WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:08.360 Hi everyone. I'm told we can get started. How's everybody's 00:08.360 --> 00:16.760 positive going? Amazing. My name is Karen Fowler. I am the executive director of 00:16.760 --> 00:24.040 the Software Freedom Conservancy and of course my slides are not working. Let's see if I 00:24.040 --> 00:31.240 can do that again. I should have used PowerPoint. Why didn't I ever think of that? 00:31.240 --> 00:37.280 Let me introduce myself and explain why I won't use PowerPoint. I am really 00:37.280 --> 00:41.480 passionate about Software Freedom because I was born with a her condition. I have 00:41.480 --> 00:45.040 an implanted pacemaker to Fibre later and I can't see the source could in my own 00:45.040 --> 00:49.880 body and as I've lived with a Fibre later I've had all kinds of experiences that 00:49.880 --> 00:53.440 show what it's like when your technology may not be made for you. I was shocked 00:53.440 --> 00:57.240 unnecessarily when I was pregnant because my heart was palpitating with 00:57.240 --> 01:01.480 a super normal for pregnant women but because I had a Fibre later it shocked me 01:01.480 --> 01:06.040 and repeatedly and I could only deal with it by taking drugs to slow my heart 01:06.040 --> 01:10.840 rate down so much it was hard to walk up a flight of stairs. I'm fine now. Everything 01:10.840 --> 01:15.640 is all fine. I'm actually asymptomatic and I have a wonderful life but the issues 01:15.640 --> 01:20.520 around our technology and the public's control of our technology are so critical 01:20.520 --> 01:25.200 that this is what we must focus our attention on and so I run Software Freedom 01:25.200 --> 01:30.240 Conservancy which does a lot of nonprofit things. We do we three main branches of 01:30.240 --> 01:35.120 our work. We have our our alternative to proprietary software so we're the 01:35.120 --> 01:40.440 home of Git for example and some of the in-scape line loads of projects to EMU 01:40.440 --> 01:47.880 OpenWRT and then we are we have a copy left program where we do advocacy for 01:47.880 --> 01:51.400 copy left and we see companies that are out of compliance with licenses. We 01:51.400 --> 01:55.200 recently had success against AVM in Germany. We're sitting busy on your 01:55.200 --> 01:58.840 anyway. These are all besides the point and we run a diversity initiative where we 01:58.840 --> 02:03.520 do paid remote internships to folks subject to systemic bias and impacted by 02:03.520 --> 02:08.760 under representation. So we're we're very busy or we're very lean we have very 02:08.760 --> 02:14.800 few people and we just do everything we can to like do all of the pragmatic 02:14.800 --> 02:20.440 move the needle things to progress for software freedom. And so that's this is 02:20.440 --> 02:25.480 where I'm coming from. Now as an executive director I spent a ton of time 02:25.480 --> 02:29.920 trying to raise money for my organization obviously. I actually don't know what 02:29.920 --> 02:33.000 was in this from earlier because well in addition to being running all over the 02:33.000 --> 02:36.320 place because it's positive I couldn't get into this room she's congratulations 02:36.320 --> 02:40.640 to you all for being here and the organizers for creating such great content. So 02:40.640 --> 02:44.200 forgive me as some of the things we're talked about before but as everybody 02:44.200 --> 02:49.000 knows funding has become quite difficult as of late it was never easy to begin 02:49.000 --> 02:54.920 with but these days it's been particularly hard in the last few months or years 02:54.920 --> 03:00.360 actually and getting harder and harder by the month for the non-profits in the 03:00.360 --> 03:06.080 free software space. So this slide is just some of the news items whatever you 03:06.080 --> 03:11.960 know layoffs within the tech-bound profits space and the like it's been 03:11.960 --> 03:17.120 particularly hard for diversity initiatives. I don't need to tell you about the 03:17.120 --> 03:21.440 overall political climate or apologize for the things happening in my 03:21.440 --> 03:27.200 country or anything like that but I will say that the last year has seen 03:27.200 --> 03:31.920 closures of really important diversity initiatives like women who code who 03:31.920 --> 03:38.720 shut down for financial reasons and girls in tech which basically went public 03:38.720 --> 03:43.080 and said we need to raise a hundred thousand dollars and if we raise a hundred 03:43.080 --> 03:46.800 thousand dollars we will keep going and you know what they didn't raise a hundred 03:46.800 --> 03:50.880 thousand dollars and they're gone and we've seen the same shrinking of 03:50.880 --> 03:57.720 support for for outreach our program and and so money is very important to us so 03:57.720 --> 04:02.880 why am I here talking to you about when to say no to money right I mean it's 04:02.880 --> 04:06.360 like the opposite we're all desperately seeking how do we sustain our 04:06.360 --> 04:10.760 initiatives how do we keep going because if we don't none of this work will get 04:10.760 --> 04:16.440 done and especially in the public good charitable sector this work has never 04:16.440 --> 04:20.840 been more important we've never had more opportunities right like now finally 04:20.840 --> 04:24.400 the public is waking up and saying there's a problem with our technology 04:24.400 --> 04:28.240 governments are waking up this is the time when we could be the most effective 04:28.240 --> 04:32.720 and yet it's the time when it's the most difficult to keep our funding going 04:32.720 --> 04:37.760 now we at software freedom conservancy we have like our where we kind of 04:37.760 --> 04:41.560 three pieces of our funding we have like about a third of our funding comes 04:41.560 --> 04:46.680 from private grant makers about a third comes from corporate donations and 04:46.680 --> 04:50.640 about a third and sponsorships and about a third comes from individual donors 04:50.640 --> 04:53.680 like people giving a hundred and twenty dollars a year which is really really 04:53.680 --> 04:59.440 critical to us and how being that spread is really really healthy and even 04:59.440 --> 05:03.440 when things are so it's it's interesting because when things are good and 05:03.440 --> 05:08.400 money is rolling in it's really easy to say no to money like your if you if 05:08.400 --> 05:11.280 you if it doesn't come exactly the way you wanted it's very easy but when 05:11.280 --> 05:17.760 things are hard it is so hard to say no to funding that comes and that is 05:17.760 --> 05:23.480 the time when it is so critical to say no when the funding that you get will 05:23.480 --> 05:28.720 fundamentally compromise what you are planning to do so the problem is like a 05:28.720 --> 05:33.560 known one right everybody makes the joke that's like having a oil company 05:33.560 --> 05:37.840 sponsored environmental you know company organization right so we we know 05:37.840 --> 05:41.640 that this problem has been around for a long time that there are problems with 05:41.640 --> 05:46.280 funding there are types of their ways in which organizations you know need to 05:46.280 --> 05:51.680 think critically about the funding they take for a whole host of reasons now 05:51.680 --> 05:55.760 I go to these meetups of executive directors of very large tech 05:55.760 --> 06:00.080 organizations there are a few different groups that I'm a member of there's so 06:00.080 --> 06:03.440 fun nobody's heard of the software freedom conservancy like we're like a 06:03.440 --> 06:08.120 really tiny organization and it's fun to like slip in with the really big ones 06:08.120 --> 06:13.520 that have you know that are worldwide and that are you know thousands of people 06:13.520 --> 06:17.720 that that are employed by them and here are the kinds of analysis that those 06:17.720 --> 06:24.720 executive directors do about these problems and I went to one meeting of 06:24.720 --> 06:30.240 executive directors of tech orgs and we were sitting there and they were really 06:30.240 --> 06:38.360 comparing their metrics for saying no to funders and their main criteria that 06:38.360 --> 06:42.880 they had most of them had settled on was just a very simple we will not take 06:42.880 --> 06:47.040 money from anyone who is actively working against our mission right that was 06:47.040 --> 06:52.600 their metrics so if the funder sponsors research that fights against you know 06:52.600 --> 06:58.480 looking for a solid if if they actually take do now for free and open source 06:58.480 --> 07:02.640 software I just this I'm not saying which organization these are the sponsors 07:02.640 --> 07:07.920 from you can guess but like if you look at all of these companies that are 07:07.920 --> 07:12.320 invested in free and open source software you know most of them are writing 07:12.320 --> 07:16.960 and promoting proprietary software and so I said at this meeting hey everybody 07:16.960 --> 07:22.680 like I know I'm the quirky on the quirky free software person you know I'm always 07:22.680 --> 07:28.040 asking you to meet on big blue button instead of meeting on zoom like what do 07:28.040 --> 07:31.080 you all think what is your advice for me what do you think that I should do 07:31.080 --> 07:35.520 because all of the companies that are in our space are actively promoting 07:35.520 --> 07:43.440 proprietary software like what would you do and silence total silence they're 07:43.440 --> 07:50.280 like oh yeah they're all actively working against your mission I don't know 07:50.280 --> 07:56.320 what you do how do you survive and you know so so we we thought about that a lot 07:56.320 --> 08:01.160 of people in the field feel like you know what that money is better off in our 08:01.160 --> 08:06.840 hands let's take as much as we can away from the people who are doing these 08:06.840 --> 08:12.920 things that are working counter-tour mission even if we don't like them 100% even 08:12.920 --> 08:16.480 if we think that they're bad we can take their money and we can run with it 08:16.480 --> 08:21.040 and do what we want to do to forward our mission and and we'll be good and we're 08:21.040 --> 08:27.760 then subjugating that entire you know construct but it doesn't really work 08:27.760 --> 08:38.360 out that way most of the time so so especially so especially with the you know 08:38.360 --> 08:45.840 the public good organizations when you compromise your values your fundamental 08:45.840 --> 08:52.120 the way you do you know who you are and what drives your your activities it subtly 08:52.120 --> 08:56.240 and not subtly affects what the organization does how it's structured what 08:56.240 --> 09:00.440 it can accomplish you can hear it even when people talk about the work that they're 09:00.440 --> 09:04.400 doing when they're hoping they're going to get certain funding they censor 09:04.400 --> 09:09.320 what they're going to say and it's becomes a lot less authentic but more importantly 09:09.320 --> 09:13.400 it's subtly influences what programs happen and what programs don't sometimes 09:13.400 --> 09:20.600 it overtly influences it and it can be a real a real problem and so you have to 09:20.600 --> 09:26.360 really think what what is your projects DNA right what is your organizations what is 09:26.360 --> 09:31.160 your organization doing that special why does your organization exist I was going to say 09:31.160 --> 09:36.160 why do you deserve to exist but none of our organizations deserve to exist right we are 09:36.160 --> 09:43.120 fighting to make improvements in the areas that we think are so important and if people think 09:43.120 --> 09:47.960 that that's important they will get on board and help you find money and help donate to you 09:47.960 --> 09:53.480 and if they don't well you know maybe it wasn't that important and you'll have to find 09:53.480 --> 10:00.120 something else to do but if you don't say focused on that mission and you're willing to 10:00.120 --> 10:04.600 compromise around the corner you will never build trust for your organization you'll 10:04.600 --> 10:09.560 never be able to get the volunteers that you need to keep going and your funding will 10:09.560 --> 10:13.880 then constantly be on a downward spiral towards things that take you further afield from 10:13.960 --> 10:22.680 the reason you got started to begin with so you got to say no you got to say no I am now 10:22.680 --> 10:28.680 that I'm in a funding crisis like all of the other orgs I keep thinking back to literally 10:28.680 --> 10:36.120 I would say a million dollars over the last ten years that I've had to say no to and I think 10:36.120 --> 10:40.760 was that the right thing to do was that the right thing to do and you know what the answer 10:40.840 --> 10:45.640 was yes it was the right thing to do and I'll talk a little about some of the things that was the 10:45.640 --> 10:53.240 right thing why this was the right thing to do so funding that will fundamentally redefine or 10:53.240 --> 10:59.240 restructure what you're doing we're constantly approached by funders that want to like they have 10:59.240 --> 11:05.400 they have their funding agenda and they want to accomplish their funding agenda with whatever 11:05.400 --> 11:10.840 organizations will come and you know be a part of that construct and you have your mission 11:11.400 --> 11:17.000 and as someone who's trying to raise money you're you want to make what you do fit what they 11:17.000 --> 11:25.240 want to fund right like that's what that's the constant dance but if you redefine what you want to 11:25.240 --> 11:31.400 do to match their funding in a way that fundamentally changes what you would be doing you are 11:31.400 --> 11:36.280 probably not the right person to accomplish that work to begin with and secondly you'll be so 11:36.280 --> 11:41.560 far from where you started out that you will not have accomplished what it was you were trying to 11:41.560 --> 11:46.920 do and from a nonprofit charitable perspective that means that often this work would be better 11:46.920 --> 11:52.920 done in a for-profit setting rather than a nonprofit public good setting so funding that redefine 11:53.080 --> 12:01.560 and then furthermore we were we really were in the advanced stages of applying to U.S. government 12:01.560 --> 12:08.680 grants that would have we would have had to do some significant restructuring and we were thinking 12:08.680 --> 12:14.680 of possibly doing it because it's fit with what we were doing but had we done that we would certainly 12:14.680 --> 12:19.960 be looking at no funding today after completely restructuring what we did from the U.S. government 12:20.040 --> 12:25.400 freezing its funds and so if you restructured redefine what you want to do too much you're subject 12:25.400 --> 12:31.880 to the to the various instruction and you will be possibly left with nothing funding that distracts 12:31.880 --> 12:39.000 you so often funders will come to your organization and they will have some idea of something that 12:39.000 --> 12:45.960 they want you know they want you to do and it fits within your mission but it's not the first thing 12:45.960 --> 12:52.120 you would do but because there's money like and this this happens quite regularly where someone comes 12:52.120 --> 12:57.480 and they're like but we want to do this thing and it will give you 300,000 if you just you know 12:59.480 --> 13:06.200 if we did it we would not be doing any of the other work that we had meant to you and maybe 13:06.200 --> 13:11.240 there's something bad about that other work but it didn't actually accomplish the mingles of our 13:11.240 --> 13:17.960 organization and and and it basically distracts us and we find that the donors that come in 13:17.960 --> 13:23.320 sometimes are corporations that wanted to distract us so that we don't do things that are you know 13:23.320 --> 13:28.600 more you know things like GPL enforcement and compliance and our diversity initiative where we 13:28.600 --> 13:36.840 don't exploit our our our you know companies constantly want us to give them the private data of our 13:36.840 --> 13:44.360 interns and applicants no no we will mock if you that data and some you know so funding that 13:44.360 --> 13:52.120 compromise your values is an organization and your shared values with your community and and so 13:52.120 --> 13:57.480 we've I've seen a number of organizations that take funds because they're desperate to continue 13:59.080 --> 14:03.800 an example of this recently I'm not going to call out any of the organizations that have done this 14:03.800 --> 14:09.160 but quite a few organizations have taken money with reservation from like the wallways of the 14:09.160 --> 14:16.120 world right or you know or you know companies that there feel that their community feels uncomfortable 14:16.120 --> 14:20.680 with because it was either you know turn off the lights or take the money from this company and 14:20.680 --> 14:27.960 they're left in this limbo of you know are we you know where where volunteers start turning away 14:28.120 --> 14:37.480 from the organization where you know the integrity from which the organization speaks with is compromise 14:39.640 --> 14:47.560 funding that purchases control we have a lot of that this little equation of C6 equals two two times C3 14:47.560 --> 14:56.840 because I actually was on a paddle I was in a room where one of the large C6 organizations executive 14:56.920 --> 15:01.800 director was in the room and somebody said what's the difference between a C3 and a C6 in the 15:01.800 --> 15:09.720 United States what's the difference so C C3 is the code in the U.S. IRS statute for a public charity 15:09.720 --> 15:15.560 and a C6 is a trade association that's formed for a common business interest and organizations 15:15.560 --> 15:20.520 look at their all nonprofits and the C6 is say we are a nonprofit working to make the world 15:20.520 --> 15:24.920 better as a open source and the C3s are public cherries and they have totally different 15:24.920 --> 15:30.280 regulations the C3s are organized for the public good and the executive director of the C6 said 15:30.280 --> 15:38.200 I'll tell you the difference six is twice as good as three and you know they certainly make twice 15:38.200 --> 15:45.160 the salaries at least those organizations but but what the C6 has done is they've established a 15:45.160 --> 15:51.800 model where funders can get control of the organization so the funders get board seats and this 15:51.800 --> 15:59.240 means that often in this field the corporate sponsors are very used to having that kind of 15:59.240 --> 16:06.360 control and so when the corporate sponsors come they say what do we get for our sponsorship right 16:06.360 --> 16:09.960 what do we get and they say you know this other organization is giving me a board seat 16:10.840 --> 16:17.160 huge mistake I've seen C3s go through contortion to give some kind of control to companies and it 16:17.160 --> 16:23.000 basically it it blows up the whole organization because you can't build a governance based on 16:23.880 --> 16:29.160 public good when you have the corporate interests steering the way some there have been various 16:29.160 --> 16:33.080 things where you can you can like harness this corporate the corporate interests without 16:33.880 --> 16:39.800 giving the actual control the go go no foundation pioneered the advisory boards so you get those 16:39.800 --> 16:44.040 companies to be on an official board that has no actual corporate control but they feel like they have 16:44.040 --> 16:49.000 access or they have some other but it's it's sort of like a more of a trapping than as there 16:49.000 --> 16:54.680 are ways that you can you can have that but anything that gives control is is just a huge mistake 16:54.680 --> 17:01.320 and the more orgs that accept the board seat roll the harder it is for all of the other organizations 17:01.320 --> 17:11.960 to say no funding that makes you work way too hard so I have done this before where I've been like 17:12.040 --> 17:17.480 oh my gosh a $10,000 donation thank you so much and then the donation causes us to have to work 17:17.480 --> 17:22.840 hours and hours and hours and like there was one donation that we got where the person you know 17:22.840 --> 17:27.640 is like all I want is for you to generate this little report about this you know little thing 17:27.640 --> 17:32.840 and it's no big deal and and then it turned out to actually write the report took several staffers 17:32.840 --> 17:37.160 for a few weeks and it would have been like we would have been so much better having said no to it 17:37.160 --> 17:42.440 so thinking about what is the workload of that that this donation will generate and that comes 17:42.440 --> 17:49.640 to pass especially for your marked donations where grant makers or corporations but often here 17:49.640 --> 17:57.240 grant makers want very specific work and I would say that from our perspective it's very hard 17:57.240 --> 18:04.840 when we apply for grants to be able to like present our work in the ways that are amenable for 18:04.840 --> 18:16.200 the grant makers that also don't cause us to have huge huge paperwork requirements or other 18:16.200 --> 18:25.320 kinds of of additional workload and and so you know I think that one of the things that I've been 18:25.320 --> 18:30.120 really frustrated that folks that are seeking funding don't don't do is they don't read the fine 18:30.120 --> 18:35.880 print on any of the donations they got and so and this is mostly true of the corporate donations 18:35.880 --> 18:42.200 although I've had it also in the grant makers space that often the corporations are giving you 18:42.200 --> 18:49.480 peos where there are terms of service and almost every organization that I know just clicks 18:49.480 --> 18:55.560 yes on those they just accept them but when you read them those terms are wild the objectionable 18:55.640 --> 19:01.880 so most companies purchase orders have terms of service that require the organizations that they don't 19:01.880 --> 19:10.360 need to to grant indemnities so the organizations promise that they will pay those companies 19:10.360 --> 19:16.840 if there's ever any loss to them related to anything about the organization so for an organization 19:16.840 --> 19:21.400 like us that cares about GPL compliance and making sure that companies do the right thing like 19:21.400 --> 19:26.760 it's a huge amount of liability that we are undertaking and so some companies you put and it's not 19:26.760 --> 19:31.640 just the indemnities there are other provisions as well that are just wildly objectionable 19:32.840 --> 19:40.840 confidentiality provisions that are just absurd right and when you read so I read this and I'm like 19:40.840 --> 19:45.400 you know this is a vatitude being an executive director and a lawyer is only hey have you 19:45.400 --> 19:50.760 checked out your terms of service like did you read those you should totally check out you know 19:50.760 --> 19:59.480 section section 10 like you really think that if somebody sue you over you know like so for 19:59.480 --> 20:03.960 where all of our outreach communities they're all they're in all of the technology if somebody 20:03.960 --> 20:08.920 sue you over a Linux kernel thing that you're gonna like I'm a green that I'm gonna have to pay 20:08.920 --> 20:13.320 millions of dollars even though you've given us this $20,000 sponsorship like is that 20:13.880 --> 20:18.280 do you know that and usually the people who are talking to have no idea and then what's really 20:18.280 --> 20:24.360 interesting is when those like people who are working at that company try to elevate that at 20:24.360 --> 20:30.520 their corporations it really reveals so some corporations say no problem and they actually give us 20:30.520 --> 20:35.400 exceptions so oh always ask for exceptions because the more of us organizations that ask for 20:35.400 --> 20:40.840 exceptions to these terms of service the easier they get there are major corporations that I just say 20:41.480 --> 20:45.880 oh you forgot this year to give me the indemnity like the to strike the indemnity and they're like oh 20:45.880 --> 20:50.280 I'm so sorry I'll take it out right and all the other orgs are just accepting that indemnity 20:51.000 --> 20:55.800 there are plenty of corporations that say nope sorry these are our terms of service and we will not 20:56.600 --> 21:03.000 we will not veer from them and I see that the same companies are sponsoring like every other organ this 21:03.000 --> 21:09.720 space so read the fine print don't like bring on all of this liability it's not that hard to 21:09.720 --> 21:15.080 imagine a world where some of these corporate sponsors become desperate in some way or where 21:15.080 --> 21:20.200 our technology becomes really inconvenient for them right and they want to find these mechanisms 21:20.200 --> 21:26.360 to shut our organizations down because we're disrupting that that technical space so definitely read 21:26.360 --> 21:32.520 the fine print another reason to say no is that not just in terms of like trying to get our 21:32.520 --> 21:38.760 interns data and other kinds of information and exploitive practices from funders but a lot of 21:38.760 --> 21:42.360 funders are really interested in SEO and they're really interested in their local placement 21:43.080 --> 21:47.160 and that's all well and good people really do watch our sponsorship page when companies come on 21:47.160 --> 21:52.200 as sponsors people say oh I noticed that such as this company became a sponsor of software freedom 21:52.200 --> 21:58.920 conservancy or outreachy like people really do look and I think that some companies are you know 21:58.920 --> 22:05.080 acknowledge that and notice that and and they find that it's very helpful for their talent recruitment 22:05.080 --> 22:13.320 but but others are you know they're just looking for SEO and and so we only give no follow links 22:13.320 --> 22:19.800 we will not give other links and and what's interesting is we have all kinds of companies looking 22:19.800 --> 22:26.040 to give us sponsorship to promote all kinds of businesses that we would never want to promote ourselves 22:26.040 --> 22:35.800 and so casinos escort services all that are things you would be so surprised that we get 22:36.520 --> 22:43.000 and so we've turned down sponsorships that are like you know we we turned down a company that sells 22:43.000 --> 22:48.600 guns we turned down on me so like you know because we because this is promoting the values of our 22:48.600 --> 22:56.280 project and you know so they're all all these reasons why we we we we wide of turning turning down 22:56.280 --> 23:02.120 these funds but when we do when we do list our sponsors we try to limit the kind of exploitative 23:02.120 --> 23:07.160 practices that they can have on our community right so that when when people come and CR sponsors 23:07.160 --> 23:13.320 they are not worried that they're going to be stuck in a predatory situation we also had to turn 23:13.320 --> 23:20.360 down companies where for example you know and especially with our outreach initiative people are 23:20.360 --> 23:25.000 often coming to us to rehabilitate there I'm not sure if I've just let it about that later but 23:25.000 --> 23:32.680 try to rehabilitate their reputation right we for example we we've had more than one donor who is 23:32.680 --> 23:41.480 associated with Epstein or some other problematic situation who wanted to sponsor to just kind of 23:41.480 --> 23:48.840 show that they the existence themselves from that ugly past or or we had a company that was 23:48.840 --> 23:56.600 donating to us where one of their executives had made a sexist and racist comments publicly and so 23:56.600 --> 24:01.960 we had to say well you know they wanted to sponsor us at outreach to your us at us a sea to show that 24:01.960 --> 24:10.840 they're really they're really good guys and in those instances you know it's hard to say no to the funding 24:10.840 --> 24:18.920 but we basically we are basically saying that that behavior is okay if we funding in that way so 24:19.640 --> 24:26.360 after I mean it's if they're complicated analyses right we we we run our hands for days and weeks 24:26.360 --> 24:31.560 and you know I've been a participant of many community discussions about what is it okay to do this 24:31.560 --> 24:40.440 and when it isn't so you know like we talk about sustainability right the the whole sustainability 24:40.440 --> 24:45.560 discussion has continually boiled down to pay the maintainers right it's all about how do we get 24:45.560 --> 24:51.000 money to the people doing this work but sustainability is so much more than that our values 24:51.000 --> 24:56.200 sustain us that we would have no free and open source software world if we didn't have 24:56.280 --> 25:02.360 principal people who wanted to make the world a different place and by abandoning that for funding 25:02.360 --> 25:08.920 we burn people out we demoralize them and we do not get the next generation of contributors who are 25:09.960 --> 25:15.880 excited to really make the important work that needs to be done to actually move the needle 25:15.880 --> 25:22.520 towards software freedom so we have to think about sustainability not just in monetary terms but 25:22.520 --> 25:27.960 also in terms of our values and what we want to accomplish in not just the next year but in the 25:27.960 --> 25:35.960 next decades and even if that means that some of our organizations die you know and no longer exist 25:35.960 --> 25:40.520 it means that our principles can continue and we can actually do this work long term and so I'll be 25:40.520 --> 25:44.760 very sad if I'm at Fauston next year and I can't say this is all the great work that software 25:44.760 --> 25:49.800 freedom conservancy and RIT has done but I will hold my head up high and note that we did the 25:49.800 --> 25:55.080 work that we wanted to do and that we've produced the materials that preserve the values and that 25:55.080 --> 26:00.440 will hopefully inspire people to do it in the long run we don't have the right to do this work 26:00.440 --> 26:05.080 it's a privilege and we're so grateful that we're supported especially by individuals 26:05.720 --> 26:12.040 but and grant makers and that we are able to say no to corporations and say no to problematic 26:12.040 --> 26:18.280 funding and I hope that can continue and so you know I think we're all in this this together like 26:18.520 --> 26:22.920 the funding crisis is so intense I won't I won't I'll leave more time for questions so we won't 26:22.920 --> 26:29.000 talk about that but I think I have five minutes or four minutes and I would love to take a few 26:29.000 --> 26:43.000 questions if anybody yes I'm going to give you a round of applause. Oh thank you so I'm 26:43.240 --> 26:51.480 really lovely to get to meet you in person so I'm 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20. Oh you're an outreachy 26:51.480 --> 26:57.160 grad her way working at Witsha. Oh amazing so an outreachy grad is here working at Open Life Science 26:57.160 --> 27:03.000 I have to repeat everything for the recording. So my name is an actually a question but just to 27:03.000 --> 27:07.960 say I wouldn't be sitting in this room if after she didn't exist I wouldn't have found my 27:08.520 --> 27:13.720 organization without an outreachy. Dub says she wouldn't be here in this room if we weren't for outreachy 27:13.720 --> 27:22.200 who would fit to get for that opportunity. Thank you for seeing me so glad but who has questions 27:22.200 --> 27:27.800 about the saying no to funding because I saw from the faces of people in this room that some of 27:27.800 --> 27:31.880 you have been in these situations there have been a few very prominent discussions in different 27:31.880 --> 27:37.800 communities about these situations especially as of late. Yeah you talked a lot about 27:37.800 --> 27:43.800 when to say no and a lot of cases as you said that we are in the crisis went to make exceptions. 27:44.440 --> 27:48.280 When do you make exceptions like when do you say yes when you shouldn't say yeah or when you 27:48.280 --> 27:55.000 would ordinarily know when you're so desperate I really think I might regret saying this 27:55.560 --> 28:01.320 but I really think that when you're so desperate like especially with the nonprofit space 28:01.400 --> 28:07.480 I feel like you you got to find something else to do like I feel like if you turn around 28:07.480 --> 28:14.120 and abandon your principles then what are you even working for it a begin with? So the lines 28:14.120 --> 28:20.280 are not clear right it's like you can find your way to say yes to some uncomfortable funding 28:20.280 --> 28:27.720 from time to time but it leads to a very difficult spot and I really feel strongly that if 28:28.440 --> 28:33.800 you're in that situation you have to articulate it clearly to the people who are your previous 28:33.800 --> 28:39.960 funders your potential funders and just hope that people come in and they value what you do 28:40.520 --> 28:45.480 you can basically they're the rule in nonprofit fundraising is once every 10 years you can tell 28:45.480 --> 28:49.400 people that you're going to close up if they don't like the lights will go off if you do not 28:49.400 --> 28:54.760 donate today you can only do that once every 10 years all right and so I've been thinking about 28:54.760 --> 28:59.640 doing that and I like I think I can hang on with one more positive fundraiser and the truth is 28:59.640 --> 29:03.720 that's all we can do we're the free and open-source software community we have to rely on transparency 29:03.720 --> 29:08.440 and if people don't value it then we don't like there's no right to do it you know? 29:09.560 --> 29:16.680 Yeah thank you for your talk I wondered if you have any good advice on a festive ground fire 29:16.680 --> 29:28.440 wall in techniques yes or are there any effective firewalling techniques for grants to work on 29:28.440 --> 29:33.720 white so people don't necessarily appreciate that when you take in grants there's a tremendous amount 29:33.720 --> 29:39.480 of paperwork so you must track any grants that you organization gets in that are for specific 29:39.480 --> 29:44.200 activities you need to make sure that you spent those funds in the way that you said you were 29:44.200 --> 29:51.080 going to spend them and so you have to you have to track those activities and it is very complicated 29:51.080 --> 29:55.240 to do that the question is like how do you how do you handle that massive amount of paper work 29:55.240 --> 29:59.800 they're okay yeah there is a structure yeah well so we at software freedom conservancy 30:00.360 --> 30:06.840 use only free and open source software we're never possible obviously we have we use bean 30:06.840 --> 30:14.920 count software for our books and records and we have been working on improving that for 30:14.920 --> 30:20.600 for export to other nonprofits and it has we have program tags and we have other ways of checking 30:20.600 --> 30:25.000 our use of funds but it is extremely labor intensive and the way that I mostly handle it is 30:25.000 --> 30:30.200 by trying to get as much unrestricted funding as possible so I try to just so I try to push back 30:30.200 --> 30:35.240 on grants and it's been mostly effective where I've been able to move our private grant makers 30:35.240 --> 30:41.320 into less restrictive purposes by simply explaining if I take this funding in I will have to spend 30:41.320 --> 30:46.360 a lot of hours you know this is how my team works this is what we work on this is our expertise which 30:46.360 --> 30:51.000 is why you're funding us is because we are have this expertise and you will take away from that 30:51.000 --> 30:55.400 by by restricting it so much here's what we expect to accomplish does that match your funding goals 30:55.400 --> 31:00.440 and how can we explain it in ways that you can report on the work that we're doing that match 31:00.440 --> 31:05.320 is what you're seeking to do and that's been fairly successful so far but as I said 31:05.320 --> 31:11.000 we're in a funding crisis too so I might regret everything I've said here but I really appreciate 31:11.000 --> 31:15.800 you your time any ideas that you all have I would I have to run because I have to fill in for 31:15.800 --> 31:19.960 in the main track because my colleague is sick so I have to run right from here but thank you 31:19.960 --> 31:22.360 so much and let's have more conversation in the future.