Re: Question for the candidates : money !

[Emily Chen <emilychen522 gmail com>]

Hi Lionel, 

Brian has already given a good answer about fundraising. I would like to offer some ideas from my point of view.

1. We could sell GNOME merchandise on GNOME stores/websites in different countries around the world. For example we can host a GNOME store in China using Taobao[1], the largest shopping website in China. Mozilla launched its Mozilla store on Taobao last month[2].  The profits form this would be transferred back to the GNOME Foundation for use as sponsorship money for events in China or elsewhere.


2. We can encourage more local companies to join the GNOME Foundation Advistory board, especially Asian countries.  I personally know many local companies using various GNOME technologies. They have not joined or contributed because of various reasons including language barriers and simply not knowing how to contribute at all.


3. Continual promotion of the Friends of GNOME program, especially to our regular users.  We can do this through local user groups and local communities. We should translate our promotional materials for Friends of GNOME to to allow increased exposure to non English speakers. People will be proud of their personal donations to the GNOME Foundation; they simply are not aware of the  "Friends of GNOME" program.
 
[1]www.taobao.com
[2]http://firefox001.taobao.com/

Thanks, 
Emily

2010/6/2 Brian Cameron <brian cameron oracle com>

Lionel:

I've a question about GNOME business model and sustanability. As we have
seen with the fundrising to hire a sysadmin, money is often a blocking
point. The current business model seems to be donations.

Actually, The GNOME Foundation acquires money from several sources:

- Advisory Board fees
- Sponsorship for particular events or programs
- Profit from events (such as GUADEC)
- Donations (such as Friends of GNOME and the upcoming mobile donations
 program being discussed on the marketing list)

The GNOME Foundation has invested a fair amount of effort in the Friends
of GNOME program to increase donations and with good success.  However,
donations are a small overall percentage of revenue.

Also note that The GNOME Foundation is a charity.  So, we do need to
ensure that money that we receive is used in ways that are aligned with
The GNOME Foundation charter.  This does restrict how The GNOME
Foundation can raise and spend money to a degree.

Do you think that donations are good ? Good enough ?

With more money, the GNOME Foundation can do more exciting things, so
the GNOME Foundation is always looking at ways to improve how money is
raised.

In the past year, the GNOME Foundation doubled the advisory board fees
and this was a significant step making the organization more profitable.

Do you plan to work on this business model ? Do you have any proposals ?

There is a lot of work going on to improve how the GNOME Foundation
raises money:

- Statistics show that most money received via Friends of GNOME comes
 from GNOME users, not people in the GNOME development community.
 The GNOME Foundation is planning to start a campaign to more
 effectively reach out to users to make them aware of the Friends
 of GNOME program, and consider donating.

- The board is currently working to develop a program to allow
 companies and organizations to donate money.  This program would
 be directed at organizations that are not currently advisory board
 members.  This could be something like a "Friends of GNOME" program
 for organizations instead of individuals.  This could, for example,
 provide a link exchange, advertising, mention as a sponsor of an
 event, or other forms of recognition as an incentive to donate money.

- By making events more profitable.  We are constantly working with
 event organizers to encourage them to find ways to make events
 more profitable, or at least sustainable.

- Typically sponsorship money that the GNOME Foundation receives is in
 exchange for some service, such as by organizing a hackfest to get
 work done in an area that benefits (directly or indirectly) those
 organizations interested in providing sponsorship.

 With GNOME 3 approaching, the GNOME Foundation has been working hard
 to organize a rich set of hackfests to focus on work that needs to
 get done for GNOME 3 to be successful.  The GNOME Foundation needs to
 continue working hard in this area.

 However, more can be done.  For example, the GNOME Foundation received
 some sponsorship money last year to upgrade bugzilla.  The GNOME
 Foundation needs to continue to find ways to provide services that
 will continue to bring in sponsorship money.

- Currently the GNOME Foundation is organizing a Women's Outreach
 Program.  Getting more involved with organizing humanitarian events
 like this could open the doors to finding new sponsors with an
 interest in promoting humanitarian causes.

- Grants are another possible source of revenue.  We have done some
 considerable work preparing ourselves to pursue them.  Building a
 community of volunteers to help with this has been slow going, but
 our hope is that we can make grants more a part of our revenue
 generation in time.

 http://live.gnome.org/Grants

Brian

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