[GNC] Status of SourceForge tip jar

[Brad Morrison]

Thank you for making a donation Wally! And thank you Derek for managing 
the SourceForge Tip Jar!

https://gnucash.org/donate.phtml - the GnuCash donation page lists 2 
ways to donate: the SF Tip Jar & the Argenta Bank account in Belguim run 
by Geert Janssens.

In the USA, cash contributions/donations to what are called 501c3 
nonprofit organizations (after the Internal Revenue Code section - 
https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/exemption-requirements-501c3-organizations) 
are tax deductible (within limitations) for those US taxpayers that 
itemize their tax deductions 
(https://www.irs.gov/help/ita/can-i-deduct-my-charitable-contributions) 
instead of taking the standard deduction 
(https://www.irs.gov/help/ita/how-much-is-my-standard-deduction & 
https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/deductions-for-individuals-what-they-mean-and-the-difference-between-standard-and-itemized-deductions). 


I have found few projects in the open source world take advantage of 
this legal mechanism to both increase donations from Americans and 
financially benefit their supporters. FreeCAD 
(https://wiki.freecad.org/donate), Open Tax Solver 
(https://please-fund-me.com/cgi-bin/render_fund_page.cgi?fund=67), even 
bigger open source projects like the Linux Mint OS 
(https://linuxmint.com/donors.php) and Libre Office 
(https://www.libreoffice.org/donate/) do not seem to take advantage of 
this tax saving tool for charitable organizations with American 
donors/funders/supporters.

There is also a tool called fiscal sponsorship 
(https://www.councilofnonprofits.org/running-nonprofit/administration-and-financial-management/fiscal-sponsorship-nonprofits) 
that allows one organization to accept and distribute tax deductible 
donations to its member organizations/projects. The Software Freedom 
Conservancy (https://sfconservancy.org/) provides this service 
(https://sfconservancy.org/projects/services/) to many open source 
projects (https://sfconservancy.org/projects/current/), but in my 
attempted interactions with SFC and in speaking with others in the North 
Bay Linux Users Group (NBLUG - https://nblug.org/), I have gotten my 
impression reinforced that SFC is not very responsive to its member 
projects. SFC also refers to another nonprofit fiscal sponsor on its 
website (https://sfconservancy.org/projects/apply/), Software in the 
Public Interest (SPI - https://www.spi-inc.org/), but there may be 
others. Oddly, as I am writing this out and learning more, I see that 
Libre Office is listed as one of the SPI's fiscally sponsored projects 
(https://www.spi-inc.org/projects/ > 
https://www.spi-inc.org/projects/libreoffice/), but Libre Office's 
donation page only specifies the tax deductibility of donations for 
Germans under the "Click here for information about tax deductions" 
section. Oh my, OK, there is a line about donations to Libre Office 
through SPI being tax deductible to Americans under a different section, 
"Click here for bank transfers (eg SEPA), and additional information for 
US residents" - that is not a helpful section/topic design!

I better stop typing and thinking about this subject before I start 
pulling out any more of what limited hair I have left on my head. 
Hopefully, my points about fiscal sponsorship have been made and if 
anyone else is interested, we can discuss the nuances further...

Brad


On 5/3/23 14:29, Wally Hackenslacker via gnucash-user wrote:
> Done! Paypal transaction ID: 3U743030XD777840W
> I know it's not much but I hope it's useful to the project.
>
> Thank you Derek.
>
> ------- Original Message -------
> El miércoles, 3 de mayo de 2023 a las 3:17 PM, Derek Atkins<derek_at_ihtfp.com_3ecm6b98 at duck.com>  escribió:
>
>
>> It is still working; I am the manager of the target paypal account, and I
>> report periodically to the core devs and act on their (our?) consensus on
>> disbursement.
>>
>> Thank you in advance for your donation/contribution.
>>
>> -derek
>>
>> On Wed, May 3, 2023 2:57 pm, Wally Hackenslacker via gnucash-user wrote:
>>
>>> Hello all.
>>>
>>> I wanted to ask what is the status of the SourceForge tip jar for GnuCash.
>>> I'm looking to make a donation and the method that works for me is making
>>> a Paypal donation through the tip jar but I wanted to make sure that it's
>>> still working, if it is trustworthy and that the money will reach the devs
>>> of the project.
>>>
>>> Thanks.
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>> --
>> Derek Atkins 617-623-3745
>> derek at ihtfp.com  www.ihtfp.com
>> Computer and Internet Security Consultant
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