[OSGeo-Discuss] Working together on fundraising?

[Paolo Cavallini]

Il 05/06/2011 07:06, Tyler Mitchell ha scritto:
> Here are the four "traditional" opportunities where fundraising focus takes place - but I'm sure you can think of more creative ones too!
> * Foundation Sponsorship
> * Project sponsorship
> * FOSS4G conference sponsorship
> * General donations
> 
> Other ideas out there:
> * Set up a certification or training program
> * Add a paid membership level
> * Run more events through OSGeo
> * Sell more merchandise
> *... what are your thoughts?
> 
> See attached graph of survey results showing the top 6 selections the 160+ respondents provided.
> 
> Interested in any of these?  Have more ideas of your own?  Let's start an informal group to work on the ideas.  Even if you only have the occasional idea or tip, please don't hesitate.  The previous committee helped assemble the basic Foundation and Project sponsorship ideas that we've had for the past 4 years, we can build on this and put some new strategic direction in place if there is interest.
> 
> It's hard for anyone to consider fundraising on their own without support behind them for the initiative, so if you need to talk privately or have ideas you would like to discuss off-list, just let me know and I'll be glad to work with you on it.   If there are a couple more people interested, then I could set up a skype voice meeting to kick around some more ideas - I just need to know who's interested.  It certainly can be a lot of fun too - especially the brainstorming side, so don't let the financial aspect scare you off ;-)

We @QGIS have a rather different experience. We have a donation program which helped
us to raise small but useful money (without that it would be much more difficult to
have our regular developer meetings), and helps building up a sense of community.
Larger sponsorships and funding are IMHO easier to accommodate, what we need is a way
of making it easier and more productive to have microdonation, both aspecific ("I
like your project, I'm sending a few dollars to express my gratitude") and specific
("I think it is important to fix bug #xxx, please add this money to the pile, to help
motivating a developer to fix it").
All the best.
-- 
Paolo Cavallini: http://www.faunalia.it/pc