JSON Schema Financial Report (2024 and beyond)

[benjagm]

📊 JSON Schema Financial Report (2024 and beyond)

Hey everyone! 👋

Here’s the latest look at how the JSON Schema project is doing financially.

Thanks to your support, contributions, and careful stewardship, we continue to grow sustainably!

📅 Annual Summary — 2023

• Funds Received: $7,143
• Expenses: $977
• Starting Balance: $12,825
• Ending Balance: $18,609

📅 Annual Summary — 2024

• Funds Received: $30,946
• Expenses: $21,214
  • Technical writing services: $10,000 (funded by Google Season of Docs)
  • Design services: $1,276
  • Mentoring and speaking stipends: $4,500 (funded by Google Summer of Code and conference funds)
  • Events & merchandising: $247
  • Hosting & services: $242
  • Other minor expenses
• Starting Balance: $18,609
• Ending Balance: $28,594

📅 Annual Summary — 2025 (Year-to-date)

• Funds Received: $5,132
• Expenses: $561
• Starting Balance: $28,594
• Current Balance: $32,710

📈 Current Monthly Averages

• Monthly Income: ~$1,343
• Monthly Expenses: ~$130

If you need more data feel free to check our Open Collective account here.

✨ Highlights

• In 2024, we executed several key programs to launch the new website and enhance our sponsorship offerings. As a result, we doubled the funds received compared to the previous year.
• We increased our expenses strategically in areas like technical writing, design, mentoring programs, and speaker stipends — investments we believe are crucial for the project's growth and sustainability.
• While our recurring monthly income gives us a solid foundation to start planning initiatives like supporting maintainers and potentially hiring a community manager, we're still a long way from achieving full long-term sustainability. Strengthening our financial base will be a major focus for 2025 and 2026 — and I personally hope to be very involved in making that happen!

💬 What's Next?

As we continue to grow, we’re excited to explore:

• More support for contributors and maintainers 🛠️
• New community programs like mentorships and events 📚
• Sponsoring new initiatives to push the ecosystem forward 🚀
• Doubling down on efforts to attract more sponsors at higher tiers 💼

Your contributions — whether financial, code, documentation, or just spreading the word — are what make this all possible.
Thank you! ❤️

If you have ideas on how we should invest back into the community, please comment below! 👇

[jdesrosiers]

2024 Analysis

From my analysis of our OpenCollective for 2024...

I've determined that we had $16,596 of usable income in 2024. This is discounting $14,000 in GSoC/D funds that just came through us to be distributed elsewhere.

We spent $1,943 in hosting fees (mostly OpenCollective taking a cut of every transaction!).

We spent $5,271 (mostly on the conference and badge and other asset creation services).

We had a surplus of $9,732 for 2024.

We have a total surplus of $28,594.

We had $16,596 of available spending in 2024.

2025 Budget Proposal

I propose setting a total budget of $18,000 for 2025.

That's about $1,500 of deficit spending assuming we'll have similar income this year. I think that's a good way to (1) make use of our surplus and (2) encourage more donations by showing that we're making good use of the money and we need more.

Spending Proposal 1

I think we need to decide on an expense budget. Let's call that $6,000. In 2024 it was actually $7,000, so that's probably an under estimate. Then I propose we dedicate the rest to sponsoring people and projects critical to the community. In this example, that's $12,000 ($1,000 per month).

Some examples of what I think we should be sponsoring are,

• TSC members
• Community Managers
• Important implementations
• Important projects (the website, bowtie, etc)
• Spec authors

All of these deserve a piece of the pie, but we need to agree on how much goes to who. For example, we could say TSC members get $50/month.

Spending proposal 2

The problem with proposal 1 is that it's not necessarily distributing the money to where it's needed most. A TSC member might be entitled to $50/month, but they don't need it and would prefer the funds go toward the community manager who needs those funds more.

So, the alternative is to have people apply to be considered in the sponsorship distribution and have a committee decide periodically on how to distribute the funds. This would be more work (and potentially more drama), but it could allow us to give more to those who need it rather than very little to everyone.