As an alternative idea, which I am not sure you would really want to follow,you can try small and often campaigns over specific highly anticipated featuresFor example, we need $3.000 to create folders-application within Shell overview.Then you can contact a student to work on it the same way that GSoC works.If the feature won't get completed, just refund the donors.This way you will also save time from the main developers which can spend timeto work on other things, that you would cover in a less "attractive" campaigns.Additionally you can involve more people on GNOME Project, which they might continue contribute afterwards.As it actually happens with some GSoC students.But my opinion is that campaigns should have very very clear goals, and not be as general as "privacy".- alexOn Thu, Apr 24, 2014 at 4:00 PM, Karen Sandler <karen gnome org> wrote:
On 2014-04-24 05:13, Allan Day wrote:yes! The best time to think of this is when there's nothing pressing going on.
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.
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.
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).
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!)
* 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.
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.
* 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.
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.
* 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.
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.
* 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.
This is great, and thanks to Oliver for starting the discussion!
Sorry for the long post!
karen
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