Just before the final decisive meeting about the formation of a Belgian Drupal Association we received the news that the other Drupal Association (DA, also a Belgian entity) offers its financial infrastructure to us for organizing events. This means a bank account, credit card and on line payment processing. In exchange the local community pays the accounting costs it causes.
Jacob Redding of the DA, who participated in the meeting via Skype, gave a detailed explanation about the functioning of this construction and its many advantages.
This reduces the urgency to create a new association in Belgium (especially with the 2011 Belgian Drupal events in mind). A majority of the participants of the meeting was positive about this construction although there were doubts whether this would help reaching other goals, such as a better organisation of events for the local Drupal community.
So all the motions that were posted in this Group over the last weeks should be ignored for the moment.
Hopefully we get a more detailed statement from Jacob soon.
Comments
How the Drupal Association can help the Belgium community
For the benefit of those that were not at the meeting and for the Internet at large this is how the Drupal Association (Drupal VZW) can assist the Belgium Drupal community. The Drupal Association (DA) is a Belgium based non-profit organization that is dedicated to assisting and supporting Drupal communities around the world. Although the level of assistance may not be equal around the world due to various legal and tax restrictions what we can do within Belgium is quite a lot. Within Belgium we can assist the local community through fiscal sponsorship of initiatives that are taken on and led by the local community. DrupalCon has been experimenting with a similar in the U.S and it has worked quite well.
Our goal in providing support is to provide you with the tools and resources you need to be more effective. The tools we discussed are the following:
1) Use of Drupal Association as a non-profit sponsor (i.e fiscal sponsorship)
2) Bank account
3) Credit Card processing account (oGone) to sell tickets, etc.
4) Credit Card for making purchases
The use of these will provide you with an immediate Belgium organization that is a government accepted and well established non-profit. You will save time on legal organization, accounting, tax and legal filings giving you more time to focus on your events. The use of our oGone account will also save you money in credit card processing fees as our percentage point charge is less expensive than Paypal and other services.
In exchange we ask that you do great work in the Drupal community! That is our ultimate goal, doing great work with awesome people to build an amazing community. We do have a few technical items. The first is that we want to cover our costs, we have costs associated with bookkeeping, accounting, and tax filings. In general these amount to ~10% of revenue, of course we want to keep these as low as possible and will work with you to keep these fees low. Help us and we'll help you. The second is that you will be working under the Drupal Association so we ask that you follow the mission of the Drupal Association and adhere to all applicable guidelines, laws, and statutes. You'll find that these are not a hinderance.
You can read the Association's mission here: http://association.drupal.org/about
If you have any additional questions, concerns, or suggestions please let me know. I'm excited to see the Belgium group so highly organized. You are going to do great things and the entire Drupal community is looking to you as an example. We're excited to see the outcome of your initiatives.
-Jacob Redding
One question that came up
One question that came up after the conference call:
If we set up a local organisation structure (i.e. president, communication manager, ...), how official will that structure be? Would it be validated by the larger DA, or is it just an unofficial consensus?
I don't know enough about associations to know what's possible in this regard...
http://www.svendecabooter.be
Structure
Having structure within your group is a great and I would say necessary component. Our goal is not to get involved in your day to day tasks, structure, or the management of your affairs. We also do not want to expand the DA board or permanent member base. We're offering you fiscal sponsorship, which means that you will have the legal and financial framework in which to operate. This does not mean that you are required to come to DA board members, become permanent members, or become "staff" of the Association. Provided you stay within our mission statement, don't violate any laws, and act in the best interest of the community you are free to do what you'd like (including setting up your own structure).
-Jacob Redding