openSUSE:Local Material Production Reimbursement
This program is intended to allow openSUSE Advocates and openSUSE Local Coordinators to produce openSUSE material for the purpose of promoting openSUSE as a project and distribution at small events or to a targeted group of people. Many promotional opportunities present themselves where the shipping of a booth box is either not practical or not cost effective. In these cases this program will provide the means to reimburse openSUSE Advocates and Local Coordinators for expenses incurred due to the production of material.
Any material produced must use the openSUSE marketing material that is available from the openSUSE design community. No reimbursement will be provided for self designed materials unless the material has been vetted by the openSUSE design team and the design team is in support of the newly designed material.
Expenses for any one reimbursement event are expected not to exceed $200 US. In exceptional circumstances it is possible to receive approval for higher amounts. Any requests exceeding $200 US must be pre-approved by the openSUSE Board. Expenses up to $200 are handled by the team managing this program, generally without involvement of the openSUSE Board. The team managing this program produces a quarterly report to the openSUSE board about funds allocated.
The basic premise of the initiative is to make it easy for advocates and Local Coordinators to be reimbursed. However, as a project we need to ensure that the money invested in the promotion of our project is well spent and we need to ensure that everyone can benefit from the initiatives taken. Therefore, we have established a process, outlined below, that allows the administrative team to decide whether or not reimbursement requests should be accepted in a generally objective fashion. To be considered for approval requests must be received 4 weeks prior to the event/session.
The process shares the application with the Travel Support Program.
Current team:
1.) Log into tsp.opensuse.org and start a new reimbursement request
- The reimbursement request must include a description of the event or session that necessitates the production of materials locally. Describe how you plan on promoting openSUSE, the expected audience, and any pertinent information. If you plan to present openSUSE at a LUG provide the name of the LUG and time and date of the meeting in the description. If you have the opportunity to provide a "permanent" display of openSUSE material at a University or other place of interest you may also use this initiative. The more detail you provide the easier it is for the team to decide whether or not the request should be accepted. If you plan to promote openSUSE at an event that has a web site, provide the link.
- You need to identify the materials from the openSUSE Design team area that you plan to produce locally and determine the amount for each item to be produced. Provide contact information for the vendor you have chosen for the production of the material.
- Include a quote for the material production from the vendor along with timing information such as lead time and any penalties that may apply if tight deadlines have to be met.
2.) After receiving your request the team will evaluate the request
- If the request is approved you will be notified and you can proceed to produce the materials according to the submitted proposal. You may not deviate from the proposal.
- The team may decide that it would be preferable to ship a booth box instead of producing material locally. You will be notified of this decision and have the opportunity to accept or decline the dispatch of a booth box to your location.
- The team may decide that the proposal is insufficient and decline the proposal on those grounds. You will have the opportunity to refine the proposal and resubmit for reevaluation. This feedback loop should occur only once to avoid endless loops and reduce the repetitive work the team has to conduct.
- The team may decide that the proposal does not represent a reasonable opportunity to promote our project and decline the request based on those grounds.
- No matter what the decision of the program administrative team you will be notified with an explanation of the decision.
3.) After receiving approval
- Produce the materials as designated in the proposal at the vendor you selected and included in the proposal.
4.) After the promotional event
- Write a report on post it to the web. You may use your own blog accounts. Send a message to the opensuse -project and -marketing lists with the link to your report. Sending a report via e-mail is not sufficient. The openSUSE mailing lists do not represent sufficient exposure to the world outside of our community, thus a blog report is very important. The report should contain pictures and is preferably written in English. However, if you strongly believe that a report in your native language is a better approach you may choose to post the report in your native language.
- Once you have posted your report, log back into tsp.opensuse.org and finalize your reimbursement request. Add an electronic copy of your receipt, and provide a link to your report.
- The team will review your expenses with the proposed and approved amount and review the report. If the expenses match the approved amount and the report is satisfactory the receipts will be remitted for payment processing. Your request for reimbursement must be complete no later than 2 weeks after the event in order to be processed.
Limitations
- While the program is geared toward support of local events and production of relatively small amounts of material we are not in a position to reimburse funds less than $35 US.
Things to remember
- Do not produce anything without getting approval from the team if you expect to be reimbursed.
- Be patient, payment processing at the company level takes some time, everyone is trying their best to get the money back into your hands as soon as possible.
- The team administering the program is comprised of community members just like you and they spend their time to make this program possible, be nice to them and treat them with respect.
- Be reasonable with your requests, there is a certain amount of money allocated to the program when it is used up it is gone and effects everyone and we want to serve as many requests as we can.
- If payment takes an extraordinary long time to reach you it is OK to ask about the status.
- Sometimes the money gets held by your bank, for whatever reason. This is out of our control and we have no influence on the amount of time this hold may be in place.
- The money will be transferred into your bank account. Some banks charge a fee to receive money transfers. The program cannot reimburse you for bank fees being charged by your bank.
- Provide feedback about the process and the application if things do not work. We cannot improve if we do not know there are rough edges