Re: Friends of GNOME goals (& IRC meeting)

["Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier" <jzb zonker net>]

On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 12:59 PM, Stormy Peters <stormy gnome org> wrote:
> We haven't made much progress on our goal of 10 subscribers a month.
> (Although we continue to get donations, just not new subscribers.)
>
> Paul, can we add this to the IRC meeting agenda? Do we have a new time for
> that? Would you like me to help organize it?

First observation, this page needs to be updated: http://www.gnome.org/friends/

Says 2008, obviously we're looking at 2009 donations now. (Sidebar)

We're asking people to give $10 or more per month. What's the
incentive? (Aside from supporting GNOME, of course -- but this is like
public television, everybody assumes someone else will donate.)

A comparable program would be the Electronic Frontier Foundation. They
do a pretty good job of 1) telling people what they support with
newsletters, campaigns, etc. and 2) they give swag yearly. I see
there's a t-shirt but maybe that's not very compelling for $120 (or
more) a year.

What could we put in place that would encourage people to not only
sign up, but also try to persuade others? Is there any way to have a
referral code? Extra recognition for people who bring in more people?

Given GNOME's user base, it should be possible to bring in more than
10 people per month.

Another consideration: Some people might feel nickle and dimed. Not by
GNOME specifically, but it seems like everybody has a hand out. If I
donated at the $10 a month level to all the organizations I "support"
I'd probably be looking at $50 - $100 per month.

Any way to "bundle" this with other orgs/related businesses?

An example: What about doing a revenue share with Linux Weekly News
and giving each person a membership to LWN + FoG? Or a triple play
with the Linux Foundation?

Best,

Zonker
-- 
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier <jzb zonker net>
About: http://www.dissociatedpress.net/about/