[Board] Activity Update...

[Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo)]

On 27-Jun-07, at 7:55 AM, Frank Warmerdam wrote:
>> There are a few items in there that are worth discussing over the  
>> next couple weeks - I'd love to hear your opinion, especially on  
>> the fundraising items.
>
> I was a bit surprised by "We've never had any real commitment to
> revenue targets - how many donors, how much from grants, who is
> responsible for doing it all,"

Wow - how'd I miss that?  I'd swear I've never seen that page before,  
but it's been around since last August!  I can only feign ignorance  
because I was still working at my other job ;)

It is exactly what we still needed for our 501c3 application:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Income_Projection

I have updated the blog as well as the Budget 2006/2007 page to have  
a link to this page.

I will roll these income projection numbers into the budget  
spreadsheet at some point.

> Clearly we either need to get some people interested in doing  
> fundraising
> or we need to radically revise our expected income potential.

I'll do a brief summary comparing the projections to actual results,  
for your reference.  Then we can revisit these goals regularly to see  
how we are doing.  It will be important over time to be able to show  
our success so that charitable status can be retained.

> PS. If we were to roll-up FunCom back into the board, how would
> non-board members get involved?

I don't have any real answers or plans to suggest, but can brainstorm  
a bit.  I think the key is to make it a priority for all board  
members to be more involved in FunCom or at least commit to working  
toward the fundraising goals.  It might be too easy to delegate the  
fundraising responsibilities to a committee and then not have to  
think about it as a Board until it is too late.  If we cannot meet  
these goals then, ultimately, the organisation isn't sustainable and  
the Board will be seen to have failed.  We could say it is the one  
committee that cannot be allowed to fail.

It could still be a Fundraising committee, but perhaps all board  
members could join.  Fundraising could also be added as recurring  
item on Board meeting agendas.  We could start a list of potential  
donors, available grants (is that started somewhere already?).

I'm just thinking out loud - that's why I'm curious what others have  
seen/done in other organisations.  With the FOSS4G local planning  
committee, we were all involved in finding sponsors together and it  
seemed to work well.

Any other ideas?

Tyler