9th Board - 2nd meeting - 2.4 Donations scheme

Board 9th Board
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This discussion was moved from the board meeting to instead take place purely on Discourse due to time constraints at the meeting.

The working document can be accessed here (with more details and european political party compliance additions) : Pirate

The proposal is to adopt the following :

Donation Policy

1. Who can donate and what can be donated

Physical persons and legal entities (corporations, associations…), including members.

Monetary and in-kind donations are accepted. In-kind donations must be handled in an appropriate way (See 7. In-Kind Donations)

Donations may be earmarked (sent to fund a specific action).

2. Which donations must be declined

  • Anonymous contributions.
  • Contributions from entities (public or private) on which a public authority may exercise a direct or indirect influence through ownership, financial participation or rules applying to them.

3. How much can be donated

No limit, but a Ministry of Justice authorisation is needed for donations above 30000 EUR (unless sent through bank transfer from a credit institution authorised to carry out its activities in a Member State of the European Union or the European Economic Area).

4. Data collection

Name, Surname (or Legal Name), email/contact details

The data collected is needed to be able to identify and contact the donor if needed, and make sure that we are allowed to receive the contribution.

The data will be kept for 10 years due to legal requirements.

The data collected is used to maintain a donor and donation registry. The registry will be kept encrypted in European Pirate Party systems hosted in the European Union.

5. Transparency

The donor and donation registry may be inspected by members of the European Pirate Party and members of its board, but will not be made publicly available by the European Pirate Party.

6. Tools

The donation collecting tool is Open Collective, making it possible to display the amounts collected while donors remain anonymous if they wish to.

7. In-Kind donations

A. Definition

All non-monetary donation, supply below market value of goods, services (including loans) or works and/or any other transaction constituting an economic advantage, to the exception of member contributions and customary political activities carried out voluntarily by individuals.

B. Admissibility

In-Kind donations must be approved by the Board. Upon declaration of in-kind donation intent from a donor, the treasurer should coordinate with them to establish its value, and notify the board which will then decide on the acceptance or rejection of the donation.

C. Valuation

In-Kind donations should be valued at the fair market value, as much as possible. The board must approve the valuation proposed before giving its admissibility approval.

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I have to admin that I really love this schema: simple, fair, transparent. Very well done @Emerodh

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I think this is an excellent start, and I hope my suggestions could improve the text further.

First of all I think the “Introduction” chapter in the link should be elaborated and included in the policy.

Secondly, I would add, in the beginning of the policy, a paragraph of the purpose and aims of collecting donations. Is the purpose to have a standing “donate to us” link on the page and that is all, or do we foresee targeted campaigns where we ask people to donate to a specific cause (or a specific cost). And if so, who decides on these donations campaigns?

If we foresee targeted campaigns perhaps that can have its own paragraph, and replace the line “Donations may be earmarked (sent to fund a specific action).” form the draft. If not, that line should be clarified. Who can earmark, and what does that mean for the organization?

I would also add the “Tools” paragraph to be in the beginning, before the current “who can donate”, and it should ideally be rephrased to “The primary donation collecting tool is Open Collective,…”. As we would want to allow for other ways of donating as well (for example, you can’t really do any kind of in-kind donation through Open Collective).

On transparency, is there a reason we don’t want full transparency on donations?

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I don’t see any reason: we should go for full transparency on donations.

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Mab’s suggestions make sense.

As for the “why not full transparency”, mainly because it could deter some donations ?

I’ll update the draft and post a new “clean” version.

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Here is the updated one :

Donation Policy

0. Introduction

This document is the Donation Scheme of the European Pirate Party. It is compliant with Luxembourgish law. It will need to be amended to accommodate the requirements which come with the European Political Party statute, if and when the European Pirate Party becomes one.

1. Donation collection and earmarking

The main donation collection tool is the European Pirate Party’s Open Collective page. It is used for both permanent donation collection and event specific financing campaigns. If you need to use other means of transfer, contact us through treasurer@european-pirateparty.eu.

When submitting a donation, the donor can earmark the donation to be used towards a specific end. While this is straightforward in case of a donation to a specific project of event on the Open Collective page, it is also possible to specify which General Budget Category or which Budget Line the donation should go towards.

Please note that while donation earmarking is possible, it makes its handling more difficult for the financial managers and the organization.

2. Who can donate what

Who

Physical persons and legal entities (corporations, associations…), including members are allowed to donate.

There currently are no nationality or location restrictions though the Board of the European Pirate Party keeps the right to refuse donations at its discretion.

What

Donations may be submitted in the following forms :

  • Fiat currency (excluding coins and banknotes)
  • In-Kind donation (see 7.)

3. Which donations must be declined

  • Anonymous contributions.
  • Contributions from entities (public or private) on which a public authority may exercise a direct or indirect influence through ownership, financial participation or rules applying to them.

4. How much can be donated

No limit, but a Ministry of Justice authorization is needed for donations above 30000 EUR (unless sent through bank transfer from a credit institution authorized to carry out its activities in a Member State of the European Union or the European Economic Area).

5. Data collection

Name, Surname (or Legal Name), email/contact details

The data collected is needed to be able to identify and contact the donor if needed, and make sure that we are allowed to receive the contribution.

The data will be kept for 10 years due to legal requirements.

The data collected is used to maintain a donor and donation registry. The registry will be kept encrypted in European Pirate Party systems hosted in the European Union.

6. Transparency

The donor and donation registry may be inspected by members of the European Pirate Party and members of its board.

We encourage donors to disclose their identity when donating through Open Collective. If they choose to donate “incognito”, their donation will not be linked to their identity publicly, but the European Pirate Party still has access to their identity and will use it to establish the donor and donation registry.

7. In-Kind donations

A. Definition

All non-monetary donation, supply below market value of goods, services (including loans) or works and/or any other transaction constituting an economic advantage, to the exception of member contributions and customary political activities carried out voluntarily by individuals.

B. Admissibility

In-Kind donations must be approved by the Board. Upon declaration of in-kind donation intent from a donor, the treasurer should coordinate with them to establish its value, and notify the board which will then decide on the acceptance or rejection of the donation.

C. Valuation

In-Kind donations should be valued at the fair market value, as much as possible. The board must approve the valuation proposed before giving its admissibility approval.

All of this makes me thing of :

  • The crypto transfer case
  • How this can impact the budget policy we currently have and the need for flexibility.

As I’ll work through the statutes soon, I’ll try and keep these ideas in mind while doing so.

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