[OSGeo-Conf] FOSS4G 2014 Budget Sharing

Tue Jul 9 01:46:12 PDT 2013

David

Rebates are difficult to manage at a late stage. Some thoughts from me on additional value (but also not cleared with the rest of the 2013 LOC) are extra goodies/gifts, more entertainment, a communal charity donation and (perhaps the easiest to organise) beer vouchers.
______
Steven

On 8 Jul 2013, at 18:32, David Percy <percyd at pdx.edu> wrote:

> Steve,
> 
> I like your idea of " giving FOSS4G delegates additional value at the
> conference"! I have  been thinking of something along the same lines,
> but it hasn't gotten fully formulated yet...
> 
> I was toying with the idea [1] of proposing that if profits in excess
> of some amount, say $120K, rebates would go back to attendees. The
> hard part is figuring out how much to rebate, I think.
> 
> What mechanism were you thinking of for " giving FOSS4G delegates
> additional value at the conference"?
> Cheers,
> Percy
> 
> [1] I haven't talked to the rest of our Portland LOC about this, just
> throwing it out for discussion
> 
> On Mon, Jul 8, 2013 at 9:38 AM, Steven Feldman <shfeldman at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I don't want to comment on what "should" happen with regard to the current
>> bids but I thought it might help to provide some transparency about what
>> "will" happen with this year's FOSS4G conference
>> 
>> We published our budget in our proposal and in that we committed to a
>> minimum $23-63k contribution to OSGeo based upon a cautious forecast of
>> attendance levels. I have re-uploaded our proposal to
>> https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2wShPAd7pU4R2tYNWlqWS1hUFk/edit?usp=sharing
>> because the old site is no longer live.
>> 
>> We are paying our event organising partner, the Association for Geographic
>> Information, a very low 5% fee. Given fees quoted elsewhere I think we may
>> be under rewarding them.
>> 
>> We asked in our proposal for a share of the profit from the event to be
>> allocated to the local FOSS4G chapter but did not stipulate an amount
>> 
>> "Subject to exchange rates, total sponsorship income, and additional clarity
>> on some costs closer to the event, we hope to achieve a contribution to
>> OSGeo of approximately $30,000. However should we find during the run up to
>> conference that a larger surplus is likely, we will aim to share these
>> additional financial benefits with OSGeo, the OSGeo UK Chapter, and/or by
>> giving FOSS4G delegates additional value at the conference."
>> 
>> Today, thanks to fantastic sponsorship from all of these guys
>> http://2013.foss4g.org/sponsors/ and very encouraging bookings we should be
>> expecting a much larger surplus (I am not going to speculate in public as to
>> the level). Our costs in general are likely to be a little lower than
>> forecast.
>> 
>> We will be offering sponsor exhibition booths to OSGeo and to AGI
>> 
>> We thought we would need seed funding from OSGeo but in practice our first
>> sponsors paid us before we had any outgoings so we have been completely self
>> funded (although in theory OSGeo are on the hook if we made a loss - not
>> going to happen). We have insured against all the usual risks (except
>> delegates not booking) for ca. $3000
>> 
>> I hope that helps
>> ______
>> Steven
>> 
>> 
>> On 6 Jul 2013, at 23:13, Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com> 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.
>> 
>> --
>> Cameron Shorter
>> Geospatial Solutions Manager
>> Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
>> Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
>> 
>> Think Globally, Fix Locally
>> Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
>> http://www.lisasoft.com
>> 
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>> 
>> 
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> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> David Percy ("Percy")
> -Geospatial Data Manager
> -Web Map Wrangler
> -GIS Instructor
> Portland State University
> -gisgeek.pdx.edu
> -geology.pdx.edu
> -portlandpulse.org

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