[Fundraising] Just some thoughts about justifying expenses

[Frank Warmerdam]

paul at warriner.us wrote:
> This brings me to a point of rumination, (ok, the whole thing is rumination)
> but, anyway is it "the chicken or the egg" syndrome for local goverments to
> use open source. Do I have the staff to do the work, or can I find the
> people who can do it?
> 
> The big question: If they give a foundation money, what is it going to do
> for them, or the greater good? The exact form of the question depends on
> whether it is a political year? :)

Paul,

I think your big question is multi-part:

1) If they (local government OSGeo users) give the foundation money, what
    is it going to do for them.

    A: Directly, likely not too much.  It is helping sustain the projects on
       which they depend, and gives them some influence in the directions of
       the project, and bug fixing priority.  But these are fairly diffuse
       benefits.

2) If they give the foundation money, what is it going to do for the greater
    good?

    A: It will support and sustain the projects on which they and other
       similar organizations depend, growing the ecosystem.

3) Does it depend on whether it is a political year?

    A: While there may be political benefits to good GIS service delivery,
       freeing local data and such, I can't imagine many local votes will
       ever be influenced by an OSGeo sponsorship.   So, I can't see much of
       a *direct* political connection between OSGeo sponsorship and local
       politics.

Because the promotional benefits of OSGeo sponsorship are not going to be
meaningful to local governments I think the main selling point would have to
be helping sustain the software (sort of a good citizen sort of thing), and
the opportunity to have influence on bug fixing and software direction.
For a rich enough local government that may be justfiable, but generally
speaking I think that will be a hard sell unless there are particular
headaches the local government is running into that they think we may fix
with encouragement.

I *suspect* a more useful approach for local governments would be for them
to sign support contracts for open source software pacakges with a consulting
organization (hopefully reasonably local), and then having that consulting
company purchase an OSGeo sponsorship.  For the consulting company the
sponsorship hopefully provides a promotional benefit as well as some
influence.

I would like to see savvy municipal governments asking about OSGeo
sponsorship.  Stuff like "do you sponsor OSGeo?", "are you involved in
development and bug fixes on the projects?".

The downside to this approach is that it is less direct.  One consulting
company might service several local governments but there is only one
sponsorship for OSGeo out of it.  But I think that is ok as long as we can
get to the point where the consulting companies see sponsorship and other
project involvement as helpful to them in gaining credibility with potential
clients.   It will mean that it will take a pretty large end-user base to
support enough consultants to support OSGeo. :-)

Paul - do you think it is practical to get local governments to look for,
and ask about involvement in OSGeo when looking for consulting support?
Sort of a "branding" for consultants?

I think it would be helpful if we can make "osgeo.org" a goto place for end
user organizations to get information, and then provided reasonably prominent
positioning on the site for sponsors.

Note that projects like MapServer have always depended on technically astute
consulting organizations like DM Solutions to do a lot of the technical work.
I like to think of sponsorship as a way for smaller consulting organizations
that can't contribute staff developer time to contribute in a meaningful way
and demonstrate their support and involvement in the community.

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 OSGF, http://osgeo.org