Hi Joao, Joao S. O. Bueno wrote: > That's about US$4.000,00 per sponsor... > I don't want to downplay the work of the people who got the sponsorships - > but > having Google to dispay its logo proeminently in all LGM's material should > cost more than travel expenses for a single overseas attendant. (for example. > The same is valid for other high-profile sponsors, of course) > > Again - I am not condemining Kamila's or anyone's else work. I am just sad > for > the greed of the big players.
This is the kind of reaction you see from people who have never had to go looking for money for a conference like this. There is *no* commercial benefit to these guys. Having a logo on our website doesn't get them anything. Google might come & collect CVs at the conference, maybe, which might get them a couple of hires... outside of that, these guys are giving us money for goodwill. It's philanthropy, not a commercial argument. To reinforce this: let's say I'm talking to a Canon guy, one of his questions will be "how many people are coming?" I'd probably say "200". "and you're looking for how much money?" "20,000". "Do you honestly think we're going to get $100 extra profit per attendee at this conference if we sponsor?" And no, of course he isn't. That would mean everyone at the conference buying about $800 worth of Canon equipment. We're entering a recession, at least in the US. Companies are tightening up on their largesse goodwill budgets. They're spending money where they can point to the bottom line. Investment returns must be measurable. This isn't quite 100% true, but that's pretty much where we're at. So bear that in mind when criticising - getting money for things like this is *hard*. We could probably do it better, and get more money, if someone spent all their time at it for 2 or 3 months, but organising this conference is a collaborative volunteer effort, and most of us suck at sales. My philosophy for LGM1 was "work out the budget, fundraise until I pass the budget, then stop - there are other things to do". The target budget was $20,000. I'm impressed that (given that our biggest previous sponsor isn't supporting us this year) we've already raised $13,000 this year. This money hasn't come easily. Cheers, Dave. -- Dave Neary [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: +33 9 51 13 46 45 Cell: +33 6 77 01 92 13 _______________________________________________ CREATE mailing list CREATE@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/create
