On 7/19/19 09:04, David Ranch wrote:
Hello Phil, Everyone,
I was curious what the process is going to be for this ~$50M US dollars (speculation on my part) grants? I would hope that ARDC will release a published document on specific criteria for anything to be considered. The vetting be an publicly available review process vs. something done behind "closed doors", etc.. I would imagine this criteria could include items such as:
David, I think this is an *outstanding* suggestion. It expresses almost exactly what we've been thinking, and we're going to need help writing it all down and putting it into practice. This is not a bad start. We will definitely have to hire professionals such as tax lawyers, accountants, auditors and investment advisors who are experienced with nonprofits and understand the tax and other relevant laws. (I'd rather the money go to ham radio, but this is the real world.)
Remember that the rules governing nonprofits already restrict what we can do; all spending must further the charter of the organization, which is to broadly benefit amateur digital radio development and any closely related fields. I would not necessarily rule out, a priori, any particular class of recipients because we simply don't know right now what opportunities might pop up. As long as an entity can use our grant to make a bona-fide contribution to digital amateur radio, adhering to all our usual rules such as open source software, public documentation and free use rights, we should at least consider it.
Phil