# Donation Expenses Policy

**URL:** <https://forum.antennapod.org/t/donation-expenses-policy/272>\
**Category:** Project management\
**Tags:** donations\
**Created:** [October 21, 2020, 7:19am UTC](https://forum.antennapod.org/t/donation-expenses-policy/272 "2020-10-21T07:19:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 2

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**Author:** ![system](https://forum.antennapod.org/uploads/default/original/2X/3/3c7b7383b59ca5ff7c2c145444e45bd1436aa6c1.png) [@system](https://forum.antennapod.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2020, 7:22am UTC](https://forum.antennapod.org/t/donation-expenses-policy/272/2 "2020-10-21T07:22:41Z")

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**What donations can be used for:**

**1. Merchandise & promo materials**  
Items that are given away for free, or given in return for a donation equal to or bigger than the costs. Some items might be given away only in specific situations or under specific conditions. Only expenses of items whose environmental impact have been taken into consideration (e.g. GOTS certification for clothing).

_Examples & Ideas_  
Stickers, branded headphones, socks, t-shirts and/or hoodies.  
Products may be given to contributors/community members free of charge in these cases:

- Developer who closed most issues in the last month
- Translator who continuously contributed for the longest time
- Forum member who posted most “accepted answers” in the last month
- Developer who fix a highly voted on issue
- Tech conferences (especially stickers)

**2. Presentation materials**  
Materials like posters or roll-up banners, only when needed for a specific event. Expenses for digital products (e.g. advertising space) are not accepted.

**3. Project running**  
Foreseen services or products to (help) keep the project going, and unexpected costs that are strictly necessary for the project.

_Examples of foreseen costs_

- domain name
- forum server
- Google Play developer account [one-time fee](https://www.appypie.com/faqs/how-much-does-a-googleapple-developer-account-cost) for new project leads

_Examples of unexpected costs_

- (defensive) legal lawsuits
- spiking hosting loads
- costs incurred by a forced hosting provider switch

**4. Community gatherings**  
Products and services that support community-building during community gatherings (e.g. food & drinks for a meeting at FOSDEM). Expenses accepted only if 5 or more people signed up and show up at the gathering, and only if the gathering was announced to the community at least 2 weeks in advance.

**5. Developer tools**  
Active developers with a proven track record are eligible to apply for reimbursement of tools that they need for AntennaPod development. This includes AI subscriptions or (in rare cases) even test hardware.

Developers are eligible for applying for AI subscriptions if they contributed at least 6 substantial merged pull requests and have been consistently active in the project for at least 3 months. Developers are eligible for applying for hardware reimbursement if they contributed at least 30 substantial merged pull requests and have been consistently active in the project for at least 2 years.

**6. Upstream & Peer contributions**  
Projects that contribute to an open podcasting ecosystem or an open source Android ecosystem may be given donations from AntennaPod’s funds.

_Examples & Ideas_

- [fyyd.de](http://fyyd.de),
- [gPodder.net](http://gPodder.net)
- [PodcastIndex.org](http://PodcastIndex.org)

**General principles**

- Expenses should be proposed to and discussed with the community on AntennaPod’s forum. If the expenses have not been discussed and approved beforehand by the community, their reimbursements cannot be guaranteed.
- Expense reimbursements can only be requested by team members and community members with a proven track record.

_Examples of a proven track record_

- has contributed consistently over a longer time with ideas and/or support on the forum or on GitHub
- has provided many smaller or a few bigger code contributions
- has translated large chunks of the app and/or maintained translations for a long period

**What donations can NOT be used for**

- Personal expenses or needs
- Buying ads to get more users - at least not in the near future (some argue this goes against the nature of open source)

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_[View the full topic](https://forum.antennapod.org/t/donation-expenses-policy/272)._