/choose/zero/">CC-0</a>.</li>
<li>The project should have an existing, vibrant, diverse community
@ -101,7 +128,15 @@
<p>We maintain a <a href="/members/services">detailed list of services
that Conservancy provides to member projects</a>. If you have
detailed questions about any of the benefits, please
ask <a href="mailto:apply@sfconservancy.org">&lt;apply@sfconservancy.org&gt;</a>.</p>
ask <a href="mailto:apply@sfconservancy.org">&lt;apply@sfconservancy.org&gt;</a>
in your application ticket. We find however that projects will find
Conservancy a better fit if you don't view Conservancy as a service
provider; we are not a service provider in the sense of your hosting
provider or other vendor. Conservancy projects become a part of
Conservancy, and as such membership with Conservancy is an equal
partnership between you and your project and should be treated as such.
If that's not the kind of relationship you want from your fiscal
sponsor, then other options are likely a better fit for your project.</p>
<h2>Conservancy seems to be called a &ldquo;fiscal sponsor&rdquo; to its
member projects. Does that mean you give our project money if we join?</h2>
@ -153,11 +188,16 @@ not involve itself with technical or artistic decision making. Projects
are asked, however, to keep Conservancy up to date on their
activities.</p>
<p>Additionally, when Conservancy discovers or becomes aware of any legal,
licensing or PR issues regarding your project, Conservancy will contact the
project and ask you to work collectively with Conservancy.</p>
<h2>Once our project joins, who holds its assets (money, copyrights, trademarks, etc.)?</h2>
<p>Conservancy holds assets on behalf of its member projects and
manages and disburses those assets in accordance with the wishes of the
project's leadership. Funds received by Conservancy on behalf of a
project's leadership, as long as those wishes are consistent with non-profit
rules, requirements, and Conservancy's mission. Funds received by Conservancy on behalf of a
project are kept track of separately for each specific project and the
management of those funds is directed by the project. For example, if a
donor wanted to contribute $100 to Project Foo, they would formally make
@ -169,7 +209,7 @@ legitimate non-profit expense fitting with Conservancy's non-profit
mission, Conservancy pays the expense on the Project's behalf.</p>
<p>Similarly, any copyrights, trademarks, domain name or other assets
transferred to a project can also be held by Conservancy on behalf of
transferred to a project are typically held by Conservancy on behalf of
the project. A significant service that Conservancy provides its
members is a vehicle through which copyright ownership in the project can
be unified. There are several advantages to having a consolidated
@ -187,7 +227,7 @@ must transfer their assets from Conservancy in a way that is
consistent with Conservancy's not-for-profit tax status &mdash;
meaning the assets cannot be transferred to an individual or a for-profit
entity. Generally, a project would either find another fiscal sponsor or
form their own independent tax-exempt non-profit.</p>
form their own independent tax-exempt 501(c)(3) non-profit.</p>
<p>We fully expect that some Conservancy projects will ultimately wish to
form their own non-profit 501(c)(3) organizations; that's why we design
@ -225,13 +265,22 @@ form their own independent tax-exempt non-profit.</p>
all to the general fund, but we unfortunately discovered that without
this requirement, Conservancy was not able to offer the myriad of
services to all its projects, particularly to larger projects that
have more income and therefore need more attention from staff.</p>
have more income and therefore need more attention from staff. Even now,
the 10% we receive from our project does not fully fund our fiscal
sponsorship activities; we raise additional funds
through <a href="/supporter">support program</a> to subsidize our fiscal
sponsorship work.</p>
<p>We do understand that, particularly for small projects that only
receive a few small donations, that donating a percentage of your income
back to Conservancy can be a high burden. Therefore, Conservancy
remains open to discussion on a case-by-case basis for smaller projects
about how to handle this requirement, and applicants should feel free to
raise any concerns about this issue during the application process.</p>
<p>We do understand that, particularly for small projects that only receive a
few small donations, that donating a percentage of your income back to
Conservancy can be a high burden. We encourage such small projects to
consider <a href="https://www.spi-inc.org/">Software in the Public
Interest</a>, which offers fewer services than Conservancy, but only
requires 5% of gross revenue. To our knowledge, SPI is the only fiscal
sponsor operating in FOSS that requires less than 10%; most FOSS fiscal
sponsors require at least 10%, or they operate on a fee-for-service model
whereby projects pay the actual costs of any service they receive (and such
charges are usually much higher than 10%). We urge you to very explicitly
ask about these issues with any fiscal sponsor you consider.</p>
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