[OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo Annual General Meeting

[Frank Warmerdam]

Michael P. Gerlek wrote:
> - Funding-- I have learned a lot and now a very different mental model
> of OSGeo today than I had 12-18 months ago.  Nonetheless, some funding
> is required to better support our activities.  How can we best do this?
> Possibilities include: small number of big corporate donations, large
> number of small member donations, non-profit style grant monies, ...

Michael,

I'd like to insert "a medium number of medium sized sponsorships from
a broad assortment of organizations" as an option!  In particular, I'd
love to see many consulting/integrator/solutions companies, and end
user organizations (government, etc) sponsoring osgeo in the 5-10K
range.

I think this is more practical than expecting individuals to support
the organization financially, when we are already asking them to do a
variety of voluntary work.  And by soliciting many more modest sized
sponsorships, I think we defuse concerns about us being beholden to a
big corporate interests.

I also think there are a lot of companies and end user organizations
who are benefiting from the software and who can benefit from it being
well supported.

This is, generally, the approach I've been taking with GDAL sponsorships
(through OSGeo).  That is going for a number of medium sized ones rather
than a few whoppers.

I will admit I've had better luck interesting organizations in project
sponsorships where they easily connect the dots from their money going
in, to useful features/stability returning to them.

Best regards,
-- 
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | President OSGeo, http://osgeo.org