Form 990 for tax year 2024

Filed by SOFTWARE FREEDOM CONSERVANCY INC.

Totals

Total revenue: $3,214,723
Total expenses: $3,805,350
Contributions and grants received: $2,491,246
Grants paid: $53,174
Program service revenue: $549,852
Investment income: $160,309
Other revenue: $13,316
Total assets, end of year: $5,401,246
Total liabilities, end of year: $1,109,478
Net assets or fund balances, end of year: $4,291,768
Program services expenses (Part IX): $2,969,204
Management and general expenses: $678,823
Fundraising expenses: $157,323
Program service expenses (Part III): $2,969,204

Program services were 78.0% of total expenses calculated — Part IX's program-services column over total expenses, both as filed.

Line items

Every line the filer filed in Parts VIII, IX and X, as filed and in filed order. Blank columns are left out, and the lines are not forced to add up to the totals above.

Revenue

Part VIII, the statement of revenue.

1a · Federated campaigns

$0
1b · Membership dues

$0
1c · Fundraising events

$0
1d · Related organizations

$0
1e · Government grants (contributions)

$0
1f · All other contributions, gifts and grants

$2,491,246
1g · Noncash contributions included above

$2,788
2a · Program service revenue: Software Development Services

total $517,741 · related or exempt $517,741 · unrelated business $0 · excluded $0
2b · Program service revenue: Conference Registration Fees

total $19,528 · related or exempt $19,528 · unrelated business $0 · excluded $0
2c · Program service revenue: Conference Sponsorship Income

total $8,207 · related or exempt $8,207 · unrelated business $0 · excluded $0
2d · Program service revenue: Proceeds from Litigation

total $2,376 · related or exempt $2,376 · unrelated business $0 · excluded $0
2e · Program service revenue: Non-Profit Project Administration

total $2,000 · related or exempt $2,000 · unrelated business $0 · excluded $0
2f · All other program service revenue

total $0 · related or exempt $0 · unrelated business $0 · excluded $0
3 · Investment income

total $166,903 · related or exempt $0 · unrelated business $0 · excluded $166,903
4 · Income from investment of tax-exempt bond proceeds

total $0 · related or exempt $0 · unrelated business $0 · excluded $0
5 · Royalties

total $11,591 · related or exempt $11,591 · unrelated business $0 · excluded $0
6c · Rental income or loss

real property $0 · personal property $0
7a · Gross sales of assets other than inventory

securities $0 · other assets -$6,594
7b · Less cost or other basis and sales expenses

securities $0 · other assets $0
7c · Gain or loss

securities $0 · other assets -$6,594
7d · Net gain or loss

total -$6,594 · related or exempt $0 · unrelated business $0 · excluded -$6,594
8a · Fundraising events: contributions included on line 1c

$0
11a · Other revenue: Discounts from Vendors

total $1,611 · related or exempt $1,611 · unrelated business $0 · excluded $0
11b · Other revenue: Other Miscellaneous

total $114 · related or exempt $114 · unrelated business $0 · excluded $0
11d · All other revenue

total $0 · related or exempt $0 · unrelated business $0 · excluded $0
11e · Other revenue, total

$1,725

Functional expenses

Part IX, the statement of functional expenses.

3 · Grants to foreign organizations and individuals

total $53,174 · program services $53,174
5 · Compensation of officers, directors and key employees

total $404,185 · program services $164,721 · management and general $189,433 · fundraising $50,031
7 · Other salaries and wages

total $641,303 · program services $344,983 · management and general $257,241 · fundraising $39,079
9 · Other employee benefits

total $189,044 · program services $105,760 · management and general $71,871 · fundraising $11,413
10 · Payroll taxes

total $69,903 · program services $34,183 · management and general $30,007 · fundraising $5,713
11b · Fees: legal

total $725,882 · program services $725,882 · management and general $0 · fundraising $0
11c · Fees: accounting

total $19,740 · management and general $19,740
11e · Fees: professional fundraising services

total $42,064 · fundraising $42,064
12 · Advertising and promotion

total $16,635 · program services $12,044 · fundraising $4,591
13 · Office expenses

total $10,650 · program services $4,062 · management and general $3,482 · fundraising $3,106
14 · Information technology

total $73,136 · program services $55,716 · management and general $16,484 · fundraising $936
16 · Occupancy

total $1,738 · management and general $1,738 · fundraising $0
17 · Travel

total $158,185 · program services $136,171 · management and general $22,014 · fundraising $0
19 · Conferences, conventions and meetings

total $106,144 · program services $106,144
23 · Insurance

total $9,439 · management and general $9,439
24a · Other expenses: Internships in FOSS

total $487,483 · program services $487,483 · management and general $0 · fundraising $0
24b · Other expenses: Software (FOSS) Development and Design

total $479,059 · program services $479,059 · management and general $0 · fundraising $0
24c · Other expenses: Project & Program Coordination Services

total $247,380 · program services $232,770 · management and general $14,610 · fundraising $0
24d · Other expenses: BankCharges,PayrollService,Taxes&Fines,BadDebt

total $65,833 · program services $23,724 · management and general $41,719 · fundraising $390
24e · All other expenses

total $4,373 · program services $3,328 · management and general $1,045 · fundraising $0

Balance sheet

Part X, book values.

1 · Cash, non-interest-bearing

beginning of year $506,325 · end of year $1,431,701
2 · Savings and temporary cash investments

beginning of year $1,146,603 · end of year $736,418
3 · Pledges and grants receivable

beginning of year $236,352 · end of year $459,048
4 · Accounts receivable

beginning of year $99,040 · end of year $73,067
9 · Prepaid expenses and deferred charges

beginning of year $25,224 · end of year $32,430
11 · Investments: publicly traded securities

beginning of year $3,301,432 · end of year $2,668,582
17 · Accounts payable and accrued expenses

beginning of year $480,907 · end of year $1,109,478
27 · Net assets without donor restrictions

beginning of year $1,394,890 · end of year $1,006,678
28 · Net assets with donor restrictions

beginning of year $3,439,179 · end of year $3,285,090

Mission and programs · 2024

Mission

Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) promotes, improves, develops, facilitates & defends Free & Open Source Software (FOSS) & the right to software repair. SFC advocates for the public's software rights & freedoms. SFC provides a home & infrastructure to FOSS initiatives. SFC helps volunteers focus on improving FOSS for the public. Projects include: creation of FOSS for general public, copyleft licensing advocacy, & internships for contributors subject to systemic bias who are underrepresented in FOSS.

Activities or mission (Part I)

SFC promotes,improves,develops,facilitates, and defends Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). SFC advocates for the software rights and freedom of the public. SFC provides a home & infrastructure to FOSS projects & initiatives, & increases diversity, equity and inclusion in FOSS.

FOSS development, documentation, infrastructure, sustainability, & project support: During the tax year, SFC engaged 12 different software developers as independent contractors to improve the software in its FreeDV, Inkscape, Microblocks, phpMyAdmin, Reproducible Builds, and Selenium projects, as well as improving FOSS for SFC's own accounting infrastructure. All software source code was released freely to the public under licenses that encourage the public to use, share, modify, and reinstall it. These contractors also coordinated volunteer software developers to contribute further to the software projects. SFC staff also assisted volunteers in our projects on a daily basis with administration, coordination, legal and infrastructural tasks and costs (as listed at https://sfconservancy.org/members/services/ ). Finally, SFC regularly mentors leadership of projects both inside and outside our organization to improve their non-profit management skills.

Expenses $1,357,130 · Grants $47,431 · Revenue $521,768
Outreachy and The Institute For Computing Research (ICR): In the tax year, we funded 60 interns via Outreachy - an initiative that encourages participation in FOSS for those who are subject to systemic bias and impacted by underrepresentation in the technical industry where they live. Outreachy interns improve FOSS and its documentation, and increase the diversity of the FOSS community while also learning valuable skills. ICR mentors and trains students in high school to do rigorous scientific research using FOSS. During this tax year, ICR had 27 internships. Both internship programs are paid programs which enable those from less privileged backgrounds to participate.

Expenses $885,405
License Compliance & Enforcement: Some FOSS is available under "copyleft" licenses, such as the General Public License (GPL). These licenses allow everyone to freely share, copy, modify and (re)install modified versions of software. SFC identifies situations where distributors fail to meet the copyleft requirements & requires them to provide the same rights to all those who receive the software distribution. Through this process, SFC ensures that the public has equal rights to use, improve and study software & experiment with their own modifications so that the rights of consumers to repair the software on their devices is restored. During the tax year, SFC continued litigation against a maker of Linux-based televisions in California state court in which SFC seeks the complete, corresponding source (CCS) for the copylefted components in the televisions. During the tax year, SFC also provided a grant to an individual to undertake a legal action in Germany where he successfully sought the CCS for the LGPL'd components on the router he purchased. We also designed & built a new wireless router, the OpenWrt One which gives people the ability to modify and fix their router out of the box. The OpenWrt One is an example of how to comply with copyleft licenses & overcome challenges cited in the industry. We also conduct talks and discussions at conferences to educate companies and consumers.

Expenses $422,759 · Grants $7,942 · Revenue $13,666
Facilitating and Participating in FOSS conferences: During the tax year, SFC planned, organized and/or ran three conferences, and prepared for one other to take place in the following year. Additionally, SFC coordinated and funded many other smaller "hackfest" events for its projects. Furthermore, SFC funded travel expenses for staff's and volunteers' attendance at more than 14 different third-party software conferences. These events allow volunteer FOSS contributors and SFC staff to (a) speak about their work to the public, (b) teach the public how to use and improve their software, (c) generally promote the use, adoption and improvement of FOSS, and (d) explain and explore the policy issues surrounding software freedom and software rights. Most FOSS conferences include opportunities for software developers to meet and rapidly work closely together to make improvements to the software and release those improvements immediately to the public. Finally, SFC staff also assisted in organizing the Legal & Policy DevRoom at FOSDEM, the largest annual FOSS conference in Europe.

Expenses $303,910 · Revenue $27,734

As filed on the 2024 return.

Listed in Part VII

Karen M Sandler

President and Executive Director

Total calculated

$241,142

From this org

$178,851

From related orgs

$0

Other

$62,291

Hours/week

45

Schedule J breakdown matched by us

Base

$178,851

Bonus

$0

Other

$0

Deferred

$5,465

Nontaxable benefits

$56,826

Filer's total

$241,142
Rick Sanders

General Counsel

Total calculated

$193,349

From this org

$124,838

From related orgs

$0

Other

$68,511

Hours/week

40
Sage Sharp

Senior Director of Diversity and Inclusion

Total calculated

$162,788

From this org

$108,272

From related orgs

$0

Other

$54,516

Hours/week

40
Bradley M Kuhn

Director, Policy Fellow, Outgoing Treasurer

Total calculated

$154,413

From this org

$113,112

From related orgs

$0

Other

$41,301

Hours/week

40
Jeremy Allison

Director

Total calculated

$0

Hours/week

2
Laura Fortunato

Director

Total calculated

$0

Hours/week

2
Mark Galassi

Director

Total calculated

$0

Hours/week

2
Bdale Garbee

Director

Total calculated

$0

Hours/week

2
Allison Randal

Board Chairperson, Vice President, and Director

Total calculated

$0

Hours/week

4.25
Anthony K Sebro Jr

Director

Total calculated

$0

Hours/week

2

Compensation is as filed in Part VII: reportable pay from this organization and from related organizations, other compensation, and hours per week. The total, marked calculated, is our sum of the three dollar columns, with a blank column counted as $0; the form itself has no total. On a Form 990-EZ the columns are Part IV's instead, and on a Form 990-PF Part VIII's — compensation, contributions to benefit plans, and expense account — and the total sums those. A Schedule J breakdown is as filed: base pay, bonus, other, deferred compensation and nontaxable benefits from this organization, with any from related organizations beside each, and the filer's own total. It is shown with the Part VII listing of the same name on the same return. The form gives no key between the two, so that pairing is ours, and is marked matched by us.

Schedule J

Answered yes

1a · Payments for business use of a personal residence
1b · Written policy on the line-1a expenses
2 · Substantiation required before reimbursing expenses
3 · Form 990 of other organizations
3 · Approval by the board or compensation committee

Answered no

4a · Severance or change-of-control payment
4b · Supplemental nonqualified retirement plan
4c · Equity-based compensation arrangement
5a · Pay contingent on this organization's revenues
5b · Pay contingent on a related organization's revenues
6a · Pay contingent on this organization's net earnings
6b · Pay contingent on a related organization's net earnings
7 · Other non-fixed payments
8 · Paid under the initial-contract exception

The filer's explanations (Part III)

Schedule J, Part I, Line 1a: Since all Organization's employees work from their home offices, each employee receives a $50/month automatic reimbursement for home Internet services. Each employee must submit documentation that their home Internet service costs at least $50/month.

Part I's answers as filed. A line not listed was left unanswered; on lines 1a and 3 that means the box was not checked.

Grants on this return

No itemized grants to organizations on this return.

Provenance

Return type: form_990
Tax year: 2024
Filed: 15 January 2026
IRS schema version: 2024v5.0
Source object: 202640169349300604

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