Fwd: Fundraising / Donations

[Stormy Peters <stormy gnome org>]

We got this offer today.

I did a bit of research and XIPWIRE seem to be a startup that just launched so there's not a lot of history to check out. They have gotten a lot of good press from the local Philadelphia news[1].

The difference between this and the donation texts that most people are familiar with is that you have to login to the XIPWIRE website at least once to set up your account and connect it to a bank account or credit card. It doesn't pull from your cell phone bill.

So regardless of what we do here, I think we should continue to pursue the other text options we have.

Thoughts? Should we help market this? We'd be asking for GNOME donations and we'd also be encouraging people to set up XIPWIRE accounts.

Stormy

P.S. I removed Sharif's signature contact info as I'm forwarding to a public list.

[1] http://technicallyphilly.com/2010/01/06/shop-talk-xipwire-mobile-payment-platform-lets-you-text-cash

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sharif J. Alexandre
Date: Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 3:13 PM
Subject: Fundraising / Donations
To: fundraising gnome org

Hi,

I'm with XIPWIRE, a Mobile Payment startup based in Philadelphia, and wanted to reach out regarding fundraising and our offering to the Open Source community.  As I'm sure you're aware the recent crisis in Haiti has put a spotlight on text pledges and the opportunity it represents for organizations to quickly and easily solicit donations for their respective causes.  Since I'm an avid supporter of Open Source generally and your work in particular, and as my personal way of saying Thank You to the thousands of developers and supporters who have indirectly made XIPWIRE possible, I'm offering the Text Pledging functionality of XIPWIRE completely free of charge.  I've created an "oss" campaign where people can simply text "oss" to 56624 (XIPWIRE's commercial shortcode number) to pledge a default amount of $10 to one of the following organizations:

• apache - Apache Software Foundation
• eff - Electronic Frontier Foundation
• fsf - Free Software Foundation
• gnome - GNOME Foundation
• kde - KDE e.V.
• linux - Linux Foundation

More details about the campaign can be found at: https://xipwire.com/pledges/oss

As I mentioned, we are waiving all of our fees so each organization will receive 100% of the funds directed to it.

Since GNOME Foundation is one of the foundations listed, I wanted to reach out in advance of our announcement of this campaign to solicit any feedback or comments you might have.

It is my sincere hope that the money generated through this program will continue to fund the excellent work you have done over the years.

Regards,
Sharif