Proposal for 2015-09-25 OWASP Board Meeting

Proposal 1: Forgive debts for Hackademics and PHP Security projects totaling $471.50 and debts for Belfast, Bolivia, Chile, and Recife chapters totaling $1255.39. This will bring their respective accounts from a negative balance to a $0 balance.

Proposal 2: There should be no such thing as negative account balances for chapters or projects going forward. If the intent is to spend more money than is currently in the account, the money should be taken and approved from Foundation funding sources, subject to Foundation approval.

Proposal 3: All active chapter and project accounts with balances less than $500 will be brought to $500 beginning January 1, 2016 as long as there are at least two active leaders at that time. [At current account balances, this would be a $56,415.02 expense for the chapters and a $4,876 expense for the projects totaling $61,291.02 to be budgeted for 2016. We should consider this as an initiative for future years budgeting.]

Proposal 4: Upon creation of a new project or chapter, as long as they have at least two leaders they will be allocated a $500 budget to begin with. [28 new chapters in 2015 = $14,000]

Proposal 5: All requests for funding, who proposed the request, relevant discussions, votes around funding, and request approval/denial are a matter of public record and must be put in a public location that is easily accessible to the OWASP community.

Proposal 6: If a request for funding has been approved for one chapter or project, then it can be considered an acceptable expense for all chapters or projects. If they have an account balance which covers that expense in full, then they should be considered pre-approved for spending.

Proposal 7: The OWASP Foundation Staff will be responsible for notifying all chapters and projects of their available account balance on at least a monthly basis. The notification should also include a reference to where they can go to find the list of pre-approved expenses.

Proposal 8: Chapters and projects with $5,000 or more in their account on October 1 are required to create a budget and provide it to the OWASP Board prior to November 1 for inclusion in the Foundation budget for the following calendar year. The budget should identify how they plan to spend the money in their account over the course of the next year. A future projection budget can be included as well for forecasted spending within the next 2 years. [Today this would affect 20 chapters, just over 71% of the total “ring-fenced” chapter funds, $355,847.21 and 2 projects, 41% of total “ring-fenced” project funds, $17,653.52.]

Proposal 9: Any OWASP Leader can create a budget and provide it to the OWASP Board prior to November 1 for inclusion in the Foundation budget planning process. The budget would be reviewed by the Executive Director and Board, and, if approved, incorporated into the overall OWASP Foundation budget for the following year. This would effectively set aside the funds to use at the appropriate period of time, in the future, with no further approvals necessary. Budgeted money that wasn’t spent during the calendar year would be returned back to the OWASP Foundation general funds.

Revised Proposal 9: Separate from the aforementioned budgeting process for chapter and project accounts, any OWASP Leader can create a budget and provide it to the OWASP Board prior to November 1 for inclusion in the Foundation budget planning process. The budget would be reviewed by the Executive Director and Board, and, if approved, incorporated into the overall OWASP Foundation budget for the following year. This would effectively set aside the funds to use at the appropriate period of time, in the future, with no further approvals necessary. Money that is budgeted in this manner, that wasn’t spent during the calendar year, would be returned back to the OWASP Foundation general funds.

Proposal 10: Accounts with a balance of $5,000 or more as of January 1, with no proposed budget for spending their funds, will have their account balance reduced to $500 with the excess being added to the associated Community Engagement Funding accounts.

Revised Proposal 10: Accounts with a balance of $5,000 or more as of December 1, with no proposed budget for spending their funds, will be contacted by the OWASP staff directly to review their account balance. The chapter will be required to create a budget to allocate the funds for the upcoming year. Unbudgeted funds may be diverted to other project(s), chapter(s), or Community Engagement Funding accounts if the chapter cannot be contacted or a budget is not received prior to January 1.