Form 990 for tax year 2022

Filed by SOFTWARE FREEDOM CONSERVANCY INC.

Totals

Total revenue: $4,187,196
Total expenses: $3,662,134
Contributions and grants received: $4,018,244
Grants paid: $417,410
Program service revenue: $30,239
Investment income: $138,201
Other revenue: $512
Total assets, end of year: $7,242,486
Total liabilities, end of year: $468,380
Net assets or fund balances, end of year: $6,774,106
Program services expenses (Part IX): $3,121,891
Management and general expenses: $401,363
Fundraising expenses: $138,880
Program service expenses (Part III): $3,121,891

Program services were 85.2% 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

$4,018,244
1g · Noncash contributions included above

$24,859
2a · Program service revenue: Conference Sponsorship Income

total $15,600 · related or exempt $15,600 · unrelated business $0 · excluded $0
2b · Program service revenue: Conference Registration Fees

total $14,400 · related or exempt $14,400 · unrelated business $0 · excluded $0
2c · Program service revenue: Honoraria

total $225 · related or exempt $225 · unrelated business $0 · excluded $0
2d · Program service revenue: Promotional Items Sales

total $14 · related or exempt $14 · 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 $140,495 · related or exempt $0 · unrelated business $0 · excluded $140,495
4 · Income from investment of tax-exempt bond proceeds

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

total $512 · related or exempt $512 · unrelated business $0 · excluded $0
6a · Gross rents

real property $0 · personal property $0
6b · Less rental expenses

real property $0 · personal property $0
6c · Rental income or loss

real property $0 · personal property $0
6d · Net rental income or loss

total $0 · related or exempt $0 · unrelated business $0 · excluded $0
7a · Gross sales of assets other than inventory

securities $217 · other assets -$2,511
7b · Less cost or other basis and sales expenses

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

securities $217 · other assets -$2,511
7d · Net gain or loss

total -$2,294 · related or exempt $0 · unrelated business $0 · excluded -$2,294
8a · Fundraising events: gross income

$0
8a · Fundraising events: contributions included on line 1c

$0
8b · Fundraising events: direct expenses

$0
8c · Net income from fundraising events

total $0 · unrelated business $0 · excluded $0
9a · Gaming: gross income

$0
9b · Gaming: direct expenses

$0
9c · Net income from gaming

total $0 · related or exempt $0 · unrelated business $0 · excluded $0
10a · Gross sales of inventory

$0
10b · Cost of goods sold

$0
10c · Net income from sales of inventory

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

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

$0

Functional expenses

Part IX, the statement of functional expenses.

1 · Grants to domestic organizations and governments

total $410,485 · program services $410,485
2 · Grants to domestic individuals

total $2,500 · program services $2,500
3 · Grants to foreign organizations and individuals

total $4,425 · program services $4,425
5 · Compensation of officers, directors and key employees

total $391,068 · program services $230,596 · management and general $109,838 · fundraising $50,634
7 · Other salaries and wages

total $351,087 · program services $171,049 · management and general $150,984 · fundraising $29,054
8 · Pension plan contributions

total $24,379 · program services $10,066 · management and general $12,249 · fundraising $2,064
9 · Other employee benefits

total $80,046 · program services $48,874 · management and general $22,833 · fundraising $8,339
10 · Payroll taxes

total $48,139 · program services $26,332 · management and general $16,713 · fundraising $5,094
11b · Fees: legal

total $218,919 · program services $213,600 · management and general $5,319
11c · Fees: accounting

total $18,086 · program services $0 · management and general $18,086 · fundraising $0
11e · Fees: professional fundraising services

total $31,521 · fundraising $31,521
11g · Fees: other

total $13,190 · program services $12,190 · fundraising $1,000
12 · Advertising and promotion

total $21,563 · program services $16,120 · management and general $0 · fundraising $5,443
13 · Office expenses

total $11,226 · program services $623 · management and general $5,925 · fundraising $4,678
14 · Information technology

total $83,887 · program services $65,839 · management and general $17,450 · fundraising $598
16 · Occupancy

total $1,514 · management and general $1,514
17 · Travel

total $56,262 · program services $56,077 · management and general $185
19 · Conferences, conventions and meetings

total $35,011 · program services $35,011
20 · Interest

total $0
23 · Insurance

total $7,485 · management and general $7,485
24a · Other expenses: Internships in FOSS

total $967,340 · program services $967,340 · management and general $0 · fundraising $0
24b · Other expenses: Software (FOSS) Development & Design

total $680,098 · program services $680,098 · management and general $0 · fundraising $0
24c · Other expenses: Project & Program Coordination Services

total $164,491 · program services $163,791 · management and general $700 · fundraising $0
24d · Other expenses: Bank9Charges,PayrollProcessing.Taxes&Fines

total $38,639 · program services $6,528 · management and general $31,656 · fundraising $455
24e · All other expenses

total $773 · program services $347 · management and general $426

Balance sheet

Part X, book values.

1 · Cash, non-interest-bearing

beginning of year $1,119,336 · end of year $503,477
2 · Savings and temporary cash investments

beginning of year $2,782,792 · end of year $2,882,927
3 · Pledges and grants receivable

end of year $964,000
4 · Accounts receivable

beginning of year $219,183 · end of year $439,187
9 · Prepaid expenses and deferred charges

beginning of year $33,543 · end of year $63,548
11 · Investments: publicly traded securities

beginning of year $2,468,386 · end of year $2,389,347
17 · Accounts payable and accrued expenses

beginning of year $244,961 · end of year $374,378
19 · Deferred revenue

end of year $94,002
27 · Net assets without donor restrictions

beginning of year $1,728,461 · end of year $2,298,111
28 · Net assets with donor restrictions

beginning of year $4,649,818 · end of year $4,475,995

Mission and programs · 2022

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 27 different software developers as independent contractors to improve the software in its Godot, Inkscape, 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/ ). SFC made one grant for improvement of teaching materials for FOSS for undergraduates. SFC gave grants to two 501(c)(3) organizations: an initial grant to Open Collective Foundation (for the Homebrew project and Drupal New Jersey initative) and an initial grant to the Boost Foundation to continue SFC's Boost project. Finally, SFC regularly mentors leadership of projects both inside and outside our organization to improve their non-profit management skills.

Expenses $1,363,560 · Grants $412,985 · Revenue $526
Outreachy and The Institute For Computing Research (ICR): In the tax year, we funded 132 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 $1,297,336 · Grants $2,000
License Compliance & Enforcement: Some FOSS is available under "copyleft" licenses, such as the General Public License (GPL). "Copylefts" are FOSS licenses that allow everyone to freely share, copy, modify, and (re)install modified versions of the software. "Copyleft" licenses require that everyone who receives the software has an equal right to engage in those activities. SFC identifies situations where distributors fail to meet those requirements. SFC then enforces the copyleft license & requires these distributors to provide the same rights to copy, share, modify and (re)install modified versions of the software to all those who receive the software distribution. Through this process, SFC ensures that the public has equal rights to use, improve, and study the software, & to experiment with their own modifications to software. Most importantly, the rights of consumers to repair the software on their devices is restored. Rarely, when absolutely necessary, SFC seeks remedy in the courts through litigation. During the tax year, SFC specifically pursued ongoing litigation against a specific maker of Linux-based televisions in California state court in which SFC seeks the complete, corresponding source for the copylefted components in the televisions to engage in SFC's right to software repair.

Expenses $333,681 · Grants $2,425 · Revenue $225
Facilitating and Participating in FOSS conferences: During the tax year, SFC planned, organized and/or ran three conferences, and prepared for two others 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 20 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 $127,314 · Revenue $30,000

As filed on the 2022 return.

Listed in Part VII

Karen M Sandler

President and Executive Director

Total calculated

$221,863

From this org

$165,231

From related orgs

$0

Other

$56,632

Hours/week

40

Schedule J breakdown matched by us

Base

$165,231

Bonus

$0

Other

$0

Deferred

$5,144

Nontaxable benefits

$51,488

Filer's total

$221,863
Bradley M Kuhn

Treasurer, Director, and Policy Fellow

Total calculated

$152,792

From this org

$106,895

From related orgs

$0

Other

$45,897

Hours/week

40
Jeremy Allison

Director

Total calculated

$0

Hours/week

1
Laura Fortunato

Director

Total calculated

$0

Hours/week

1
Mark Galassi

Director

Total calculated

$0

Hours/week

1
Bdale Garbee

Director

Total calculated

$0

Hours/week

1.25
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

1

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 · Compensation survey or study
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.
Schedule J, Part I, Line 3: See discussion on Schedule O for Part VI, Section B, Line 15

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

Open Collective Foundation

$304,000

Grant to support the use, development and improvement of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), and education about the use and improvement of FOSS projects. Specifically, $268,000 to support improvement of the Homebrew software, and $36,000 to support the Drupal New Jersey initiative.
Boost Foundation

$106,005

In furtherance of and to specifically support the use, development, and improvement of Free and Open Source Software, specifically, the Boost C++ libraries software project.

Provenance

Return type: form_990
Tax year: 2022
Filed: 18 January 2024
IRS schema version: 2022v5.0
Source object: 202440189349300809

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