Re: How we can improve our fundraising efforts

[Karen Sandler <karen gnome org>]

On 2014-04-24 05:13, Allan Day wrote:
> Oliver Propst <oliver propst gmail com> wrote:
> When we are doing a campaign we tend to be very focused on it (thus
> busy), and not have the resources to focus on more long term planning.
>
> Thus its a a good time for us now to think about how we can improve
> our fundraising efforts [1]. A great start is to learn how from how
> other free/open source projects have conducted their fundraising
> campings.
> ...
>
> Thanks for getting this started, Oliver. I've been thinking about this
> a bit myself recently, and I'd like to do some work on Friends of
> GNOME if I can find the time. I wanted to discuss it in a team
> meeting, but the mailing list works.

yes! The best time to think of this is when there's nothing pressing 
going on.

> So, some general thoughts:
>
> * One of my main issues with Friends of GNOME right now is that we
> don't do enough to engage with existing donors. If people donate, the
> least they should get back is regular updates about how we are
> spending their money. Right now, Friends of GNOME is a black hole -
> people make their donations and that's pretty much it. This is not an
> effective way to encourage people to keep donating or to get them to
> donate more (see below). One obvious thing we should be doing is
> sending regular updates to donors, probably as an email (I wonder if
> this could be tied in with the annual report somehow - eg. quarterly
> donor updates could be used as the basis for each annual report).

I like the idea of a newsletter - the main thing is that we actually 
commit to write something on a regular basis. Given how hard it was to 
get quarterly reports together I think this is non-trivial.
> * We ought to be looking to existing donors as the potential source
> of additional cash. If someone is making a regular donation, the
> chances are that they will also be willing to donate to periodic fund
> raising campaigns. This is the way a lot of charities operate - once
> you are a donor they will contact you about their campaigns. One thing
> we need to do here is separate Friends of GNOME and our fund raising
> campaigns into different entities.
>
> * It doesn't seem like the adopt a hacker postcards and the t-shirts
> are being tracked and distributed very effectively, and I'm not
> convinced that we have the administrative capacity to do a good job of
> these. I wonder if we should drop them in favour of other incentives
> that don't have the same administrative burden. Ideas: discount
> vouchers, vouchers to spend on GNOME merchandise, freebies at
> conferences, membership badges you can download and print at home.

Actually, thanks to Tobi, this has gotten much much better. Reminder 
emails are reliably sent. I know that at least for the postcards I'm 
asked to send, I get nagged periodically until they are sent (though I 
usually send them right away - I swear!)

> * It's time to be thinking about another campaign. When that happens,
> we need to be certain that we will be able to use the money fairly
> quickly - this hasn't happened in the past, and that is potentially
> damaging. (Again, people need feedback about how their money is being
> spent, otherwise they might not donate again.) We should think about
> what we actually need money for, and I'd like the board to provide us
> with some advice here. There are outstanding sysadmin tasks, for
> example, like upgrading Bugzilla, or maybe we need to improve our
> infrastructure in some way.

I like this a lot, but we should also consider that the campaigns are 
also a way to state our ideals. I think this has benefited us in the 
past. Also, I think maybe just keeping people posted about the plans 
would help. We don't really have an informal way to communicate 
officially. The closest we have is the GNOME Twitter feed, I guess, but 
there's nothing on the website where we can post small updates and 
musings, etc.
> * Aside from the funding campaigns, we don't actively promote or
> publicise Friends of GNOME. This is a basic error - we should be
> routinely inviting people to join, posting about the scheme, and
> advertising what we are doing with donations. This should be part of
> the Engagement Team's regular activities - not just when we happen to
> have a campaign running. A good way to start here would be to come up
> with a plan for what kinds of posts we should be making and how often
> we should be making them; this is something we can check ourselves
> against at each team meeting.
>
> * It seems to me that the Foundation's money goes into a central pot
> - I don't get the impression that particular income is earmarked for
> specific uses. I wonder if the finances could/should be organised in
> such a way that we can definitely say where Friends of GNOME money is
> going, or even channel it to areas that we think are more interesting
> to donors. Again, that's something for the board.

The money technically goes into a single account but the funds are 
tracked. For example, I'm pretty sure the GF is still spending down the 
Sysadmin FoG campaign amounts.

> * Finally, we need data about our existing donors. There needs to be
> a system where we have email and postal addresses so we can contact
> them. We need to know how much they donate and how long they have been
> members for. We need to know how many people are joining/leaving over
> time. We need to know why people are joining/leaving. This will
> require new infrastructure, and we need advice from the board about
> what is technically required and how we can get it.

We started to implement CiviCRM, but there were a few reasons why this 
wasn't a great solution for GF, including the fact that we have 
indefinite donors. Tobi's scripts are capable of generating this data. 
For example, he was able to generate a list of donors who had been 
giving for two years or more. Perhaps it's not the most ideal solution 
but it's something and he's surely work with us to create regular 
reporting scripts if we want them.

> Sorry for the long post!

This is great, and thanks to Oliver for starting the discussion!

karen

> Allan
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