The documents contained in this repository are used to establish a formal relationship between NumFOCUS and open source projects, where NumFOCUS acts as a "Fiscal Sponsor" for the projects. This means that NumFOCUS will act as a financial point of contact for the projects and will collect all donations, which are therefore tax deductible under US law. In return, the projects commit to only spending these funds in compliance with NumFOCUS' mission in support of open source scientific computing, education and reproducible research (the specific legal terms are indicated in the document body).
For more information on the concept of fiscal sponsorship under non-profit organizations, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_sponsorship.
An open source project that wishes to operate under the NumFOCUS umbrella will need to select a small "fiscal oversight team" comprised of 3 or 5 individuals related to the project. These individuals will sign this agreement and will act as the point of contact between NumFOCUS and the broader community and the active leadership structure of the project.
It is important to clarify the scope of this "fiscal oversight team": it is NOT a "board of directors" or otherwise leadership/guidance group for the project. Each project should maintain its own decision-making process, following its existing community and practices. The fiscal team is strictly the group of people who will have to approve requests to NumFOCUS for money, and who take the responsibility of saying "we think this expenditure is OK, given the NumFOCUS charter and the project's open source status". Specific details on the interaction between NumFOCUS and this team, as well as the guidelines on conflicts of interest that the team must respect, are provided in the full fiscal sponsorship agreement.