Determining a Base Operations Budget Policy

Getting clarity on what is 'core' budget might be a good first step here. From what I can see:

First tier expenses:

• primary server (Hetzner)

• essencial digital tools (Loomio)

• fiscal host (OpenCollective)

Second tier expenses:

• Working group stipends

• Nice to have digital tools (Matrix, May First)

• development server (Cooperative Cloud)

Thoughts?

That looks like a pretty solid core/non-core list. I can't think of any other "must have for this thing to function at all" items, and I don't know that we spend on any other non-core things, apart from our donations to other projects.

This is just for illustration pending input from OC, CWG, TWG, and FWG:

member contributions: 14,000 GBP

core: 3,055 GBP
payment processing: 952
fiscal hosting: 600
hosting: 780: 70×12
domain name: 90
May First: 200
Loomio: 373

stipends: 3,500 GBP
Organizing Circle: 1000
Finance: 500
Community: 2000
Tech: 0 (based on past TWG decisions)

strategic & community: 4,680 GBP
community contributions: 3600
meet.coop: 1080: 90×12 (paid automatically via open collective)

core + stipends:

1. approved as they come in (though no approved budget for 2025)

2. combined annual expenses (6,555 GBP) are approx. half of annual member contributions (14,000 GBP)

3. given current balance (approx. 29,000 GBP) provides for a 5+ year runway for core + stipends
   

Perhaps a policy that sets ongoing annual core + stipends budget (until amended) and then an annual budget for strategic expenses and community contributions?

Org. Circle policy:
Annual base operations budget report

Financial Working Group deliverables:
report of our annual expenditures: Budget 2024: Budget vs. Actual

income and spending categories:

1. core operations: 3,000 GBP

2. stipends: 3,000–4,000 GBP

3. strategic expenses & community contributions:
   

base operations budget to support core social.coop activities:

• core expenses:

  • payment processing: Stripe via Open Collective

  • fiscal hosting: Platform 6 Dev. Coop.

  • internet hosting: Hetzner

  • domain name: Domains‍.coop

  • governance tools and associations: Loomio, May First, etc.

• stipends:

  • recognize the work of volunteers who operate and moderate social‍.coop

• core operations + stipends: 6,000–7,000 GBP

• Open Collective balance : 30,000 GBP

• runway: 4 to 5 years
  

The base operations budget consists of core expenses and stipends:

core expenses:

• either absolutely necessary to serve and maintain a single instance of social‍.coop with reasonable performance and redundancy; or facilitate distributed, consent-based decision-making among members

• routine, reoccurring (monthly, quarterly, yearly), and predictable in size

• proposed by a Working Group or within the Organizing Circle, generally approved by the Organizing Circle or all members (Loomio), and individually approved for payment by a member of Finance Working Group (Open Collective)

stipends:

• budgets are determined by each circle or working group, approved (Loomio) by the Organizing Circle or all members as part of the annual budget

• the process to approve individual stipends is collectively determined by the members within each circle or group, and approved for payment by a member of the Finance Working Group (Open Collective).

• recognize the contributions of the individual volunteers and the groups who operate and moderate social‍.coop
  

The base operations budget (and the individual core expenses or stipend budgets within it) may be approved by the Organizing Circle on permanent and ongoing basis, until such time that it is updated.

edits: 1. Org. Circle approves budget (according to member vote) 2. core expenses are prosed by any circle or group 3. base budgets may be permanent (until updated) at current level (not near or slight above).

I think that's adoptable as a policy.