OpenWrt finance situation

[Denver Gingerich]

On 2025-05-01 1:43 p.m., Hauke Mehrtens wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I do not have an overview of the OpenWrt finances. The money of the 
> OpenWrt project is currently managed by the Software Freedom 
> Conservancy, see https://openwrt.org/donate
> 
> The Software in the Public Interest (SPI) published the account balance 
> in their annual report, I haven't see such report from the SFC.
> 
> I would like to know:
>   * What is our current account balance?
>   * How much money do we normally get per year through donations?
>   * How much did we spend in the last few years and on what?
>    * I know that we payed for some accidental Azure bills and for 
> Digital Ocean for some months when the sponsoring ended.
>    * An overview based on categories should be fine. If you already have 
> to provide something for the tax report that could be sufficient.
> 
> 
> I have heard some numbers in some meetings, but I have never seen any 
> email with numbers.

Thanks for reaching out.  When projects join SFC, we ask the project PLC 
if they want regular finance updates or on-demand updates -- in 
OpenWrt's case the latter was chosen (and, as you note, we've been 
answering questions as they've come up).  We are happy to switch to 
regular reports if the PLC would like.  In any case, we will be sending 
the PLC a finance update, per this request, as soon as we work out 
complexities with some recent transactions (in the next week or two).

Because the finance update includes confidential information, it will be 
sent to the PLC directly.  If the PLC wants to use that information to 
answer the questions you posed above, that is of course fine to do.

Please do let us know if there are any other questions that we at SFC 
can answer at any time.  Thanks!

Denver Gingerich
Director of Compliance
Software Freedom Conservancy