[Board] Questions about "Local Chapter Sponsor"

[Dave McIlhagga]

Thanks Venka for continuing to bring this to our attention.

Venka and I had a very good discussion on this issue -- and I believe we 
came to a common conclusion on a way forward. Some things I think we can 
all agree on:

1. In order for OSGeo to be successful, some level of core funding to 
support it is essential. This must be a very high priority for the 
organization, or many of the initiatives we have started (including 
local chapters) will suffer significantly.

2. In addition to direct sponsorship at the International Foundation 
level, local chapters can also be successful in soliciting sponsorship 
for the local chapters.

3. Prospective Local Sponsors recognize additional value from 
recognition at the International Foundation levels.

4. We collectively want to preserve a strong degree of local autonomy 
for Chapters - respecting cultural, language and geographic differences.


My recommendation is that we have a "Local Sponsorship" program that 
allows local chapters to directly sponsor the International Foundation 
on behalf of their members and local sponsors. This would have to be 
completely optional as many chapters would not be interest in this.

I think we could also maintain the current sponsorship levels so 
Chapters could sponsor at any of the levels that they choose.


If this is successful -- i think it can satisfy all 4 of the goals from 
above.

Suggestions, Thoughts?

Dave
-- 
Dave McIlhagga
President & CEO, DM Solutions Group

http://www.dmsolutions.ca/premiere/
EMail : dmcilhagga at dmsolutions.ca
Phone : 613-565-5056 x15
Fax : 613-565-0925

Venkatesh Raghavan wrote:
> Please read below
> 
> Frank Warmerdam wrote:
>>> Venkatesh Raghavan wrote:
>>>> I think that it is better to add a new category
>>>> "Local Chapter Sponsors" in 
>>>> http://www.osgeo.org/content/sponsorship/sponsorship.html
>>>> based on the feedback to this mail and summary below
>>>> and help clarify things to people who would like
>>>> to sponsor local OSGeo chapter activities.
> ...
> 
>> I misread your above point the first time, and thought you were asking
>> to have local sponsors listed on the osgeo sponsor page.  There is a
>> page on the web site where we try to list all sponsorship opportunities
>> related to OSGeo and I think it would be a great idea to offer links to
>> local chapter sponsorship opportunities from there too as long as local
>> chapters have established some sort of organized program.  This page 
>> is at:
>>
>>   http://www.osgeo.org/sponsorship/opportunities
>>
>> Currently it is hard to find, but I believe Tyler is going to make it 
>> more
>> prominent.
> 
> I think we can even think of a special sponsorship category "Local 
> Chapter Sponsor". Maybe the local chapter returns a part of the
> sponsorship to OSGeo (20%, 15%, 25% or whatever). The special
> sponsorship category can me included in
> http://www.osgeo.org/content/sponsorship/sponsorship.html
> 
> and displayed at
> http://www.osgeo.org/content/sponsorship/sponsors.html
> 
> What is going to happen to local chapter domain names
> 
> china.osgeo.org
> india.osgeo.org
> japan.osgeo.org
> 
> Maybe logos of "Local Chapter Sponsors" can be displayed
> more prominently in the local chapter pages and
> a bit less prominent mention in the OSGeo page too
> 
> At the end of the day, the more local chapters flourish the
> more OSGeo will flourish, I believe.
> 
> Regards
> 
> Venka
> 
> 
> 
> 
>