Re: Questions for the candidates: finances

[Jeff Fortin <nekohayo gmail com>]

Le lundi 19 mai 2014 à 11:19 -0700, Jim Nelson a écrit :

> Aside from corporate sponsorship and personal donations, what area(s)
> would you investigate to increase and stabilize GNOME's finances?  (Or
> do you feel these two methods are the only or best way to achieve this
> goal?)

I tend to think that corporate donations are desirable for many reasons.
I doubt I need to go at length here to point out that a handful of corps
with marketing/charity/R&D budgets are easier to target and convince
than a thousand individuals working hard to earn every penny, that GNOME
needs an ecosystem that includes not just hobbyists but also people who
are paid to do maintenance professionally, and so on and so forth.

I don't yet have a magical answer for an "easy" new funding model for
GNOME (if it was so easy, there wouldn't be any problems to fix), but as
part of my duties I would like to brainstorm and explore new venues.
Just from the top of my head:


- Check the possibility for grants from public institutions and look
into corporate sponsors from outside our traditional circles, instead of
limiting ourselves to our current corporate ecosystem.

- "Humble Indie Bundle"-style in-app-store donations system, though
there was some legal/technical problem with that idea, I forgot which,
maybe someone here remembers? Otherwise I ought to ask hughsie again.

- Online services for individuals

- Out-of-the-box fundraising schemes. We might have some surprises
there. However funny that might sound at first glance, I've seen golf
tournaments (and other event types) providing massive amounts of funds
to some non-profits.

- Our somewhat nonexistent OEM story

- Untapped potential, like the privacy fundraising initiative

- Other fancy ideas that may arise