[OSGeo-Board] Fund raising

[Frank Warmerdam]

Arnulf Christl (CCGIS) wrote:
>> Thought I'd pass this along. This is a page from OpenOffice for
>> donating funds to OpenOffice.
>>
>> http://contributing.openoffice.org/donate.html
>>
>> Daniel Brookshier
> 
> I think that we need to address this topic with great care as we are in a
> different position than a single project or a set of projects that have
> already grown together for some time. For the time being some OSGeo
> projects compete for the same customers and in many cases companies are
> tied very much to *one* (*their*) software package. We should give this a
> good thought before thinking about how to distribute seomething we don't
> even yet have.

Arnulf,

Dealing with this reality was part of the rationale for my concept of
foundation sponsors being able to identify one or more projects that they
wish to support.  In this situation 2/3 of their sponsorship goes into a
fund for the exclusive use of that project, while the remainder is available
for general foundation overhead.

In this situation, the foundation would not normally direct general
foundation money to paying for development of a particular project.  Instead
general foundation funds would be directed to supporting common project
infrastructure, admin and legal support, paying for a community manager
or executive director, overall promotional efforts, various kinds of outreach
and so forth.

This way sponsors can ensure their support is mostly directed to a
particular project if they wish, and projects don't need to feel that
"their sponsors" money is being wasted on some other quixotic or competing
project.

Based on this scenario it benefits the foundation to attract projects
which are likely to attract sponsorship funds.

Note that none of the above precludes projects getting their own funding as
they do now.

I really like the part on the OpenOffice.org page that says "We strongly
prefer that people become contributors."  That is, contributions in kind
(programming, documentation, user support, outreach, bug isolation, etc)
is often much better than cash donations.  Certainly it is my hope that
volunteering will be the main form of individual contribution.

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