Add Sustainability Donation to Organisers guide (#14719)

* Add Sustainability Donation to Organisers guide

Majority approved by core organisers. 

Executive summary: Starting 1 January 2025, a modest, localised event fee will be introduced. This will be used solely to ensure a sustainable model to pay for the underlying infrastructure that powers the DevOpsDays global community. Both the global organisation and local events themselves will continue to be volunteer-run, and none of these funds will be used to remunerate volunteers at any level.

This PR proposes adding this to the organiser guide. After merging, blog post to come.

* Remove H4 heading

* Update content/page/organizing.md

Co-authored-by: Daniel Maher <[email protected]>

* Update content/page/organizing.md

Co-authored-by: Daniel Maher <[email protected]>

* Update content/page/organizing.md

Co-authored-by: Daniel Maher <[email protected]>

* pay -> contribute

---------

Co-authored-by: Daniel Maher <[email protected]>

Author: glasnt

content/page/organizing.md

@@ -98,6 +98,8 @@ The code of conduct must include the following:
   - Why: Marketing is tricky, especially as a new event in a world where social media is quickly changing. Be sure to check out the [Visibility](#visibility) section for some tips and tricks.
 * **T-6.5 Months to Event:** Ensure registration opens
   - Why: The more time the registration is open, the more potential visibility it gets. Be sure to checkout the [Setting Up Registration](#setting-up-registration) section for more information.
+* **T-5 months before Event:** Contribute "sustainability donation"
+  - Why: Once you have started selling tickets, you should have the liquidity to make this donation, to [help devopsdays itself continue to operate](#sustainability-donation).
 * **T-4.5 months before Event:** Initiate voting of submissions with the organizers
   - Why: Certain speakers submit to multiple events, require notice to their employers and/or require (international) travel. Getting voting done, on time, and in advance, allows those individuals to arrange the needful. Visit [Setting Your Program](#setting-your-program) for more information.
 * **T-3.5 months before Event:** Launch the program
@@ -118,6 +120,7 @@ Part of organizing the event is handling of the local event's money. This will b
 - **Sponsorship**: Invoicing sponsors and processing their payments.
 - **Registrations**: Collecting payments from attendees and, if required, issuing official invoices.
 - **Expenses**: Paying for services such as venue booking, catering, merchandise, and more.
+- **Sustainability Donation**: The donation back to devopsdays to help pay for community infrastructure, and more.
 
 You cannot announce a date until you know you have a way to handle money. Realizing too late that you cannot process money has led to rescheduled or canceled events in the past.
 
@@ -180,6 +183,7 @@ Categories to consider:
 - **Signage**: Directional and informational signs for the event.
 - **Speaker Expenses**: Hosting a speakers' dinner and small appreciation gifts.
 - **Administrative Costs**: Insurance, taxes, and payment for accounting services.
+- **Sustainability Donation**: Cost of a full price ticket.
 
 **Important Reminder:** As you've seen in the [rules](#essential-rules-for-organizing) above, these events are not intended for individual or corporate profit. This includes unnecessary high personal expenditures for the benefit of organizers. We can't give precise numbers as to what qualifies as large amounts, since that would vary widely. Consider typical appropriate pricing for your region, and determine if you would find it to be unusually expensive.
 
@@ -207,6 +211,59 @@ First, a recommendation: Have a tiered budget for a Good, Better, Best. A Good v
 
 However you set up that tiered system for your event, have some go/no-go dates in mind for deciding when you can do each one. A Good vs Better event call might come in the month leading up to your event when you evaluate how much sponsorship money you have gotten in. This is why we say 80%+ of your event budget should come from sponsorship funds! If you set yourself up this way, you know you can put on a good event for the community regardless of how many people actually come, avoiding the need to cancel. Some cities might not have the luxury of having a Good version that is doable because all of the event venues are huge and require food and beverage contracts, for example, but if you can do it, do so.
 
+### Sustainability Donation
+
+🆕 New in 2025
+
+The management and operations of the DevOpsDays infrastructure has always been, and will continue to be, run on a volunteer basis. The services that provide this infrastructure, however, are not free. While we have benefitted from punctual donations and free tiers of services over the years, the reality is that this model is not sustainable. In order to promote a sustainable funding model, and to ensure the continuity of the DevOpsDays global community, as of 1 January 2025, we are introducing a modest event fee: each time you run an event (generally once per year), you donate the equivalent of at least **one full price attendee ticket to your event** to the global DevOpsDays organisation (though you may choose to donate more, if you want). 
+
+We expect that this donation will be made **on or around when you announce your ticket prices, as then you will know the amount**. This may also be around when your tickets go on sale, and you start receiving funds that can then be paid out to vendors, etc.
+
+This will help us pay for the following: 
+ * Cloud hosting for our conference services, including the content and ticketing management platforms, as well as the password manager
+ * Cloud hosting for our Mastodon instance, social.devopsdays.org
+ * Domain name registration for devopsdays.org
+ * Google Workspace for devopsdays.org for the event mailing lists and backend management
+
+We will continue to provide all of these tools and services to the entire DevOpsDays community. By accepting donations in this fashion, we can ensure a healthy future for events around the world, regardless of their location or situation.
+
+Currently, we have the means and logistics in place to handle financial transactions in USD in the United States of America via ConferenceOps, and in official European currencies within the European Union via the Stichting DevOps Foundation. For this reason, we will be asking DevOpsDays events in those regions to participate in this sustainability programme from 1 January 2025. Events in other regions will be onboarded as we build out our capacity to manage them. 
+
+ * ConferenceOps: email Laura Wickett ([[email protected]]([email protected])) for banking details
+ * Stichting DevOps Foundation [banking details](https://devops.foundation/)
+
+
+### Sustainability Donation FAQs
+
+Q: Our location doesn’t use USD or a European currency—what do we do?<br>
+A: For now, nothing. We’ll contact events individually as we build out our capacity to accept worldwide currencies.
+
+Q: Our event doesn’t charge for tickets—how much should we contribute?<br>
+A: If the full ticket price is zero, then your donation is technically also zero; you may donate another amount if you want to.
+
+Q: Our event is co-located and we don’t sell tickets directly—does this apply to us?<br>
+A: If your event is ticketed, and the ticket costs money, then yes, this new policy does apply to you.
+
+Q: What happens if we can’t afford to contribute the event fee?<br>
+A: Then the cost of your event is prohibitively expensive for attendees too, and should be lowered to a reasonable amount.
+
+Q: What if we don't use the conference services?<br>
+A: At a minimum, your event uses the mailing lists, web hosting, and DNS by default.
+
+Q: What if we don't work with ConferenceOps or Stichting DevOps Foundation?<br>
+A: That’s fine—beyond this one instance, you don’t need to have any other interaction with either of these entities.
+
+Q: Concretely, when should the event fee be contributed?<br>
+A: At any point between the day when tickets become available and the first day of your event.
+
+Q: What happens if we cancel our event but we’ve already sent the contribution?<br>
+A: The contribution will be put towards your next event. Under exceptional circumstances, and on a case-by-case basis, we can arrange for the contribution to be refunded.
+
+Q: I have another question and/or comment!<br>
+A: Please get in touch via [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) or reach out on the organiser Slack.
+
+
+
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 ## Selecting a venue