[OpenLayers-Dev] Spending Sponsorship Money

[John R. Frank]

> [1] http://trac.openlayers.org/wiki/Sponsorship/Uses

I like the idea of Marketing Materials because it implies a strategic goal 
of marketing, such as achieving market share or reaching new target 
audiences.  Rather than listing t-shirts, handouts, and case studies as 
the top items in this list, I think it would be helpful to identify the 
goal of these materials as overarching uses of funds.

A benefit of identifying goals for funds is that, if properly selected, 
they enable the project to point to achievements enabled by sponsorship 
dollars.  It's tough to raise money when past money was spent merely on 
t-shirts;  it's much easier to raise money when past money "enabled the 
project to achieve __strategic_goal___" (the implementation of which 
happened to have involved t-shirts).

Another benefit of having "goals for funds" is that it makes it much 
easier for the governing body (in this case, the PSC) to make rational 
choices between alternative implementations of achieving the goal --- this 
is especially important in non-profit organizations where cash is in short 
supply and financial profits are not present to provide a similar filter.


Here are some candidates that I'm making up off the top of my head.

Please critique:


  * enable OpenLayers to boost new user counts to XX or by XX percent

  * enable OpenLayers to reach developers in ___ region that needs OL

  * enable OpenLayers to reduce the cost of diving into the OL code base as 
measured by number of new developers actively buildinig code in sandboxes

  * enable OpenLayers to obtain press coverage in the ___ market's key 
journals (__, __, and ___)

  * enable OpenLayers to expand its developer outreach to more "developer 
hotspots" as measured by the number of new Code Bunker Leaders starting 
code bunker series in cities where no code bunker has happened before.


... I'm sure there are more that somebody will come up with :-)



> already off to a very good start.

Indeed.  Great work!


jrf