We are proud to announce that the Neos Project chose us as sponsor for its funding platform! We are hosting the funding platform at neosfunding.sandstorm.de and provide the transaction execution, bookkeeping and the required legal work.
We have invested more than 220 hours to build the platform, discuss and clarify the legal requirements with our lawyers (thanks to TechDivision for letting their lawyer help us!) and tax accountant and prepare the communication and launch.
As the Neos Project is not a legal entity, it cannot take donations directly. At the strategy meeting in Munich Sebastian offered that Sandstorm would figure out a way to set up independent financing to solve this funding problem for Neos.
Together with the Neos team we created Neos badges - a promotional image which can be purchased from Sandstorm. All funds received by Sandstorm through the sale of Neos badges will be used to support the development of Neos. Read more about our commitment on neosfunding.sandstorm.de.
The first type of Neos badges which can be purchased online are subscriptions. The idea is that the Neos Team wants to establish a base funding which can be used for rough budgeting. The subscriptions are available in three levels: bronze, silver and gold for approx. 50€, 100€ and 200€ per month respectively. The payment interval is currently fixed at three months. These badges can be bought fully automated at neosfunding.sandstorm.de.
If you want to support a specific event or occasion (e.g. a code sprint) just let us know via neosfunding@sandstorm-media.de.
Note that, because the Neos Project is not a legal entity, any invoices will be sent from and paid to Sandstorm Media GmbH.
We built neosfunding.sandstorm.de with Neos and Flow. The payment process is a plugin we created including some rudimentary modules for transaction/customer/badge management and payment event monitoring.
We are using Braintree as service provider for the actual payment. This way, all security and PCI compliance for the credit card information is handled by Braintree and never moves through our servers. We also have the option to enable PayPal payments easily in the future.
As Sandstorm is a German company applicable to German VAT we had to work out the VAT details for non-German Neos badge buyers. We chose to use Taxamo as service provider to help us determine the location of a buyer and to compliantly record this information.
Both, Braintree and Taxamo, charge fees on a per-transaction-basis resulting in very transparent costs in a reasonable relation to the badge price.
What guarantee is there that we will use the revenues from Neos badge sales for Neos? None in any legal way to be honest. But for us, our reputation is at stake. And our reputation as a trustworthy company is fundamental for our existence.
So we commit ourselves to provide complete transparency of the transactions for Neos - badge sales as well as invoices we pay for the Neos project.
There are two aspects to this question: the first is how the Neos team decides what to spend the available funds on. This is handled via the request for funding process described on discuss.neos.io. The second aspect is again about transparency of the transactions which is available on the website.
Visit neosfunding.sandstorm.de to learn all the details of the funding process and find answers to your questions. Still got questions? Contact us at neosfunding@sandstorm-media.de.
Be sure to read the blog post and review the funding page on neos.io.
And follow us on Twitter to receive updates and new blog posts from us!
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