[OSGeo-Conf] FOSS4G 2014 Budget Sharing

[Andrew Ross]

Cameron,

Regarding point 3:

  * Visibility is tied to sponsorship. Thanks again Peter clarifying
    that OSGeo gets a free booth. This wasn't mentioned in the RFP but
    it shouldn't be a problem.
  * In terms of the presentations, the program committee decides on
    which talks get accepted. The committee operates at arm's length
    from various influences such as sponsorship for example.
  * For these reasons, I think  3 is clearly orthogonal to contrasting
    the proposals at hand.


With regards to points 2 & 4:

For what it's worth, nowhere in the RFP does it state all profit should 
go to OSGeo. The only discussion of profit in the Evaluation criteria 
says "Does the conservative budget estimate result in a reasonable 
profit." Our committee's budget for Washington D.C. provides this and 
planned payments comparable to past FOSS4G events.

Some numbers from the budget approved for our bid:
For 900 attendees, a payment of *$50K* to OSGeo leaves *$16.6K.*
For 1K attendees, a payment of *$75K* to OSGeo  leaves *$11K*.

For reference, this is what the posted OSGeo budgets say about past 
payments from FOSS4G:

Nottingham (2013), TBD

Beijing (2012), *$0* due to cancellation.

Denver (2011), *$100K* total spread across fiscal 2011 and 2012:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/images/8/83/OSGeo-Budget-2012-Final-20120205.pdf
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_Budget_2011

Barcelona (2010), *$27K*:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_Budget_2010

Sydney (2009), *$12K*:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_Budget_2009

South Africa (2008), *$10K*
As per Gavin Fleming. Each organization received a 33% share of profit 
including OSGeo.

Victoria (2007), *$100K*
As per Dave Patton.

We don't have numbers for Lausanne at the moment.

Andrew

On 07/06/2013 06:13 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote:
> On 07/07/13 04:55, Paul Ramsey wrote:
>> On Sat, Jul 6, 2013 at 6:15 AM, Andrew Ross <andrew.ross at eclipse.org> 
>> wrote:
>>> I've always wondered how this worked for past events as it seemed quite
>>> secretive. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in the community in this 
>>> regard.
>> With the exception of South Africa, in which a joint agreement was
>> arranged ahead to time to share with GISSA, all the other "OSGeo era"
>> (2007+) FOSS4G events have returned all profits to OSGeo. The profit
>> "targets" in the RFP are to make explicit that we don't necessarily
>> want to-the-bone break-even budgets, we want budgets that will, under
>> reasonable assumptions, return revenue to the organization. They are
>> not the maximum or average profit we want, they are the minimum
>> planning threshold. The organization still expects to receive the full
>> profits of the event, RFP numbers notwithstanding.
>>
>> Though a familiar industry group (GITA) helped organize FOSS4G 2011,
>> they did so as a standard conference organizing organization: their
>> fee structure was known ahead of time and was in the budget from the
>> start. That they also knew our industry as well as event organizing
>> was a handy bonus, but not germane to the financial arrangements.
>>
>> I would expect that if the Eclipse foundation is looking for a profit
>> sharing arrangement like GISSA, it should be included in the proposal
>> with some precision (X%), and if they are going to act, like GITA, as
>> an organizer, their fee schedule should be in the budget.
>>
>> P.
>> _______________________________________________
>> Conference_dev mailing list
>> Conference_dev at lists.osgeo.org
>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev
>
> Thanks Paul, that is great background. So bridging between Paul's 
> background and Eclipse's involvement in the Washington proposal.
>
> 1. Eclipse is acting as a PCO, and have factored staff costs into the 
> budget (as GITA). Fee for service. All good, but no justification for 
> profit sharing.
>
> 2. Eclipse is offering a depth of experience with Open Source 
> conferences, including attracting sponsors. Profit sharing could be a 
> form of payment in this regard, but I would expect an offset reduction 
> in fixed price labour costs.
>
> 3. Of note, FOSS4G will offer significant marketing value to the 
> Eclipse Foundation. I assume the Eclipse Foundation intending to 
> include logos in the program, have a presentation, have signage at the 
> event? What would that equate to as a sponsor of the event?
>
> 4. The Eclipse Foundation is offering OSGeo insurance against loss at 
> the FOSS4G event, where key risk items are loss of key personnel, poor 
> management, low attendance, and low sponsorship.
> * Loss of key personnel, and risk of poor management has been 
> mitigated in both proposals through the identification of strong teams.
> * Risk of low attendance under normal circumstances is relatively low, 
> as we already know the US region can attract ~ 900 delegates.
> * Risk of low attendance due to unforeseen events (such as the GFC, or 
> 9/11) is unlikely but can have a large impact. Is insurance being 
> taken out for these sort of eventualities?
> * Risk  of low sponsorship is a definite possibility, mitigated by 
> Eclipse's experience attracting such sponsorship in the past.
>
> What is the risk mitigation worth? I'd love to see metrics for the 
> items above applied to justify a percentage.
> My gut feeling is it is worth 10% of the profit. I'd entertain 20% of 
> the profit. I feel that 50% of the profit is ripping OSGeo off.
>

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