[Board] In-kind sponsorships

[Robert Bray]

I agree with everything said so far, Howard may have summed it up best. Let's not go down this path...

Bob

-----Original Message-----
From: board-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [mailto:board-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Howard Butler
Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2008 12:20 PM
To: OSGeo-Board List
Subject: Re: [Board] In-kind sponsorships

IMO, it would be foolish to go down this very slippery slope.  Members
who are active in committees and organization generate their own
visibility, and if it is seen that a business is committing a lot of
resources to allow someone to do stuff, that effort will be implicitly
recognized.

Recognizing in-kind effort presents a number of problems:

- Impossible to quantify
- We need money, do we not?
- Pretty much the entire OSGeo enterprise has been an in-kind endeavor
(except for the ED).  Do we recognize the past effort too?

If you want to be recognized as a sponsor, pony up.  If you want to
support OSGeo by providing some time, you can easily generate your own
recognition by being active and visible.


On Oct 22, 2008, at 1:01 PM, Ari Jolma wrote:

> IMO it would be foolish to turn down their offer only because "our
> system does not understand you" (very softwareish, though).
> Sponsoring is not just giving money. We just need an appropriate
> category for sponsors of this kind.
>
> Meanwhile, my sponsor-seeking efforts have not yet produced
> anything. My Nokia contact, however, forwarded the mail to somebody
> else, but commented that perhaps all Nokia's geospatial money went
> into buying Navteq.
>
> Regards,
>
> Ari
>
> Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo) kirjoitti:
>> I was asked by a potential sponsor if we would be able to designate
>> them as a sponsor without paying for a sponsorship position.
>> Instead, they were hoping to spend significant staff time working
>> with OSGeo committees or helping organise some local events - and
>> were hoping for recognition of their efforts.
>>
>> I explained that there is no current way to handle these kinds of
>> "in-kind" contributions and that many other people and companies
>> would also fall under this category.  If we went this route we
>> could potentially stand to lose a lot of the funding we need to
>> cover our real costs.  I promised to discuss it further with the
>> board, so here I am...
>>
>> Tyler
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>
>
> --
> Prof. Ari Jolma
> Environmental Management Information Technology
> Teknillinen Korkeakoulu / Helsinki University of Technology
> tel: +358 9 4511 address: POBox 5300, 02015 TKK, Finland
> Email: ari.jolma at tkk.fi URL: http://geoinformatics.tkk.fi
>
>
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