[OSGeo-Conf] Need to define rules for %age of backflow of FOSS4G surplus

[Eli Adam]

On Fri, Jan 3, 2020 at 2:22 PM Darrell Fuhriman <darrell at garnix.org> wrote:
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> I might flip Eli’s formulation a bit — say 90% to OSGeo on the first $100k, then 50/50 thereafter, or perhaps some “bonus structure”. If the primary goal is to help OSGeo, then the incentive structure should reflect that.
>

I'm in favor of "capping out" the total to the local chapter.  Unless
a local chapter has a particular method for spending the funds in some
useful way, I don't think that more than $10-30k is useful.  We should
evaluate any formulation with various surplus amounts ($10,000,
$60,000, $120,000, and $200,000+) to see how they play out and what
we're trying to achieve.

> As far as cost, it’s actually pretty hard to bring the cost down for a conference in the 1000-attendee size. The biggest knobs you have to turn are catering costs (i.e. don’t have food) and/or to bring in more sponsorship to subside the cost.
>

I think this is largely why we've not seen substantially different
proposals.  ~1,000 attendee conferences at a venue with catering more
or less sets the cost.

> For most attendees, the cost of travel is the bulk of the cost of attending. So while it certainly can make a difference at the margins, I’m not sure it’s the driving factor for most people. (This would actually be an excellent question to survey past and prospective attendees — having data around this would really help our decision-making.)
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> FWIW, I know I’m often the lone voice in the wilderness on the topic, but this is a good case for investing in an individual, even if part time, to help find sponsorship dollars. It’s a very specific skillset, one which the LOCs may often not have, and one that would really benefit from building and maintaining long-term relationships in a way the current model of throwing all new people in the mix every year doesn’t.
>

I think that there is more support for this than just you.  To tie
this back to our budget discussion, we could put a placeholder number
in for such a position and see where we go with it.  I'm in favor of
this but maybe we should start a new thread for that.

Best regards, Eli


> More sponsorship money = more money for OSGeo and cheaper costs for attendees.
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> Darrell
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>
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> On Jan 3, 2020, at 7:15 AM, Steven Feldman <shfeldman at gmail.com> wrote:
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> We should be clear that granting permission to host a global FOSS4G comes with an expectation of returning a material surplus to OSGeo to fund all of our activities.
>
> Eli’s suggestion sets a formula which helps to grow the local OSGeo chapter and channels the bulk of the surplus back to OSGeo.
>
> We may also wish to discuss how we balance the desire for a low cost of conference pass and a substantial travel grant programme to encourage accessibility with the need to generate surpluses to fund OSGeo. In the past ticket prices of $650 plus strong sponsorship have delivered surpluses of $100,000-200,000, unless we can increase conference sponsorship lower ticket prices will reduce the surplus.
> ______
> Steven
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> Unusual maps in strange places -  mappery.org
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>