TPF doesn't have a track record on actual spending money that's donated to them.

Agreed. Of the donation by Ian Hague, 100k USD are available for improving TPF infrastructure, finding more donors and so on. There have been two applications for parts of the money, but reading the TPF blog I haven't seen any results from either (I think the first one has been approved, but Richard lost interested. It galls me that we've never seen a decision from TPF on the second one).