budgets for all regions (was Re: [Ambassadors] NA Events Expectation Proposal)

[Max Spevack]

On Sat, 21 Mar 2009, David Nalley wrote:

> That said, I gotta admit, now that we are mass producing swag and 
> handling shipping separately I wonder what the $750 that we currently 
> have allocated is for. My understanding is that travel and lodging for 
> several people wasn't included in that budget. FAD is also supposed to 
> have a separate budget. I know based on our discussions that we were 
> waiting on Max's blessing.

We have a $20k USD per quarter budget for FUDCons/FADs worldwide.  In Q1 
(March - May), the vast majority of this (about $15,000 USD) is going to 
be used to pre-pay as many costs as possible for the FUDCon we are doing 
in Berlin in Q2, or the almost-has-all-the-details-sorted-out FUDCon in 
Brazil that will also land in Q2.  The same will be true in Q2, as we 
continue to pay for those FUDCons.

This leaves us a few thousand dollars each quarter for FADs, all over 
the world.

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FAD

>> OTOH, I would argue that your approach is a good reason for Max to 
>> argue for more event budget overall.

The budget for this year is basically set (though there's always a 
chance I might be asked to save a few pennies along the way), so I can 
argue all I want, but it's not going to change anything.  What we have 
for this quarter is a good indication of what we will have for the 
entire year.

The most difficult piece of the budget planning and transparency that we 
have each quarter is that I try to take our one bucket of money for all 
regions, and allow the local leadership teams to work with me to figure 
out how they can most effectively spend it.

Some regions move more quickly than others, and this always leaves me 
worried about having too much left over unspent at the end of a quarter. 
It's good practice to always come in a a few percent under 100%, but 
this is why I encourage people to do as much planning up front as 
possible, and not wait until the last month of a quarter to try to do 
everything you need to do.

> I'd actually argue that it's a good idea for RH to show up even at 
> community events, but that's a separate issue. That said - I think the 
> reason to contribute is similar to why we encourage upstream 
> development. Contributing to a conference provides more resources to 
> put on a better conference which in time attracts additional attendees 
> which gives us additional people to talk to to garner users and 
> contributors. Yes we need to make the argument to our benefactor.
>
> Max: I'd really like to hear your opinions here as the keeper of the 
> purse.

We recently sponsored Chemnitzer Linux Tage, in addition to the costs 
that we had of manning and running a booth.  Why?  Because they'd given 
us free space every year for serveral years, and we thought it would be 
nice to give something back.

I think it is entirely appropriate to sponsor events that have been 
particularly useful for Fedora, but I also think that we need to be 
judicious about making those choices.

Our budget is a zero-sum game, after all.  I'd think that we could 
decide, regionally, on a list of events that we'd like to sponsor, and 
then stagger those sponsorships into various quarters, and/or spread 
them over a year or two.  That way we're paying our respect, but not 
doing so at the cost of other budgetary needs.

My $.02 (which doesn't come out of the budget),
Max