FSFE 2018 Financials (was Re: transparency about the fellowship)

[Paul Boddie]

On Tuesday 10. September 2019 13.58.14 Paul Boddie wrote:
> On Tuesday 10. September 2019 12.04.25 Reinhard Müller wrote:
> > Am 09.09.19 um 17:44 schrieb Paul Boddie:
> > > However, summarised information for 2018 is not yet available. Is this
> > > overdue or is it expected to be published within the year?
> > 
> > It will be published as soon as the numbers have been finalized by our
> > tax consultant. We expect this to happen before the end of the year.
> 
> That is good to know. I don't follow the details of reporting schedules, and
> I don't recall when previous summaries were published, but I did wonder
> whether there had been an unusual delay in publication.

So, the numbers are available for 2018. Thanks to those responsible for 
publishing them! For reference, see here for the details:

https://fsfe.org/about/funds/2018.en.html

Of principal interest to me is the general development of the numbers from 
year to year. These are summarised here:

https://fsfe.org/about/funds/funds.en.html

But to save people the bother, here's the total income over the last five 
reported years (in EUR):

2014: 387139.12
2015: 445998.83
2016: 649194.75
2017: 543772.73
2018: 498407.61

And of interest to those of us who were Fellows and those who are Supporters, 
their contributions:

2014: 161010.73
2015: 175939.36
2016: 187247.70
2017: 208581.31
2018: 184171.60

Meanwhile, general donations are as follows:

2014: 187544.33
2015: 215446.99
2016: 395971.51
2017: 198820.36
2018: 189235.03

And there are also paid services (whatever these are) that bring in revenue:

2014:  18148.47
2015:  26803.17
2016:  34563.50
2017: 107783.06
2018:  81090.47

I think it was remarked that 2016 saw an unusual donation of a considerable 
sum (150000), bringing the general donations that year to a higher total than 
would have been expected. Disregarding that, it would then seem that 2017 was 
the year of peak "ordinary" income, although some insight into the rather 
larger "paid services" revenues would be interesting since they have been 
holding up the bottom line.

Previously, there has been discussion about the proportion of income coming 
from Fellows/Supporters. If my quick scripts are correct, the percentages look 
like this:

2014: 41.59                                                                                                                                                  
2015: 39.45
2016: 28.84 (37.51)
2017: 38.36
2018: 36.95

So, 2016's unusual financials aside (see bracketed figure excluding the 
unusual donation), it seems like a pretty gradual decline in share. In 
general, the Fellow/Supporter contributions seem to track the general income 
pretty well, with the general donations being of a similar magnitude.

Paul