OSGeo-Board IRC Pointer

[Frank Warmerdam]

Gary Lang wrote:
> (Adding missing addressees)
> 
> Incubation: We don't need to settle it, just touch on it, since people
> are asking. We need to have a position on it.

Gary,

Fair enough.

> " I claim that we aren't aiming for substantial amounts of money in
> personal contributions to support the foundation so 501c3 status will
> not be a significant benefit."
> 
> Define "substantial" first. You were in the funding group. How would you
> raise the $150K, for example?

We did not account for it in detail.  There were claims by some folks
there (ie. me) that they could bring in 50-75K in sponsorships, but it is
not at all clear how far that would go.

I'm hoping for something like:

  $75K in sponsorships without a specific project affiliation
  $225K in project directed sponsorships, so netting $75 to the
        foundation in general.

I had posited three sponsorship levels:

  silver: $3000 USD
  gold: $9000 USD
  platinum: $27000 USD

While I can think of lots of organizations that could be convinced
to offer $3000 USD/yr, and a few that might be convinced at the $9000
level, I'm not sure how one goes about selling platinum sponsorships.
My operating theory has been that the primary benefit the foundation
would offer "user" organizations is better maintenance of the software
that might save them a significant fraction of a staffer that would
have been committed to solving problems internally otherwise.

I won't kid you, I think sustaining $150K in foundation level funding
will be challenging.

The funding group considering membership fees, but even if we sold 1000
$20 memberships, that is still only $20K.   Not completely insignificant,
but not going all that far towards supporting the organization. We also
talked about something like a $200 membership fee, but again this just
seemed to be skinning the wrong cat.  We also talked about:

  o swag (teeshirts, etc): not convinced this would actually net any
    significant amount of money.
  o certification: very complicated (expensive) to setup, and not convinced
    we could produce much money this way.
  o conference: trying to make money off this seemed anti-thetical to our
    goal of it being a gathering of the tribes, and accessable to all comers.
    to the extent that a profit can be made on some participants, it was felt
    this should be channelled to help others who might not otherwise be able
    to afford it come.

I do still like the idea of a friends of the foundation kind of associate
membership, perhaps at the $20 level.  In fact, I would like to propose
that what we have been calling "members" be called "trustees" and that
what we had been calling "associate members" or "friends of the foundation"
be called "members".  I think that highlights the responsibility level of
the trustees and reduces the feeling of marginalization of members.

Best regards,
-- 
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I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent