[Board] Sponsorship funding and value for money

[Jo Walsh]

dear all,

At this last OGC meeting in Stresa a couple of attendees asked me questions 
about how the Foundation is supporting itself, and what the sponsorship
programme looks like. The OGC organisation reminds us all of what changes 
in decision-making patterns have to be made when high level of expenditure
renders a not-for-profit beholden to the requirements of its sponsors,
so as to maintain "bella figura" as an entity and to support its constituency.

There's one big research consultancy who are heavy users and ideally resellers  
of OSGeo software. Their client base has v.specific requirements which our
projects could help them model while indirectly benefiting, and this 
could be a golden opportunity to try out their interest in a sponsorship.

However, right now I am reserved about asking for a whole complex of reasons.
Right now, the Foundation is not suffering. There are no specific projects
that I know of going unsupported for a lack of resources. To approach a new
significant sponsor I would want to be sure that everyone would get 
the best possible value for money. Are we investing our money well now?

Tyler's last ED report gave me some pause for thought, enough that I went to
visit the description of our collective aims for the position, on the wiki:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Executive_Director

Many of these tasks are being successfully sustained by volunteer effort. 
The last, "Help plan and implement running infrastructure needs", was written
at a time of crisis in the running of the OSGeo infrastructure, when it 
critically needed fulltime planning and support; the teething stages 
now appear to be over. 

Tyler's list also includes a fair bit of administrative detail - the 
mechanical running of bank accounts and legal filings - which isn't 
in this description, but perhaps should be included there for clarity.

There is one neglected item that concerns me: "Be responsible for 
mentoring and assisting fundraising process, grantwriting". Since FunCom 
was dissolved with a resolution to give the responsibility to the
Board outright, there has been no more action. Correct me if this is wrong,
but i thought there was a tacit general understanding that the ED 
would have to invest a certain amount of time - up to 10%-25% -
in fundraising for the job to exist. A conundrum, but a necessary one; 
busy volunteers aren't going to bust a gut to fundraise to support a 
paid position, especially when there is no budgetary pressure to do so.

We have a strange luxury, which is the guaranteed 30,000USD/quarter 
from Autodesk up until the end of financial year 2008. This gets a bit
Catch-22, because after this time Autodesk hope to "scale back" to what the 
Foundation needs to meet its operating expenses, but while we have that
luxury, and the other sponsorships are enough to support systems running
expenses and a small marketing budget, one lacks incentive to fundraise.

We-the-Board also have, at any scale of financial committment, a responsibility
to ensure that sponsors are happy with their investment (if good vibes
are all they are getting out of it, then at least they are getting those.)
And a responsibility to all the members and the projects to ensure that
contributed money is being spent for the best cost/benefit we can manage. 
If we had 3 or 4 times current income, I still want to see all of it well spent.
Autodesk's generosity has allowed us all to be a bit lazy about decisionmaking.

Right now I would not feel comfortable taking Company X's money on the basis
that it would support the current responsibilities of the ED position. 
There is a level of "inward-lookingness" in the remit which was fine 
for the couple of years of OSGeo's life, but as we grow, that changes. 

Conference and event attendance is described as a "support role" for the ED.
The events on Tyler's schedule seem like inward-looking ones, open-source 
meetings organised by local chapters; not the kind of "industry" events
at which OSGeo may need to "represent". OSGeo community members who are
nearer to events in Osaka, Girona, etc could be promoting OSGeo this way,
with more guarantee of future continuity and common work, from their own 
pockets; saving the considerable ED travel budget for representation
"upstream" in groups which are Open Source curious, but not sympathetic.

It is great to have all this community-building going on, it can be 
seen as a longterm future investment in a general "education" way,
and in the meantime, we don't have anything better to spend the money on.
But that situation will end reasonably abruptly at the end of the 2008
financial year, unless we can demonstrate to ADSK, to other potential
significant sponsors, and to the membership, that supporting a fulltime ED 
is good value for money.

Well, I know that the expand-or-contract debate has been a constant 
thread through OSGeo's history, and I don't want to see simply yet
another iteration of it now. But i see the sponsor-security conundrum
above as likely to limit options and force decisions in a year. I want 
us to work with Tyler to find ways in which his ED work can show more 
measurable public impact and return on investment. 

This has been an awkward email to write, but I hope you will understand.


jo
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