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Matrix.org Foundation accounts filing overdue by three months

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Re: Matrix.org Foundation accounts filing overdue by three months

#11

Post by geofft »

followthesmell wrote: post #4
alohapersona wrote: post #2

The delay can result in a penalty of ~1000 USD, which probably would be paid with user donations as this is the main source of income for Matrix.org Foundation.

All charities will waste some of its donations. It's not ideal, but it's not unusual. Let's not blow this out of proportion.

I would possibly argue it is ideal, even. The other two obvious alternatives is that the charity pays someone to deal with paperwork (which we wouldn't call "waste," but means even less of donations go towards the mission), or disorganized people just don't start charities and find for-profit jobs.

If you want a vibrant charitable ecosystem, letting people be imperfect about how they run their charities is a good thing.

Re: Matrix.org Foundation accounts filing overdue by three months

#12

Post by followthesmell »

alohapersona wrote: post #10
dsr_ wrote: post #6

This is the sort of thing that happens to most non-profits early in their lifetime. Procedures need to be set up and people need to understand what they need to do.

What bothers me most is that Matthew mentioned in that issue that they did the accounts on Oct 29 (perfectly in time for the deadline) and that they plan to publish them. Yet apparently they did neither file them officially nor publish them by now...

Sometimes things slip in organisations.

The bigger issue is that Matrix is not world leading.

Let Matthew decide priority on how to achieve that. Dealing with this post would be a distraction.

Re: Matrix.org Foundation accounts filing overdue by three months

#13

Post by chrisseaton »

geofft wrote: post #11
followthesmell wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All charities will waste some of its donations. It's not ideal, but it's not unusual. Let's not blow this out of proportion.

I would possibly argue it is ideal, even. The other two obvious alternatives is that the charity pays someone to deal with paperwork (which we wouldn't call "waste," but means even less of donations go towards the mission), or disorganized people just don't start charities and find for-profit jobs. If you want a vibrant charitable ecosystem, letting people be imperfect about how they run their charities is a good thi…

> letting people be imperfect about how they run their charities is a good thing

I disagree - charities receive special protections and privileges from the public and in return they agree to make themselves accountable.

If they aren't making themselves be accountable then they aren't keeping their side of the agreement with the public and their protections and privileges should be revoke.

Re: Matrix.org Foundation accounts filing overdue by three months

#15

Post by jcims »

alohapersona wrote: post #10
dsr_ wrote: post #6

This is the sort of thing that happens to most non-profits early in their lifetime. Procedures need to be set up and people need to understand what they need to do.

What bothers me most is that Matthew mentioned in that issue that they did the accounts on Oct 29 (perfectly in time for the deadline) and that they plan to publish them. Yet apparently they did neither file them officially nor publish them by now...

No shade here, just curious. You(?) created this issue for the 2019 financials and are circling back around for 2020. Is this something you do for other orgs/projects or is there something about matrix.org where you feel it is particularly important?

Re: Matrix.org Foundation accounts filing overdue by three months

#16

Post by sokoloff »

chrisseaton wrote: post #13
geofft wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would possibly argue it is ideal, even. The other two obvious alternatives is that the charity pays someone to deal with paperwork (which we wouldn't call "waste," but means even less of donations go towards the mission), or disorganized people just don't start charities and find for-profit jobs. If you want a vibrant charitable ecosystem, letting people be imperfect about how they run their charities is a good thi…

> letting people be imperfect about how they run their charities is a good thing I disagree - charities receive special protections and privileges from the public and in return they agree to make themselves accountable. If they aren't making themselves be accountable then they aren't keeping their side of the agreement with the public and their protections and privileges should be revoke.

Making themselves accountable != never missing a paperwork filing deadline.

I don't read it as GP arguing that never filing is OK because charity.

Re: Matrix.org Foundation accounts filing overdue by three months

#17

Post by Arathorn »

Hi folks - we submitted The Matrix.org Foundation accounts via our accountants to UK Companies House several months ago. It's unclear why they're not showing on record; we initially understood it to be due to Covid delays, but we're now chasing the accountants to out find the specifics. If there turn out to be any fines due to late filing, these would not come out of donations, but whoever's fault it actually is for the delay (i.e. the accountants).

Sorry for the drama, but this is not reason for panic.

(Separately we need to publish a summary of the accounts for https://matrix.org/foundation, which we are indeed running late on: it's been hard to prioritise it when we're on fire trying to improve Matrix's mass-market usability, given stuff like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25812536).

Re: Matrix.org Foundation accounts filing overdue by three months

#18

Post by klelatti »

chrisseaton wrote: post #13
geofft wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would possibly argue it is ideal, even. The other two obvious alternatives is that the charity pays someone to deal with paperwork (which we wouldn't call "waste," but means even less of donations go towards the mission), or disorganized people just don't start charities and find for-profit jobs. If you want a vibrant charitable ecosystem, letting people be imperfect about how they run their charities is a good thi…

> letting people be imperfect about how they run their charities is a good thing I disagree - charities receive special protections and privileges from the public and in return they agree to make themselves accountable. If they aren't making themselves be accountable then they aren't keeping their side of the agreement with the public and their protections and privileges should be revoke.

Absolutely.

They will almost certainly have to pay someone eventually to do their accounts so this is genuine waste of scarce resources.

Plus if a charity can't do things that it is legally required to do then that's not a great sign.

Re: Matrix.org Foundation accounts filing overdue by three months

#19

Post by Arathorn »

Arathorn wrote: post #17

Hi folks - we submitted The Matrix.org Foundation accounts via our accountants to UK Companies House several months ago. It's unclear why they're not showing on record; we initially understood it to be due to Covid delays, but we're now chasing the accountants to out find the specifics. If there turn out to be any fines due to late filing, these would not come out of donations, but whoever's fault it actually is for…

I've updated the Github issue with the last update from our accountants on this, after we already chased them in November: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/issues/2378#issueco...

Re: Matrix.org Foundation accounts filing overdue by three months

#20

Post by [deleted] »

Arathorn wrote: post #17

Hi folks - we submitted The Matrix.org Foundation accounts via our accountants to UK Companies House several months ago. It's unclear why they're not showing on record; we initially understood it to be due to Covid delays, but we're now chasing the accountants to out find the specifics. If there turn out to be any fines due to late filing, these would not come out of donations, but whoever's fault it actually is for…

[deleted]
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