[Board] thoughts on fundraising strategy docs

[Jo Walsh]

dear Tyler, Boardlings,

I read with interest the Fundraising Strategy document,
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Fundraising_Strategy

While it sets out a lot of useful context, I don't think it's quite 
achieving its purpose as a doc meant to bootstrap direct fundraising 
efforts by the OSGeo Board, Committee members etc.

http://www.osgeo.org/sponsorship talks about cultural reasons why an 
OSGeo sponsorship should be desirable, justifiable for an organisation.

What I think is missing from both is a discussion of goals and outcomes 
for OSGeo that drive the fundraising effort. When I sponsor, what goals 
will my money be put towards supporting?

Right, there are the OSGeo Goals set out on this page: 
http://www.osgeo.org/content/foundation/about.html

There's lots of goals, some of them the foundation may not be working 
very actively on (binary packaging, curriculum dev). The expenditures 
will be time spent maintaining infrastructure, doing inreach and 
outreach, editing teaching and learning material, etc.

Thinking about outcomes too, because that helps to prioritise spending 
and thus focus on the more winnable or critical goals. Such as a ratio 
of Open Source GIS usage within University courses, or commercial 
training courses, in at least a few countries, or documentation coverage 
at a certain level for all incubating projects, or state-collected 
geographic data available openly for at least N countries...

Which of the goals can OSGeo influence now? Which are being taken care 
of by other orgs? Are there new goals, some members have talked about 
attempting to influence policy and participate in government projects.
Is that anathema to the current Board?

I would also think about publishing a more tactical plan for the next 
year or two - a brief rough outline of where the areas of focus or work 
and resources will be. That would be for sponsors' benefit, also updated 
to match the pace of progress towards goals, each year.

cheers,


jo <-- feeling a bit pointy headed, mid-life crisis maybe? :)
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