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Hello to all and a warm "BeWelcome" to our new members!
I'm Matthias, a long time member of hospitality exchange networks and right now the treasurer of BeVolunteer, the french organisation legally running BeWelcome. I'm preparing the financial report for the general assembly of BV in early November and drafting the budget for 2012. You'll find details on BeWelcome as soon as it's approved by the GA and available.
But before I like to give you an overview on how we're doing financially. Especially because our donation bar doesn't work exact. (A change will be discussed and probably made at the GA.). And overview how much and for what purposes money is needed can be found here:
http://www.bewelcome.org/wiki/finances
The good news is: Thanks to all your donations there is already enough money to pay the cheques for the rest of the year and also survive the next months.
In short: No donations needed right now. In this moment I'm very sure financial troubles or unpaid bills
won't be an issue. Actually we don't need that much money and if we fail in raising even this small amount, something else is wrong.
In one month, when we have the approved plan for 2012, the next treasurer will be back to ask you for donations for the next year. Right now the exact amount is unclear, as we try to reduce some costs (i. e. for servers, banking fees), but it's probably the same or even a bit less than 2011. While it's good to be on the safe side for some months, there is no reason to raise and save a lot of extra money with no plan what to do with it. If there are unexpected or extra costs (i. e. need for a stronger server), we'll start an extra donation campaign. Usually people are more tempted to donate if they now exactly what for.
Hopefully this is some useful and interesting information for you. If something regarding money isn't transparent for you or just look weird in your eyes, don't hesitate to ask questions. I'll like to thank you for all your contributions, not only donations but also volunteer work, hosting, spreading the word, software coding, discussing and so on. We'll have a lot of work to do and - much more important - a lot of great experiences ahead of us.
Matthias,
current treasurer of BeVolunteer
Comments
More than just a hospex site...
I'm a little unsure as to why you/BW/BV think that theres no reason to save money if there are no current plans to need it.
Wouldn't it make more sense to save all the money BW/BV can get? You never know when that rainy day might come. An if it came to the point where BW/BV had far far too much money it could always be donated to good causes.
BW may never experience a rainy day but there are plenty of people in the world that experience days without food, clothes, hospitals, clean water etc.
Just a thought, and one that probably most people wouldn't have any objections to.
Good to know
And I would prefer to know the founds are used to support and enhance BW and nothing else. Those of us who want to contribute to other causes have plenty of options to do so, and is better to let everyone decide the destination of his/her contribution. That is of course my point of view.
I also think it's better to let member decide where to donate money themselves if BeWelcome doesn't need more money. Probably this will save a lot of discussions (and maybe legal trouble as BeVolunteer maybe needs special rules to donate money to other projects).
Whilst we are 'comfortable' for the moment financially, it might be a good opertunity to look at how funding in other areas can benefit bV/bW ie site development. I know that one thing that stops many people really getting stuck in for good chunks of time is that they need to provide bread and beer for themselves. If we could support the developers who support the project, it would make it easier to justify to themselves, as well as boyfriends, girlfriends, wives, husbands, children, parents, etc. Maybe not even bread an beer or not just, how about recognition on profiles or an 'I've contributed to developing the beWelcome project' t-shirt?
Proud!
I'm proud that we verify members for free, that we have volunteers who invest time in this project without being paid.
I'm especially proud that there are no administrators or Chief Inspirational Officers who get paid for doing what any volunteer would do for free.
I'm glad we don't need to put links to commercial websites or google ads for Russian brides on our website.
I understand that for some it might seem strange that we don't try to get all the money that we can. But we have seen that behaviour in other networks and in my opinion it always fails.
Owners get greedy, fly first class instead of hitchhiking like they used to do and give their friends well-paid jobs in their organisation.
Something like that could never happen at BW because there simply is no money to spend on expensive collectives in luxurious holiday resorts.
No, let's deal with the money issue when we need to. I'm sure our members will be ready to help when we need it most.
A hospex is so much more than a hospex. Someday, probably? :)
Finances must be in accordance with our vision projet.
Posd: I'm a accountant, if you need please don't hesitate ask me.
;) M a n u !
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