Re: You've been approved for GitHub Sponsors

[Thad Guidry]

Tom, Owen, Martin, Antonin...

Are all of you OK with having your GitHub account shown in the Team listing for our GitHub Sponsors?

If not, let me know and we can remove those individuals who don't want to be displayed there.

https://github.com/sponsors/OpenRefine

Thad

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thadguidry/

On Wed, Jul 1, 2020 at 11:49 AM Thad Guidry <thadg...@gmail.com> wrote:

Github Sponsers Profile

I was not comfortable with all the info in the sponsor profile either.  Joe and I just populated it with some content because it was required to even click the SUBMIT button for the application itself.

Anything in the profile can be changed later.

Governance and Funding Decisions

Yes the intent was to get your feedback, Martin's but it's not up to us alone I think?

But I would say the community at large, and so should be put forth to the Steering Committee, since this reflects what general direction we want OpenRefine project to look like for funding opportunities with other organizations as well.

But maybe I'm wrong?

I am not sure who makes decisions on spending of funds, is that indeed the Advisory Committee?  Steering Committee?  Both?   We still have not updated our Governance.md file with those answers, let alone mention the demarcation of the Advisory and Steering Committee's in the Governance.md file (Issue #2292).

The other side of this is OpenRefine project sponsoring other open source projects we depend on.

OpenRefine could sponsor them as well (components we depend on heavily such as for example, Jackson, etc.)

Who decides that?  I guess we still need to answer that as part of Issue #2292

So, I think we really need to have a meeting to address the above, once and for all, and fix our Governance document so it's clear who does what. (because our blog post doesn't cover enough)

Thad

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thadguidry/

[Tom Morris]

I'm unclear on the context here. I don't mind being listed on the team to give credibility unless the implication is that I'll somehow benefit from contributions to the OpenRefine project. Perhaps I need to do more research into how this is structured. Personally, I don't think the project needs to be an intermediary/arbitror  if supporters want to sponsor individual contributors. If they think someone has done a great job with bug triage, fixed a bunch of bugs, or provide a significant feature, they should be able to show their appreciation directly.

Tom

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[Thad Guidry]

Hi Tom,

You can certainly set yourself up for GitHub Sponsors as an individual!  In fact, I would highly encourage that. 100% goes directly to developers, unlike BountySource and others.

In this way, in the future even OpenRefine as an Org can directly sponsor you back on a monthly basis (if we vote to do so and once GitHub allows that to happen in the future:)

 Currently, only individual users can sponsor developers and organizations. If your organization is interested in sponsoring developers, please let us know by contacting GitHub Support.

 

https://docs.github.com/en/github/supporting-the-open-source-community-with-github-sponsors/about-github-sponsors

This is not like BountySource, and currently its a monthly recurring payment (not payment per issue or bounty per issue)

Being listed on the OpenRefine team listing under our Sponsors profile page is entirely up to you and does not prevent you from Individual Sponsorship in any way.  It does however prove to others outside of OpenRefine org that you are indeed an official member of the team in regard to OpenRefine Org Sponsorship, and so for that matter can help you yourself get individual sponsorship.

Thad

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thadguidry/

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[Antonin Delpeuch (lists)]

I think it would be good to step back a bit and think what is the intention behind setting up GH Sponsors - what sort of thing do we want to fund with that, who are we advertising it to, and so on… Once we have that, it should be easier to get the message right.

Antonin

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[Thad Guidry]

Hi Antonin,

I would say that GitHub Sponsors is a perpetual income source from those that like/love OpenRefine.

It's just another avenue for income as we discussed on the CS&S meeting at one time with Joe.  Besides grants, another income source that the public and organizations can use to make a donation is our eventual Donation button on our website.

On the profile page I used the same sort of wording that the advisory committee had previously agreed on what OpenRefine project would fund. Namely, OpenRefine development and Events.

I personally think that GitHub Sponsors should not mention Events and instead ask for sponsorship only for OpenRefine development itself.  That's the goal of GitHub Sponsors program...to further open source software itself by having the public and orgs show appreciation to those developers like yourself that maintain the open source software.

So I'll remove the mention of Events from the profile.

Anything else that we think needs more tweaking?

Thad

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thadguidry/

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[Thad Guidry]

I just set up a sponsorship of $3 a month towards OpenRefine to see how it all flows.

I will double check with Joe @CS&S to verify once it processes later.

But we now have a continuous revenue stream of $3 a month from me! (I'll bump it later once Joe says we're good to go)

Thad

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thadguidry/

[Tom Morris]

On Fri, Jul 24, 2020 at 1:53 PM Thad Guidry <thadg...@gmail.com> wrote:

I will double check with Joe @CS&S to verify once it processes later.

Ahhhh! The mysterious "Joe" has an affiliation (Code for Science & Society, OpenRefine's fiscal home) and by the context I'm guessing he has something to do with accounting. It would be really useful to the non-insiders to provide at least a full name, role, or affiliation when new characters are introduced. Talking about just "Joe" is way too clubby.

Contributions are the lifeblood of any open source project, but money is only one way to contribute -- and often not even the most valuable. We shouldn't lose sight of other forms of contribution or set the expectation that all work will be done by employees, contractors, or paid interns.

Tom

[Thad Guidry]

Sorry Tom!  Yes, Joe @ CS&S https://codeforscience.org

CS&S handles our fiscal accounting for us.

Joe set up our GitHub Sponsors for our organization level, OpenRefine, (since it needed to be mapped to their 501c3 and Stripe payment account.  That's all setup now...so the funds should flow without a problem.

Joe is also tasked with eventually providing us with an embeddable donations buttons for our website http://openrefine.org

The remaining question we had for Joe during our advisory meetings concerning GitHub Sponsorship was how the accounting and auditing would be done and would be sufficient enough for transparency, as well as privacy of our users.  The privacy part is already taken care of through GitHub Sponsors itself (read their terms specifically).  The auditing part is on CS&S to ensure that they maintain the income account type (GitHub Sponsorship) of funds for our tracking and reporting purposes.

You are welcome to join our Advisory Committee to stay up to date and proactively help guide OpenRefine beyond development, but up to you, just say the word :-)

Thad

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thadguidry/

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[Martin Magdinier]

Thad lets not rush this and step back a bit to refine the text on the funding page. I see the czi grants a success because expectations and goals were set before getting the funds. We may put a hackmd.io page to draft the content. 

In my opinion we should use the fund to retain time for a project maintainer to take care of critical task that if not done in a timely manner hurt the project sustainability. I am thinking to ticket triage, PR review and new developer support, release preparation...

Other larger more specific goal can be lead by the community or financed through specific programs (like czi grant)

Martin. 

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[Thad Guidry]

Sounds great Martin!  (there is no rush btw...there is no advertising going on from me)

Sure, saying we will use the funds for project maintenance (bug fixes, triage, PR reviews, developer support, or release preparation) sounds fine to me.

Hack on it...  I copied the text over and updated the How we use your Donation.

And added some comments...

https://hackmd.io/VGkCgG-qSmWpheQubQrbyA

Thad

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thadguidry/

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[Thad Guidry]

Hi Developers,

So Joe @ CS&S advised us that the first trial scheduled payment that I did actually went through directly to their bank and that they have accounting for it and that he doesn't foresee an issue with collecting Sponsorship payments.

All that is left is getting agreement on the previously proposed paragraphs.

Leave feedback or comments on the descriptions on the GitHub Sponsorship page and donation levels.  Here is the proposed textual descriptions where I also have placed a few comments on some paragraphs :

https://hackmd.io/VGkCgG-qSmWpheQubQrbyA

After we get agreement, then we can publish and there will be a new green button in the top right corner of our repository GitHub page.

Note: We can always update or change level amounts and descriptions in the future at anytime.

For those wondering why I'm pushing some of this... it's because October is fast approaching and the typical start of fiscal calendars in the USA for many companies and philanthropic organizations.  Having our GitHub Sponsorship page setup before this October can help us attain potential further funding from those seeking to support more open source software.

Thad

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thadguidry/

[Antonin Delpeuch (lists)]

Here is a quick feedback:

I am not comfortable with listing a fixed set of contributors as the
ones to which this money will go. We should instead make it clear that
this money goes to CS&S, and is then used to fund the project in various
ways (contract work, internships, domain name, potentially events, and
so on).

I am not opposed to the counterparts listed, but we need to think about
the process used to give them out: how will Martin be notified that he
needs to tweet thanks to a backer? How will we be notified when we need
to add someone to the backers list in the tool?

Also, I would avoid the references to coffee and all night coding - we
need to promote a sane image of FOSS. The idea is to avoid that people
don't recognize themselves as "hardcore hackathon sprinters" and
therefore feel like they don't belong to the project, or to the contrary
that it encourages people to go beyond their physical limits and burn out.

That being said I like the overall enthusiasm of the text!

Antonin

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[Thad Guidry]

Good points Antonin!

It was a amalgamation of what I saw on other projects GitHub Sponsorship pages.

Let me update it based on your feedback.

Thad

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[Thad Guidry]

OK, I've toned it down a bit and reduced some of the unnecessary verbosity.

As well as removing burdens for the team.

We should instead make it clear that
this money goes to CS&S, and is then used to fund the project in various
ways (contract work, internships, domain name, potentially events, and
so on).

 

Additionally, I've added your point above.

Anything else that needs a tweak?
https://github.com/sponsors/OpenRefine?preview=true

Thad

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thadguidry/

[Tom Morris]

I tightened up the text about what the funds would be be used for a little bit and removed the parentheses around the CS&S description.

The roadmap reference should either point to something or be removed.

The other main thing that I think is missing is something about who decides how the money gets spent and/or examples of past expenditures.

The funding tiers seem unbalanced to me. Is there value in having a $1 (ie purely symbolic) level? There's a giant gap between $20 and $1,000. It seems like even non-profits could potentially swing $100/mo and plenty of companies might do $6K/yr, but not $12K/yr (I'd suggest thinking of the corporate/organizational rates in annualized terms, since that's probably how they'll approach it). Is there a "name your own level" option or is that not supported by the platform?

Tom

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[Thad Guidry]

On Thu, Aug 27, 2020 at 11:20 AM Tom Morris <tfmo...@gmail.com> wrote:

I tightened up the text about what the funds would be be used for a little bit and removed the parentheses around the CS&S description.

Thanks!

Wait, I don't see edits on anything.  Did you edit the profile directly on our GitHub Sponsors dashboard?  or the Hackmd.io document?  Perhaps we don't need the Hackmd.io doc any longer since we are getting close to agreement and can just tweak directly on our Sponsors profile.
https://github.com/sponsors/OpenRefine

The roadmap reference should either point to something or be removed.

Agreed!  So point it if we have one...you asked before about this.

But I am now thinking it might be best to remove it to reduce yet another burden on us with keeping the profile page up to date.

The other main thing that I think is missing is something about who decides how the money gets spent and/or examples of past expenditures.

I'm still asking about this and our governance docs being updated.  I don't want to get into that myself, but happy to review or advise.

HINT: Martin  ;-)

The funding tiers seem unbalanced to me. Is there value in having a $1 (ie purely symbolic) level? There's a giant gap between $20 and $1,000. It seems like even non-profits could potentially swing $100/mo and plenty of companies might do $6K/yr, but not $12K/yr (I'd suggest thinking of the corporate/organizational rates in annualized terms, since that's probably how they'll approach it). Is there a "name your own level" option or is that not supported by the platform?

Yes, these tiers were just initially set up based on what I saw other Projects doing.

We can have up to 10 tiers and the maximum tier amount being $6000, so quite a bit of range.

I'd still keep the $1 a month (that's 82.68 in Chinese Yuan a year, the cost of a designer T-shirt there)

But agree that we should set up more tiers, even using all 10 tiers, why not?  See below or visit the dashboard

You can set sponsor tiers with different prices and rewards. While only one published tier is required, adding more tiers gives the community different price points to support you at.

• You can have a total of 10 published tiers.
• The maximum monthly tier amount is $6,000.

Thad

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thadguidry/

 

[Thad Guidry]

I've filled in the remaining tiers with drafts... take a look.

https://github.com/sponsors/OpenRefine/dashboard/tiers

Thad

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thadguidry/

[Martin Magdinier]

Thanks all for the edits. It looks good to me.  I made few minor suggestions in hackmd.io as comments.

I suggest we limit the number of tier to six to keep the page easy to read ($1, $5, $15, $25, $50, $100). There is not option to allow contributors to set their amount.  However, they can make direct wire to CS&S or use https://donate.codeforscience.org/

To make one-time donations or a larger corporate sponsorship please contact ...@...  to make a donation by wire or cheque to CS&S.

There is a webhook to follow contribution.  I can find a way to automate tweets about new contributors and potentially edit a sponsors.md on our repo. 

I will put the update of the governance and contribute to the top of my todo list. I got a really busy summer and things do not slow down. 

Martin

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[Thad Guidry]

Martin - 

Thanks for reviewing.

I would suggest we don't burden ourselves with the tweets or sponsors.md file.  I think most of those that will sponsor us really don't care much about swag even in virtual form, so let's not worry about extra admin stuff.

The Governance is most important however, so thanks for putting effort into that and looking forward to reviewing it!

I guess you have a good point about direct payments to CS&S... for those that have deeper pockets they will just donate directly through CS&S and get their receipt for tax purposes from CS&S.

So I guess we can consider GitHub Sponsors as more a low cost entry for supporting us on a recurring basis?

Tom -

How do you feel about that, using GitHub Sponsors lower recurring donation amounts?  I'm OK with that...and we can always put a note into the last tier $100 like I did on the $6000 draft one to say reach out to us if you want to give more?

All -

For one time donations, we still have an offer from Joe @ CS&S to provide us with a link for donations that we can put on our website?

But we could also link to our GitHub Sponsors page as well to reduce his admin burden, but then that is recurring monthly.  Good to have both I guess?

Thad

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thadguidry/

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[Tom Morris]

On Thu, Aug 27, 2020 at 4:32 PM Thad Guidry <thadg...@gmail.com> wrote:

Tom -

How do you feel about that, using GitHub Sponsors lower recurring donation amounts?  I'm OK with that...and we can always put a note into the last tier $100 like I did on the $6000 draft one to say reach out to us if you want to give more?

I don't really see how lowering the top contribution level makes the page easier to read. When I looked yesterday, the top three featured sponsorships by Github had top tiers of $1000, $2000, & $5000. I think including a stretch goal of at least $1000 is worthwhile. Github is much lower friction than wire transfers.

https://github.com/sponsors/CommandPost

https://github.com/sponsors/eslint

https://github.com/sponsors/Homebrew

I like eslint's statement of how they'll spend the money and Homebrow's listing the members of their leadership committee.

Tom

p.s. Yes, I did directly edit the draft on Github, because that was the last link that was sent. Where is the current master copy?

[Thad Guidry]

Tom,

They don't have a way to mark master... only  the Tiers you can create them and mark them as Draft, until you decide that you want to publish that particular Tier level. (kinda crappy system to me, but I guess some projects want to do staged marketing campaigns somehow with that)

The master is here where I asked for collaboration and comments on:  https://hackmd.io/VGkCgG-qSmWpheQubQrbyA

Thad

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thadguidry/

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[Thad Guidry]

Oops...

Had the wrong link shared... I wanted to open EDIT mode.

Here it is now correctly:  https://hackmd.io/@PN44dYyoT9K3JdtU02n0HQ/SJ0ZhXQO8/edit

Thad

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[Thad Guidry]

Hi Devs!

https://hackmd.io/@PN44dYyoT9K3JdtU02n0HQ/SJ0ZhXQO8/edit

Is this getting closer to something generally agreeable by everyone?

Is the Short bio sentence OK?

Is the Who and How sections OK?

Any more comments on the 9 (out of 10 possible) tiers that I've drafted?

Do we add a 10th and what amount and description?

Thad

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thadguidry/

[Antonin Delpeuch (lists)]

That works for me now!

Antonin

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[Martin Maginier]

looks good to me.
The point from Tom to have larger tier make sense to me.

[Thad Guidry]

OK great thanks!  And thanks Antonin and Martin for the feedback and changes thus far.

... so we'll wait for Tom to give us his final views on a potential 10th tier and any tweaks to existing ones.

... and Owen if he comes out of his garden this week ;-)

Thad

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thadguidry/

[Thad Guidry]

Tom,

Antonin and Martin think this looks OK now for our GitHub Sponsors profile wording.  Does this look OK for now to publish?  Do you want to suggest a 10th tier somewhere in between any?  Please edit the doc and let us know.

https://hackmd.io/@PN44dYyoT9K3JdtU02n0HQ/SJ0ZhXQO8/edit

Thad

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thadguidry/

[Thad Guidry]

Hi Devs,

For the 10th tier (the maximum we can have) for GitHub Sponsor donations... I am thinking of one of the following:

$2

$5

$2500

to fill in 1 gap.

Which gap do we think would be most useful to fill in?

https://hackmd.io/@PN44dYyoT9K3JdtU02n0HQ/SJ0ZhXQO8/edit

After that is in place, we should be able to fully publish additionally to our Repo level (besides our existing Org level which already shows the Sponsor button).  For details how we do that, see the PR I have created already with a note from GitHub Support when I asked them about that https://github.com/OpenRefine/OpenRefine/pull/3154

Thad

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thadguidry/

[Thad Guidry]

It seems like on our previous CS&S call (pre call), Martin, Antonin and myself seemed to think that a lower amount might be better overall to fill in the gap, such as $5.

The feeling was that institutions which have larger amounts to give will usually do so not on a recurring basis through GitHub Sponsors but instead directly through CS&S.

As such, recurring basis through GitHub Sponsors is more likely to attract lower amounts and needs (so no need for a gap filler of $2500).

I'll make the change now.

Furthermore, October is just days away, the start of many fiscal calendars for gift giving in the USA and Canada, and so we need to merge in this PR https://github.com/OpenRefine/OpenRefine/pull/3154 so that we are ready to collect recurring gifts from institutions that have some funding, even if it's just small donation amounts.

Additionally, I need to check in with Joe@CS&S about adding a one-time donation button link to add on our website and what the status is of that from him.

Thad

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thadguidry/