Re: Premium sponsor ship offerings [WAS Re: recruiting sponsors]

["Jaap A. Haitsma" <jaap haitsma org>]

On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 23:22, Stormy Peters<stormy gnome org> wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 2:28 PM, Jaap A. Haitsma <jaap haitsma org> wrote:
> > Hi Stormy,
> >
> > I like this idea of having "Premium GNOME Foundations sponsorship"
> > In my opinion it would be best to have this as an extra option for
> > companies
> >
> > I'd start with revising the standard sponsorship fees by having more
> > levels depending on company size
> > 1000$ < 10 employees
> > 2500$ < 25 employees
> > 5000$ < 100 employees
> > 10000$ < 1000 employees
> > 20000$ > 1000 employees
>
> I think this is complicated. I think just 2-3 options is much simplier.

Many people liked this option when we discussed it compared to the old system
5000$ < 50
10000$ > 50

If you think 5 are too many I'd go for 3
1000$ < 10 employees
5000$ < 100 employees
20000$ > 1000 employees


> > "Premium sponsorship" would be something you pay on top of that
> > There are basically two options
> > 1) Fixed amount of say 10K$. This seems a bit unfair for small
> > companies, but also sponsorship of conferences etc. do not look at the
> > size of the company if you want to be gold, silver or bronze sponsor.
>
> When sponsoring a conference they all get the same amount of benefit in
> advertising regardless of how big they are. Often concessions are made for
> the type of company (nonprofit, profit, etc) rather than the size of the
> company.
> > Also if we decide to give "Premium sponsor" something that costs
> > dollars we need to make sure that the extra premium fee covers this.
> > Another argument for a fixed fee that is not too low is that Premium
> > sponsorship  should also be really a Premium. If everybody takes it
> > it's standard not premium
>
> No, the whole idea is that premium is a way to charge more in one fee. I saw
> it more to simplify the approval process within the company.

OK, in that case we really should look at what the potential costs
could be and make the fee such that we can't be loosing money on it.
> > 2) A percentage of the normal fee (let's say 100%). That would mean
> > that companies over 1000 employees would pay 20K on top of the 20K
> > they already pay for the normal fee. The change from 10K to 40K seems
> > a bit steep to me, but you don't have to become a premium sponsor if
> > you don't want to. Furthermore it could be the case that if we get
> > manyPremium sponsors that are companies of less than 10 people,
> > because for them it's just 1000$ to become a premium
>
> I think that's too complicated.

I agree I just wanted to bring up the option
> > I'm leaning towards a fixed Premium of 10K$, but if others have
> > convincing arguments to do it differently I'm all open for it
>
> We currently charge $10K. I wouldn't think we'd charge a "premium" fee but
> rather have a premium package that includes all the normal things and then
> some.

My idea for a premium fee was to help smaller companies. If you say a
premium package costs 30K it will be to expensive for small companies.
For a company with less than 10 people paying 1000$ a year (in my
proposal) paying an extra fee of say 10K$ might be worth it, when
there are perks like travel vouchers etc.

> > Some more inline comments about ideas for the package below.
> >
> > > 2) Create a set of GNOME Foundation sponsorship offerings. I recently
> > > worked
> > > with one of our sponsors to create a "Premium GNOME Foundation
> > > sponsorship"
> > > which included an adboard seat (that they already had) and GUADEC
> > > sponsorship. While the end amounts ended up being the same, it was
> > > easier
> > > for them to get internal approval for the package deal.
> > >
> > > So we could identify all the different benefits and package them up.
> > > Different packages could be targetted at different types and sizes of
> > > companies with advisory board seats being in packages targetting
> > > companies
> > > closely involved with GNOME products. (And we can always make
> > > exceptions.)
> > >
> > > Here's some of the benefits we could offer: (in return for a specified
> > > donation)
> > > * advisory board seat
> >
> > Should not be automatically the case in my opinion, but we could make
> > it a pre requisite (at least for new adboard members)
>
> If it's a prereq, how do they get it? We could also customize the option for
> each sponsor. So the web page could say "advisory board seat (requires
> approval or upon invitation)

I agree we should put "advisory board seat (requires approval)" that
in the package

I If we invite non premium sponsor company X to be in the advisory
board we should ask them to become premium sponsor


> > > * monthly meetings with key contributors on product plans (kind of like
> > > our
> > > current monthly adboard meetings)
> >
> > I have my doubts if the sponsors are interested in this, and might
> > also be not that easy to setup
>
> They would be! We have monthly meetings now and the most well attended are
> the product related ones.

OK, you know better. So we should include it.

> > > * annual face-to-face meetings with other advisory board members
> >
> > Probably best to do something around GUADEC. You invite them a day
> > earlier (travel on their own cost) and have a meeting plus dinner
> > (dinner on cost of the foundation). Furthermore you can explain them
> > what the foundation has been doing and what the plans are. Furthermore
> > you could have some key contributors present explaining directions and
> > to whom the sponsors can ask questions.
>
> We do this now. I was just trying to enumerate all the things we do ...

Great
> > > * travel vouchers for x number of employees to attend GUADEC or
> > > hackfests
> >
> > I don't see why we would ask them for sponsoring if afterwards we give
> > the money (or at least a signifcant part of it) back
>
> Again, it's packaging. The team that is sponsoring the GNOME Foundation
> might have a fixed budget that includes a certain amount of money for
> travel. Having open source developers that might typically need to travel
> more than regular proprietary software developers is often a strain on their
> regular travel budget and requires special approval. Enabling them to lump
> some of the costs of their open source developers travel into their
> sponsorship might be a benefit to them. (And if they don't take advantage of
> it, we can use the money for others' travel.)

OK.

> > > * hackfest sponsorship (would add $5K to the fee and would guarentee
> > > sponsorship of one)
> >
> > Good idea
> >
> > > * hackfest sponsorship opportunity (we'd invite them to sponsor them as
> > > they
> > > came up)
> >
> > > * GUADEC sponsorship
> > I think it's best to organize big events like this seperate and work
> > with seperate sponsors. I think it has worked out so far. Furthermore
> > leaving it as is gives you more flexibility if you want to organize
> > guadec together with akademy
>
> The reason I thought of this is because someone needed a premium sponsorship
> to include GUADEC. Again, it's about getting approval and it's easier to get
> approval once internally for one thing than to have to go back for all the
> line items.
>
> We'll have to see in the report, but I think most companies gave the same
> amount they would have given if it was just GUADEC - I'm not sure we made
> twice as much by combining the conferences. Not to say there aren't other
> benefits ...

Which report are you talking about?

> > > * logo (in different sizes) on web site
> > Should be for every sponsor. Premium sponsors at the top
>
> Someone had suggested another project that gave different sizes depending on
> how much was donated ... I thought htat was a good idea if we could make it
> look good.

Yes OK
> > > * blurb on gnome.org website
> > I suggest we have a tab saying sponsors on gnome.org site which lists
> > all sponsors and why they sponsor GNOME
>
> And I have that on my todo list.
> > > * interview of company employee on planet gnome
> > > * interview of company employee in GNOME Journal
> > > * GNOME related article in GNOME Journal (cannot be an ad, topic must be
> > > pre-approved)
> >
> > Good idea
> >
> >
> > > * ad on gnome.org website
> > I think that's covered with the sponsorship page
>
> This could be an additional thing ... if we wanted to sell it. I meant the
> home page, not the sponsorship page.
> > > * a mentor from the Board of Directors or community
> > Could be an option if they want it.
> >
> > > * access to the GNOME Foundation Executive Director
> > Don't they have this already?
>
> You should always tell people what they are getting so they can see all the
> things they get. :)

Yeah :-)

> > > * on-site presentations from key GNOME contributors (topics to be
> > > determined)
> > If they are willing to pay travel+lodging I think it's not too
> > difficult to find volunteers
>
> Or we need to charge enough that we can pay for travel and lodging. It's
> difficult for many companies to get approval to pay for external people's
> travel.

OK
> > > * presentation at GUADEC
> > Can't everybody already do that if they have the right topic
>
> We could have a sponsor track and guarentee them a slot. We would then of
> course work with them to make sure they were presenting something
> interesting - which they would want to do.

Agree
> > > * weekly updates on top bug
> > They can already subscribe to bugzilla
>
> And if I could tell you all the people that think their bug in bugzilla is
> being ignored ... including people in sponsoring companies.

OK, I'd go for monthly. Weekly can be dissapointing if for 10 weeks in
a row nothing happens

> > > * others??
> >
> > To summarize my thoughts on "Premium sponsorship" are the following
> > Cost: Extra 10K$ per year
> > Perks:
> > 1) One sponsored hackfest of 5K$
> > 2) Yearly meeting at GUADEC as I described above
> > 3) At the top of the sponsor ship page
> > 4) Can publish pre approved articles on GNOME news
> > 5) Ability to have interviews placed on planet gnome or GNOME news
>
> I think we need to list as many perks as possible. This is a subset of what
> I suggested. Did you have more to add?

I don't have more to add so to summarise a proposal could be the following

Normal fee
1000$ < 10 employees
5000$ < 100 employees
20000$ > 1000 employees

Extra premium fee (15K$?)
Perks:
1) One sponsored hackfest of 5K$
2) Yearly meeting at GUADEC with all other sponsors
3) At the top of the sponsor ship page with a large logo
4) Can publish pre approved articles on GNOME news
5) Ability to have interviews placed on planet gnome or GNOME news
6) Access to GNOME Executive Director
7) Travel vouchers of (2K$?) (can be used to visit GNOME conferences
or to invite a GNOME contributor to give a talk at the company)
8) GUADEC sponsor ship (5K$ ?)
9) Monthly meetings about product plans
10) Monthly top bug report
11) Advisory board seat (upon approval)
12) Presentation at GUADEC at sponsor ship track
13) Mentor available from Board of Directors or key contributor

Looks like a decent package to me. (Stormy I think you beat all of us
in the brainstorm :-) )

Comments? I think we should work it out further now to a concrete
proposal with the right numbers



Jaap