Funding, Donations, and Transparency

More consideration needs to be given to the rules which govern how political.nz will be funded and supported. It’s a tricky balancing act – on one hand it would be ideal if the organisation was entirely funded by its individual members through micro donations, which are capped to prevent one member giving disproportionally more than another. On the other hand, we can’t afford to constrain ourselves so much that we can’t get the project off the ground. Certainly, transparency is a bottom line, in terms of donations coming in and how money is spent. But even that has complexities, for example around privacy.

The section below outlines some of our early thinking but is not yet in effect.

Got some ideas? Get involved and give us a hand developing the funding rules.

A possible approach to Donations and Transparency

1. Membership is free
2. Financial cash donations may only be accepted from individual members of political.nz
3. An individual member may donate up to a maximum amount within a given time period. This cap is TBC and could be dialled up and down as required
4. Non-cash donations (goods and services) may be accepted from individual members, companies and other organisations so long as;
   1. The donation is directly associated with assisting political.nz in carrying out its activities. Examples include but not limited to; the use of a venue for meetings, transportation, catering, IT services
   2. The gifting party is a direct owner or controller of the goods or services being donated. For example, Jim, owner of Jim’s Catering donates catering services to the value of $1250.00. Jim is in direct control of the resource, so this is acceptable. However, Jim may not purchase $500,000 worth of IT services from Amazon and gift this to political.nz as this would simply be a way for Jim to bypass the cap on individual cash donations
5. A Financial Transparency Ledger must be published and maintained on the political.nz website and be accessible to members. The Financial Transparency Ledger must:
   1. Record all cash donations from individual members within 180 days of the donation being received. Records must include:
      1. A description which states that the donation is a cash donation from an individual member
      2. The amount of the donation in NZD
      3. The date the donation was made
   2. Record all non-cash donations with a value greater than $1000 NZD within 180 days of the donation being received. Records must include:
      1. A description of what was donated e.g. “Use of private conference venue and catering”
      2. The value of the donation in NZD e.g. $1750.00
      3. The legal name of the organisation if the gifting party is not an individual e.g. “Jim’s Catering Co”
      4. The date the donation was made
   3. Record all outgoing payments, except where such records may compromise the privacy of individuals (e.g. salaries etc.), in which case payment records may be aggregated on a monthly basis). Records must include:
      1. A description of what the payment was for. E.g. “Cloud computing services”
      2. The amount of the payment in NZD. e.g. $47.56
      3. The name of the payee E.g. “Amazon Web Services”
      4. The date the payment was made