[OSGeo-Board] Fund raising

[Daniel Brookshier]

In terms of support, monitory donations go to a general fund. Direct  
donations toward specific projects is done through dedicated  
personnel (or some percentage) and equipment. Inevitably there is a  
flow toward projects that best serve the greater community and those  
projects used by both supporters and community.

Daniel Brookshier
Community Manager
214-207-6614

On Feb 15, 2006, at 10:15 AM, Gary Lang wrote:

> It makes total sense to attribute some value to the foundation in this
> manner.
>
> I'd like to get a broad view on what the right amount of "overhead"  
> is,
> as this was expressed as a key concern by the community. If 1/3 is
> standard, then great. I have no idea. DanielB - any background you can
> share?
>
> Gary
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Frank Warmerdam [mailto:fwarmerdam at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Frank
> Warmerdam (External)
> Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2006 7:45 AM
> To: board at board.osgeo.org
> Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Board] Fund raising
>
> 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,
> -- 
> --------------------------------------- 
> +--------------------------------
> ---------------------------------------+------
> 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
>
>
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