[Fundraising] First Meeting - May 9th

[Dave McIlhagga]

Frank,

I am able to attend.

Dave

Frank Warmerdam wrote:
> Folks,
> 
> I had sort of intended to have a launch meeting for the Fundraising
> committee today, but I see I botched the date in the wiki and I didn't
> send out any sort of reminder.  So I would like to suggest we have a
> formational meeting on May 9th, at 1600UTC (12:00noon EST) in IRC.  Does
> that sound ok?
> 
> The agenda is at:
> 
>   http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/FunComMeeting1
> 
> Please feel free to add agenda items.
> 
> I am presuming our main focus will be ironing out a sponsorship 
> program.  My
> initial proposal is at:
>   http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Sponsorship
> 
> But there is lots of room for changes, and improvements.  Areas in which
> I can see we need to work are:
> 
>  o Have we picked appropriate price points?  Are discrete sponsorship 
> levels
>    the way to go?
> 
>  o Are there ways we can name and position the sponsorship program to 
> make it
>    easier for friendly folks in organizations to sell it to management?
>    (ie. "maintenance fees" are a well understand cost item in most orgs).
> 
>  o When we first floated the mapserver foundation idea Ed stressed the
>    importance to potential sponsors to get in on the first big press
>    deluge to get the most value out of a sponsorship.  Obviously we are
>    to late for that for OSGeo, but should we be making sure that anyone 
> that
>    wants to has a chance to get into the first big sponsorship press 
> release?
>    (ie. founding sponsors) rather than starting to get sponsorships in a
>    trickle.
> 
>  o Much of my thinking has been around positioning sponsorship as a way
>    for organizations reliant on foundation projects to providing
>    sustaining financing to improve the core quality of the software with
>    a hint of preferrential support access, with promotional benefit thrown
>    in for good measure.  Do we really need two programs?  One aimed at
>    those wanting a promotional benefit (perhaps not project specific?) and
>    another that is a bit like a support/maintenance contract without much
>    in the way of guaranteed service levels?
> 
>  o How do we organize our approach to organizations so as not to mess 
> things
>    up. I'm a bit nervous about a bunch of folks running around bugging
>    companies without a unified sales job, possibly giving a negative
>    impression of the foundation.  How do we avoid that?
> 
>  o How soon do we want a sponsorship program up and running?  I must 
> admit to
>    be eager, though you might not be able to tell that from my level of
>    activity in leading this committee!  In particular, I'm eager to start
>    approaching my clients for OSGeo sponsorships (oriented to supporting 
> GDAL)
>    so I can turn some of that money around into a maintainence contract for
>    GDAL over the summer.  I have someone in mind that I'm paying out of my
>    own pocket through May.
> 
>  o What other fundraising angles should we be pursuing?
> 
>  o What level of income are we targetting? I've put up the number $200000US
>    per year in non-project specific funding as an objective.  To me that
>    seems somewhat ambitious but perhaps some ambition is called for.
> 
>  o I would like us to have a more concrete story for sponsors on what we
>    intend to spend the money on.  Currently we are rather vague on this 
> point.
>    Perhaps we should even look at mocking up a budget with the support 
> of the
>    board that we would use at a couple income levels (say at $100K and 
> $200K).
> 
>  o Assuming we allow project directed sponsorship, what sorts of controls
>    should we be putting into place on PSC's spending their dedicated funds
>    to ensure the use is responsible?  I think sponsors will expect the
>    foundation to ensure orderly and responsible use of the money.
> 
> Hmm, well that seems like lots to address!
> 
> I would like to encourage lots of discussion on the list in advance of our
> first meeting.
> 
> Best regards,