Re: Question for candidates



On 2014-05-20 07:48, Emily Gonyer wrote:
On Mon, May 19, 2014 at 11:16 AM, Emily Chen <emilychen522 gmail com> wrote:
Hi,

I would like to ask below questions to future board:

1. For GNOME big event, call for sponsor is really important, what is your plan to call for more sponsors for conference like GUADEC and GNOME.Asia ?


I think it is of utmost importance that big events have numerous
sponsors, both large and small. Local businesses ought to be
encouraged to support events. I'm not sure what sorts of local
business organizations exist in Europe and Asia but something similar
to the Chambers of Commerce here in the USA likely do, and would be
useful as primary contact points to reach out to for donations.

I think this is a great idea, local organizers have always tried to do this, with differing degrees of success. One of the biggest challenges has been getting the materials organized in a timely way - we really want to get the materials ready at least six months in advance. I was hoping that the extra lead time this past year with announcing the GUADEC location so early would have helped with this but invariably the team is always later than we should be. Having volunteers help with this for next year would surely help. So if anyone is reading this and wondering how to help out...


2. What is the top 3 goals for GNOME Foundation in the next year, in your
opinion ?

I think that it will be extremely important in the next year to reach
out to related projects. Since the advent of GNOME 3 we have seen a
severe fracturing in the ecosystem, which is not benefiting anyone.
Reaching out to related projects (Unity, Cinnamon, Mate, ElementaryOS,
XFCE, etc) and asking them to participate in GUADEC, GNOME.Asia, the
Boston Summit is vitally important. GNOME is about more than just the
shell and recognizing that everyone who uses GNOME technologies is, or
should be welcomed into the project.

We have tried to do some of this already, as I indicated in the other email but we can always do better :) Specifically though, we've reached out to Unity, Cinnamon, Mate and XFCE.

I think the biggest goal is getting a handle GNOME's admin and financial situation, much of which is already being done.

There are too many financial related emails for me to respond to at this point but I'll just say here that a great deal of my work on the financial side was keeping our existing corporate donors. I was glad It was a bit of a triumph to expand the advisory board as we have done recently but it's was much tougher to just keep status quo than I understand it was in the past. I think companies are tighter with their budgets and also GNOME technologies were in a state of transition, at least in perception by our donors.

Kat has been very encouraging of people to step up while not being on the board in these emails and I think this is awesome. If every member (or a lot of the members) of the GNOME foundation recommended sponsorship of GNOME events and advisory board to the companies they have relationships with it would be an easier effort for the board and Executive Director. Similarly, just being an advocate of GNOME technologies is very helpful. If companies aren't using our stuff they're going to be much less likely to give.

There was a thread asking about the skills needed by an Executive Director, where many were saying that fundraising was our top priority. I don't disagree with this per se, but the ability to fundraise (as somebody else already said) comes from a technical understanding of the value of GNOME. I think having a commitment to GNOME's ideals and being able to bring attention to GNOME as a good communicator is of utmost importance.

Stormy's blog about being an ED is helpful to see what the job is and you can also see some of the reports of the work I did (sorry I wasn't always consistent with this format or tagging): http://blogs.gnome.org/gnomg/category/stuffdone/


3. How to raise and increase the fund for GNOME Foundation ?

I've touched on this elsewhere, so I'll be brief: We need to increase
individual and small-business donations. There are many ways to do so
which we have left untapped including Facebook & Google Wallet
donations, encouraging the use of AmazonSmile and similar programs,
etc.

I think we should explore having GTK+ sponsorship or something similar, which would engage users of GNOME technologies, many of which are smaller companies.


4. How many hours you work in GNOME Board related work each week?

In the last month I've probably worked about 5 hours per week on GNOME related matters.

karen


Thanks!

Emily Chen



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