Changes at "Funding and sponsorship acceptance policy"
Title (English)
- +Funding and sponsorship acceptance policy
Body (English)
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Problem statement
Mautic accepts funding and sponsorship from a range of sources, and our Financial Policy sets out how those funds are spent, reimbursed, and reported. What we do not yet have is a policy on what we will not accept. There is currently no agreed basis for declining an offer of support, which means decisions are made case by case, often under time pressure, and without a consistent record of the reasoning.
This creates three problems. First, it exposes the project to reputational and governance risk, because an offer that conflicts with our values could be accepted simply because no clear line existed to refuse it. Second, it places an unfair burden on whoever happens to receive the offer, usually the Legal & Finance Team or the Project Lead, who must make a values judgement alone and without cover. Third, it leaves our community and our funders uncertain about where the project stands, which weakens the trust that our independence depends on.
The impact falls on the whole community. Contributors rely on the project holding to its stated values of digital sovereignty, independence, transparency, and community. Funders benefit from knowing the terms on which they can support us. The Council carries the risk when there is no framework to point to.
Detailed proposal
Adopt a Funding and Sponsorship Acceptance Policy as a companion to the existing Financial Policy, to be added to the community handbook under Policies.
The policy sets out, in a single place:
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The scope of what it covers, being all financial and in-kind support offered to the project and its governing bodies, and what it does not cover, being the independent commercial choices of agencies and companies that build on Mautic.
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A defined list of the funding and sponsorship the project will decline, covering surveillance and data-broker business models, offers made in exchange for influence over technical direction, funders requiring secrecy, unlawful activity, businesses that cause or contribute to harm such as gambling, pornography, tobacco, weapons, and predatory finance, funders who incite or finance armed conflict, funders whose conduct is incompatible with the Code of Conduct, reputation laundering, and offers that would compromise the project's perceived independence.
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Four governing principles, being sovereignty first, no purchased influence, transparency by default, and community over capital, which resolve cases the list does not expressly cover.
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A clear assessment process that lets the Legal & Finance Team or the relevant line item owner decline obvious cases without escalation, applies a short set of tests to everything else, and requires accepted relationships to be recorded transparently.
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A defined set of matters reserved for the full Council rather than blanket rule, being funder concentration above an agreed threshold, funding from direct competitors, sponsored feature or roadmap work, grey-area cases, and naming or endorsement requests.
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An annual review clause consistent with our other policies.
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The policy avoids duplicating rules that already exist. Sanctions and foreign assets control remain governed by the Financial Policy and our banking providers, and conflict of interest by the Conflict of Interest policy.
Benefits and impact
The Council gains a clear, agreed framework to accept or decline offers, which reduces risk and removes the burden of individual judgement under pressure. Decisions become faster for clear cases and better documented for difficult ones.
The community gains confidence that the project's funding will not quietly work against its values, which protects the trust that underpins our independence.
Funders gain clarity on the terms of support before they approach us, which makes good relationships easier to form and reduces the chance of an awkward refusal after an offer is made.
Over time the project builds a consistent public record of how it applies these principles, which helps future Councils decide new cases in line with past ones and demonstrates the transparency we ask of ourselves.
Potential challenges
Some categories require judgement rather than a bright line, particularly grey-area funders with mixed business activities. The policy manages this by reserving such cases for the full Council, but it does not remove the need for careful deliberation.
The funder concentration threshold in the reserved-matters section is left for the Council to set. Until a figure is agreed, that provision cannot be applied consistently, so agreeing the threshold should follow adoption promptly.
There is a risk of declining support the project needs. The policy is written to decline only where values are genuinely at stake, and to send borderline cases to the Council rather than refuse them automatically, which is intended to keep the project open to good funding.
Applying the policy adds a small amount of process to funding decisions and to record-keeping. This is modest and largely overlaps with transparency practices we already follow through Open Collective.
Resources needed
No new financial resources are required to adopt the policy.
Implementation needs Legal & Finance Team and Council time to review, refine, and ratify the policy through the normal process, and to agree the funder concentration threshold. Ongoing effort is limited to applying the assessment tests to new offers and recording decisions, which extends existing financial transparency work rather than creating a separate workflow. A short update to the community handbook is needed to publish the policy under Policies.
Suggested timeline
Weeks 1 to 2. Council and Legal & Finance Team review the draft and propose amendments.
Weeks 3 to 4. Revised draft circulated, funder concentration threshold discussed and agreed.
Week 5. On approval, policy published in the community handbook under Policies and linked from the Financial Policy.
Ongoing. Annual review by the Legal & Finance Team in consultation with the Council, in line with the review clause.
Additional information
The draft Funding and Sponsorship Acceptance Policy (v0.1) accompanies this proposal.
Supporting and related documents:
Links provided in attached proposal.
Mautic Financial Policy, v1.1, in the community handbook.
Mautic Code of Conduct, in the community handbook.
Recognizing contributors, sponsors, and partners policy, in the community handbook.
Linux Foundation Antitrust Policy (2024) and the Open Source Initiative Open Source Definition (2007), as examples of established open source governance norms that separate funding from technical control.
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