[OSGeo-Board] Fund raising

[Gary Lang]

Parsing the inevitable seems like a tricky thing though. Like a broken
record, I want to ask: What does Apache do?

Gary 

-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel Brookshier [mailto:dbrookshier at collab.net] 
Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2006 10:26 AM
To: board at board.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Board] Fund raising

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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