Hello all, perhaps this is already planned but my personal opinion is that since this is a large sum of money, we should invest in some sort of low risk investment. Then we would only spend the resultant interest which would allow the fund to be used indefinitely. I can’t comment on what those investments would be in the US, but in Canada, that would be something like a GIC as one of the safest options.
Whatever the outcome, David has some excellent suggestions! I am very excited to see what projects get funded!
Bryce ~ AS202313
On Jul 19, 2019, at 10:28 AM, Phil Karn karn@ka9q.net wrote:
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
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