Re: How we can improve our fundraising efforts

[Allan Day <allanpday gmail com>]

Ekaterina Gerasimova <kittykat3756 gmail com> wrote:
...
> > > We also need to encourage the Board of Directors to post
> > > more about what they are doing. It's a shame that we the board doesn't
> > > have a public face like this.

I hope I didn't sound unappreciative of the board - I know you do a
huge amount of work already!

> > People donate to the Foundation, they don't donate to individual GNOME
> > projects.   So the newsletter should a GNOME Foundation newsletter.  The
> > ones that should be communicating directly to donors should be the Board of
> > Directors.  The newsletter will have to be a platform for Board members to
> > communicate directly to donors.
>
> Uhuh, and where do you propose that the board find the time to do
> this? Under normal conditions, on average, each board member does
> spend around 10 hours per week on board duties on top of their
> projects and paid work. It's already quite a hefty time commitment
> and, due to other issues, some of the board members are currently
> spending a second job worth of time on board work as well, which is
> likely to continue for the next month or so. Until a new employee is
> hired, the board also has to do a number of fundraising and
> administrative duties too, which is likely to push the average board
> member work up to 15 hours per week indefinitely. It's also worth
> keeping in mind that the board does not have anything to do with the
> technical direction of the Foundation, which is where most money is
> spent.
>
> It would probably be a better idea to delegate this to someone who is
> interested in working on it and let the board concentrate on getting
> back into shape and being able to provide all the relevant information
> in a timely manner (board minutes, account summaries). Ideally, the
> information which you want to be in the letters should be freely
> available anyway, which is what the board is currently working on
> doing better. Most of the Foundation money is spent on employees,
> followed by conferences and hackfests. I think event organisers will
> also be better placed than the board to provide information directly
> to whoever puts together a newsletter.

Right - the board need to be focused on board stuff. I wonder if we
could work towards having someone extra attached to the board to
handle publicity and public relations? Not sure who that would be or
how it would work...

A.