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Re: How we can improve our fundraising efforts

You raise a good point, Karen. Already Yorba and Elementary are doing
"small specific campaigns"/bug bounties (the way you described it, they
seemed synonymous to me):

http://elementaryos.org/journal/fix-bugs-get-paid
http://blogs.gnome.org/jnelson/tag/bounties/


Also, a highly desired feature for Telepathy has also been around for a
while:

https://freedomsponsors.org/core/issue/333/telepathy-should-support-otr-encryption


It seems like there are two variables in play here, the size/amount of
desired money of fundraiser & whether the fundraiser has specific
goal(s). So we have:

large & vague -- GNOME Privacy
large & specific -- Geary/Pitivi/Mediagoblin crowdfunding (where they
enumerated specific features)
small & vague -- Friend of GNOME
small & specific -- bug bounties

I wonder what is best for GNOME...

On 04/24/2014 12:50 PM, alex diavatis wrote:

Clear goals will also skip the need to check back with donors and tell
them where their money goes.
They will almost instantly know :)


On Thu, Apr 24, 2014 at 7:48 PM, alex diavatis
<alexis diavatis gmail com <mailto:alexis diavatis gmail com>> wrote:

    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 features

    For 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 time
    to 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".

    - alex



    On Thu, Apr 24, 2014 at 4:00 PM, Karen Sandler <karen gnome org
    <mailto:karen gnome org>> wrote:

        On 2014-04-24 05:13, Allan Day wrote:

            Oliver Propst <oliver propst gmail com
            <mailto: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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