Today I am happy to report that a balanced 2015 budget proposal has been prepared by myself and dedicated volunteers from all areas of the Joomal project.

A special thanks goes out to Chris Davenport and Olaf Offick — budget liaisons from the PLT and CLT — for their hard work and professional attitude throughout the budget process.

Process

The 2015 budget process is quite similar to prior years and is well documented. In short, the 3-month process has 5 stages:

• Set project-wide goals
• Define objectives to achieve each goal
• Assign expenses and/or revenue to each objective
• Prioritize objectives
• Submit proposal for community feedback and approval by the board of Open Source Matters

Two important changes from the 2014 budget process were included for 2015:

• Line item owners would be specified to have decision making authority for expenditures
• The budget would be balanced

Budget summary

As a result of the budget process, the proposed budget projects revenue of $755,575 with expenses matching dollar-for-dollar (a summary of revenue and expenses associated with the Goals of the project are shown at the end of this document. The full budget organized by our Chart of Accounts is also available).

Based on this balanced budget, we project that our end-of-year assets will total $329,886.

As you can see, travel costs are 20% higher than 2014 and now represent 49.5% of the project’s expenses ($373,800).

Other large items include Conference costs ($102,735 or 13.6% of spending), the existing marketing contract with Sensis ($80,000 or 10.5% of spending), and our increasing legal costs associated with Trademark protection ($74,000 or 9.8% of spending).

On the revenue side, the Siteground contracts for the demo site and Joomla.com stand out as significant and new income ($225,000 or 29.8% of revenue), as well as our traditional sources from Google AdWords ($132,000 or 17.5% of revenue) and our affiliate payouts from Cloud Access ($120,000 or 15.9% of revenue).

Community Feedback

In the 2012 budget process, the Joomla project set a precedent for soliciting feedback from the community on the budget.

In keeping with that spirit, we now invite the Joomla community to review the Goals, Objectives and financial estimates presented herein. Following this review, the budget will be amended (if necessary) and submited to the board for approval.

If you have questions or comments about anything in the budget, please feel free to discuss it on the forum. I have created a specific topic for this purpose which will remain open through 5-February 2015.

Summary of Goals

The following goals were set by the project. The total expense or revenue for each goal is indicated.

A complete list of all the objectives associated with each goal is also available.

1. Release new Joomla versions smoothly and consistently, -$5,300
2. Encourage development of new features with a high probability of acceptance, $0
3. Improve product quality, -$59,375
4. Improve internationalisation and localisation of the CMS, $0
5. Start planning for the next major version of the CMS, $0
6. Increase adoption of the Joomla Framework, -$35,350
7. Increase adoption of the Joomla CMS, -$84,150
8. Understand our users better, $0
9. Increase front-enders use of Joomla, $0
10. Create a sustainable infrastructure for the project, -$32,500.00
11. Increase awareness and use of the Joomla brand among web developers, -$245,700
12. Determine baseline for key project metrics, -$7,340
13. Facilitate volunteerism within the project, -$68,600
14. Launch the Joomla Certification Program, -$20,000
15. Improve infrastructure project-wide, $0
16. Create a culture of financial transparency, -$17,500
17. Improve financial sustainability, $328,505
18. Provide a sustainable infrastructure for internal trademark management, -$6,000
19. Provide a sustainable infrastructure for external trademark management, -$79,000
20. Increase sponsorship revenue, $155,070