2024 budget refresh and request for urgent pre-approval of some 2025 costs

derberg commented 4 days ago

Budget situation

In January 2024, we planned to spend $102,088.27 while expecting an income of $78,300.00 (plus having $47,962.31 in the account from the previous year). We projected to leave $24,174.04 for 2025.

View of budget January 2024

As of November 2024, we already know that our 2024 expenses will be lower than estimated: $84,000 (potentially around $86,000 due to closing the swag store and some extra shipping costs). Income was $121,585.20—much higher than expected. This leaves us with approximately $86,000 for 2025, though the exact amount will be confirmed in January.

View of budget November 2024

The budget for 2025 is not yet finalized, as we need to wait until the end of the year to account for all expenses.

However, some expenses require immediate approval due to time constraints:

Thulie's Contract Renewal: This must take place around February, and we must ensure we don't keep her waiting until the last minute.
Bounty Program for Q1 2025: The program requires maintainers to submit proposed issues before the start of the "Bounty Quarter," meaning we need to initiate Q1 2025 planning in early December.

Proposal for Approval

Given the current budget situation, we can confidently afford the following costs for 2025:

AsyncAPI Bounty 2025 Q1

Allocate the budget of $5,000

Throughout the year, there have been no concerns about the program. No signals we should stop doing it.
It has been highly effective, resulting in significant contributions: AsyncAPI Bounty Program 2024.
@aeworxet is still interested in coordinating the program as it is and within the same budget we needed for 2024

Thulie's Contract Renewal

Renew Thulie's contract with a salary increase from $24,000 to $30,000, along with a role change to Senior Community Manager

Thulie is essential to the community, serving as a key leader of AsyncAPI community.
She managed challenges caused by the Postman layoffs in June, which impacted many community contributors, ensuring no visible disruption from the outside.
She single-handedly organizes all AsyncAPI conferences, acting as the main contact for partners and negotiating terms.
She onboarded and mentors Bami, who was hired for Community Marketing, effectively covering gaps caused by layoffs. Normally that would be my duty.
In her annual review, Thulie expressed her interest in staying with us for another year.

Summary

Please vote to approve the following 2025 expenditures:

$5,000 for Bounty Q1
$30,000 for Thulie's salary

aeworxet commented 4 days ago

I would strongly suggest defining a set date on which AsyncAPI will have the TSC-approved budget to avoid urgent budget votings in the future. It may or may not correspond to the calendar year, but the idea I'm suggesting is to have the budget TSC-approved no less than 45 calendar days prior to the start of the budgetary period.

Considering that AsyncAPI relies on donations from legal entities with fiscal years that do not necessarily end on December 31st, I would propose having the main budget correspond to the calendar year and be TSC-approved before November 15th, BUT to also have a mandatory six-month review period that will trigger each next TSC budget voting (primarily to reapprove the previously approved expenses, while also allowing for timely adjustments in case of newly discovered circumstances) before May 15th.

Six-month budgetary TSC votings will give much greater flexibility to AsyncAPI in financial planning.

derberg commented 4 days ago

@aeworxet definitely such urgent calls should be avoided in the future - 100% - I'll do my best to find the right schedule also to address the topic of salaries

derberg commented 4 days ago

/vote

git-vote[bot] commented 4 days ago

Vote created

@derberg has called for a vote on 2024 budget refresh and request for urgent pre-approval of some 2025 costs (#1598).

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derberg commented 1 day ago

@asyncapi/tsc_members kind reminder to take a vote: https://github.com/asyncapi/community/issues/1598#issuecomment-2499986080

asyncapi / community