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

[Dave McIlhagga]

Bob,

With the right relationship in place - I think you can effectively achieve what you're striving for in partnership with LocationTech. That would allow OSGeo itself to stay focused as a light-weight organization focused more at the community and grass roots level (something more challenging to achieve at Eclipse), while benefiting from broader enterprise investment in open source geo being driven by LocationTech.

If everyone is smart about this -- there should be an easy win-win to be achieved here.

Dave


On 2013-02-25, at 8:25 AM, Bob Basques <bbasques at sharedgeo.org> wrote:

> 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.
>> 
>> 
> 
> <bbasques.vcf>_______________________________________________
> Board mailing list
> Board at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board