The current political situation is also affecting our project, unfortunately.
By this moment we have 7 people (including me) who work in Morevna Project and get paid for work from our budget at OpenCollective.
All our funds at OpenCollective are fiscally hosted by Open Source Collective 501(c)(6), which is US-based Non-profit and yesterday our payouts were put on hold. There is still option to issue payout through PayPal and this is what we are trying right now. But, considering the fast-evolving situation, this option will probably fail (or become unavailable at any moment).
Patreon also informed me today that payouts are suspended for all residents of Russia.
I have informed all project members about the situation (some of them are still waiting payouts for February). I asked them put all work on hold for 3 days to let me understand the situation and think how we should process further.
Right now I am investigating the possibilities for accepting crypto-donations and this probably will be a preferred way for accepting donations from international community.
For residents of Russia we encourage to send donations directly to our local Non-Profit organization (I am happy that I’ve managed to put my time into registering it last year, this should simplify situation for us, I believe).
By the way, our local Non-Profit also has transparent budget page – I believe, we are first (and, by this moment, the only) Non-Profit organization from Russia who exposing transparent budget through OpenCollective platform.
Also, in the coming weeks I will be seeking for additional funding sources from Russia. This might be tricky, but (again) I hope the fact that we have local Non-Profit might help me here.
Just want to note, that in all coming changes and measures I aim to maintain the same dedication to maximum openness and transparency (as much as this is possible in current situation). On that matter I invite you to watch the recording of my recent talk at FlashForward on how we implemented transparency in our production.
That’s how it is. I will keep you informed about the situation.
Wishing Peace to everyone!
4 Responses
Ni! Glad to hear from you folks. Wish you stay well and find a way to keep up the great work and ensure your livelihood. All the best, peace! .~´
It’s really too bad! Well there is worse (like people dying under gun fire), but it’s hard anyway for you.
I contacted Patreon and asked if really there was no solution for creators based in Russia. They told us that we can donate but you *just* can’t pay out, which is obviously wrong. The fund we transfer are basically in some financial limbo only greasing intermediate’s pockets. 😕
So we withdrew the patronage, but it’s only temporary. We’ll be following 🔍 your news as we have always done for years now. And we’ll be back funding this wonderful software, Synfig, when we get a way to do it again. I just wanted to make this message to make it clear you are not really losing a patron or a fan of Synfig. 💌
Hi Aryeom & Jehan! Luckily,. the situation is not that bad. ^__^ As I have posted earlier here – https://www.patreon.com/posts/patreon-still-us-63780332 – it turned out Patreon still works for us. Also, I have finishing reorganization procedures now to minimize impact on our project. Everything will be fine I believe!
Despite of the political situation I’ll keep supporting your work as long as there exists a means to transfer money to you.
Please give notice when you are losing your patreon connection how I can transfer money to you in Russia (there should be still some rubles hidden in my papers from when I visited the URSS under Gorbatchov ;-P …, but I’ll guard those as memory of better times)
Keep up your good spirits and your inspiring work !