It’s Friday, so it’s time for a GNOME Foundation update, and there are some exciting items to share. As ever, these are just the highlights: there’s plenty more happening in the background that I’m not covering.
Fundraising progress
I’m pleased to be able to report that, in recent weeks, the number of donors in our Friends of GNOME program has been increasing. These new regular donations are already adding up to a non-trivial rise in income for the Foundation, which is already making a significant difference to us as an organization.
I’d like to take this moment to thank every person who has signed up with a regular donation. You are all making a major difference to the GNOME Foundation and the future of the GNOME project. Thank you! We appreciate every single donation.
The new contributions we are receiving are vital, but we want to go further, and we are working on our plans for both fundraising and future investments in the GNOME project.
New accountant
This week we secured the services of a new accountant, Dawn Matlak. Dawn is extremely knowledgeable, and comes with a huge amount of relevant experience, particularly around fiscal hosting. She’s also great to work with, and we’re looking forward to collaborating with her.
Dawn is going to be doing a fair amount of work for us in the coming months. In addition to helping us to prepare for our upcoming audit, she is also going to be overhauling some of our finance systems, in order to reduce workloads, increase reliability, and speed up processing.
GNOME.Asia
In other news, GNOME.Asia 2025 is happening in Tokyo on 13-15 December, and it’s approaching fast! Talk submissions have been reviewed and accepted, and the schedule is starting to come together. Information is being added to the website, and social activities are being planned. It’s shaping up to be a great event.
Registration for attendees isn’t open just yet, but it isn’t far off – look out for the announcement.
That’s it from me this week. I am on vacation next week, so I’ll be skipping next week’s post. See you in two weeks!
I have read messages from GNOME developers who find it difficult to make ends meet. Maybe it’s possible to set up a found for these people, so that they can make a living? Even if it is only temporary. It would be great if GNOME could get support from some big corporations.
Would be great if one could donate via OpenCollective. You can even be your own fiscal host with your own bank account. But it would be great to have a common interface to donate and inspect expenses when supporting many OSS projects.