[Board] OSGeo Priorities: Should OSGeo act as a high capital or low capital organisation?

[Bob Basques]

All,

Another possible route here may be to consider both options, high and low, maybe even starting up another organization, 
and/or partnering with other organizations to accomplish both tasks.  The reason for the suggestion of separate 
organizations is the same as being offered here for the two different paths, to keep things operating as is, as well as 
potentially expand operations and provide for project subsidies in some form.

bobb

On 02/25/2013 03:46 AM, Cameron Shorter wrote:
> In preparation for the OSGeo Board meeting in a bit over 24 hours, I'd like to suggest some talking points to help us 
> frame what we should focus on as priorities.
>
> Should OSGeo act as a high capital or low capital organisation?
>
> Ie, should OSGeo dedicate energy to collecting sponsorship and then passing out these funds to worth OSGeo causes.
> While initially it seems attractive to have OSGeo woe sponsors, because we would all love to have more money to throw 
> at worthy OSGeo goals, the reality is that chasing money is hard work. And someone who can chase OSGeo sponsorship is 
> likely conflicted with chasing sponsorship for their particular workplace. So in practice, to be effective in chasing 
> sponsorship, OSGeo will probably need to hire someone specifically for the role. OSGeo would then need to raise at 
> least enough to cover wages.
> This high capital path is how LocationTech are setting themselves up. It might be successful, but OSGeo is currently 
> not structured as a high capital organisation.
>
> The path which OSGeo is currently following is the low capital path. Our overheads are very low, which means we waste 
> very little of our volunteer labour on the time consuming task of chasing and managing money. Consequently, any money 
> we do receive (from conference windfalls or similar) goes a long way - and doesn't get eaten up by high overheads. I'd 
> argue that this low capital path is something that is working very well for us, and the path we should continue to 
> pursue.
>
> So what should be our financial priorities?
>
> 1. Our primary focus should be to back the major foss4g events, eg: the global foss4g, and regional foss4g events like 
> foss4g-na. This requires sufficient bank balance to guarantee conference loans. These events should also be our 
> primary source of income.
>
> 2. Our secondary income priority is to cover all the costs of running osgeo. Bank fees, insurance, infrastructure 
> hosting, etc.
>
> 2. Our tertiary focus should be to cover related smaller osgeo type events.
>
> 3. Then with any spare budget, we should use for incidental marketing type activities - paying for non-consumables at 
> conferences (banners etc).
> If we have budget, we could possibly also subsidise consumables (eg LiveDVD printing), but we should not give away 
> these things. We should be asking events to pay for these things, and we should not be paying conference organisors 
> for a booth at events.
>
>

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