SPI and donations?

[Roger Dingledine <arma@mit.edu>]

Hey there..it's been a while since we've spoken. We should keep in touch
more. :) (Yeah, as if anybody has time for that these days.)

You're still treasurer for the spi, right? Here's the situation:

We're going to have a site soon (linuxkb.org) that pulls in between ten and
several hundred donations yearly, each of around $50, in exchange for a
service (yeah, ok, so it's not a donation. Stick with me.)
After a long scuffle about money issues, we've agreed that it would be neat
if we could turn the 'cost' of our service into a 'you get the service if
you make a sufficient donation to one of these organizations'. The
organizations would be such places as spi and fsf. So I have several
questions:

* What places have I missed besides the fsf and spi, that are good
  free software oriented non-profit orgs?
* About how much money flows through SPI? (I'm wondering what fraction
  we'd be.)
* You guys don't have any problem with providing receipts/proof of
  donation, right? Ie, "yes, this company really did give us >=$50".
  They could give you permission beforehand, of course.
* How does this work taxwise, from our point of view? We never touch
  any money. We're still just a normal internet project, not an
  official "group" in the eyes of the IRS. Right?
* SPI allows earmarking for specific projects. What about
  earmarking for projects that don't exist yet? For instance, "we
  give you $500 to pay somebody to put better (gpl) USB support in the
  kernel". What are some ways that can work? (One option is an
  entry in Alex Boldt's database of "people who will pay for tasks
  to be done", but that doesn't actually find a programmer.)

Thanks,
--Roger

(and btw -- Independence 0.1 (http://www.independence.seul.org) is finally
within a week of being announced. It needs a lot of work, but it's a good
improvement on RH52. We'll see what people think of it. :)