Chris Brogan and I have been discussing the four rules of PodCamp and have agreed to expand this ruleset to include one more rule for current and future PodCamps, to insure continued trust from the new media community:
Rule 5: The financials of a PodCamp must be fully disclosed in an open ledger, except for any donor/sponsor who wishes to remain anonymous.
In recent discussions, we’ve talked about the value of transparency and trust, and having open books for all the world to see will continue to build on the trust the community places in PodCamp events. Except for anonymous donors, it’s expected that you’ll post a ledger detailing income and expenses down to a transactional level.
This doesn’t mean that you couldn’t make money off of PodCamp, but it does mean that you have to disclose it. If, as we did after PodCamp Boston, you have a balance of funds left over from a PodCamp, that’s fine – organizers are free to do with it as they wish, as long as it is disclosed. (For the record, the balance of funds from PodCamp Boston 1 are sitting in an ING Direct account awaiting use for PodCamp Boston 2.)
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