Dear All, We've been planning a "supporters drive" to raise funds for a while and now with our fifth anniversary at the end of this month it's time to launch!
I've prepared a draft text for an email (below) and it would be great to get some feedback before it goes out officially next week so please let me know what you think. Regards, Rufus PS: people are more than welcome to sign up to the pledge in advance! ## Supporters Email Subject: Please consider supporting the Open Knowledge Foundation This month the Open Knowledge Foundation is five years old. Over those last five years we've done much to promote open access to information -- from sonnets to stats, genes to geodata -- not only in the form of specific projects like Open Shakespeare and Public Domain Works but also in the creation of tools such as KnowledgeForge and Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network, standards such as the Open Knowledge Definition, and events such as OKCon, designed to benefit the wider open knowledge community. While we have achieved a lot, we believe we can do much, much more. We are therefore reaching out to our community and asking you to help us take our vision further. Our aim: to have at least a 100 supporters committed to making regular, ongoing donations of £5 (EUR 6, $7.50) or more a month. These funds will be essential in expanding and sustaining our work by allowing us to invest in infrastructure and employ modest central support. To pledge yourself as one of those supporters all you need to do is take 30 seconds to sign up to our "100 supporters" pledge at: <http://www.pledgebank.org/support-okfn/> We will always be a not-for-profit organisation, built on the work of passionate volunteers. But with these additional funds, we believe we can make our efforts go much, much further. Please consider becoming a supporter and sign up to our pledge. Regards, Rufus Pollock Board Member, Open Knowledge Foundation ### What will the money be used for? These funds will be essential in expanding and sustaining our work by: 1. Allowing us to employ modest central support to: * Co-ordinate voluntary work * Apply for substantial grant funding for specific projects * Put on special events 2. Allowing us to upgrade and maintain our technical infrastructure (servers etc) ### What have you achieved over the last 5 years? Among other things: we've started projects that have allowed Shakespeare and Milton to enjoy a rebirth in the digital public domain, begun the huge task of cataloging public domain sound recordings, and opened a raft of economic and historical material. We've also developed tools, standards and events which have benefited the wider open knowledge community: Knowledgeforge stores the parliamentary data for theyworkforyou and publicwhip, the Open Knowledge Definition provides a standard for what "openness" is, Open Data Commons is developing the data license to be used by Open Street Map, and our workshops and annual Open Knowledge Conference (OKCon) bring together individuals and organizations from across the open knowledge spectrum. More information can be found in: * <http://www.okfn.org/projects/> * <http://www.okfn.org/events/> And in our annual reports available from: <http://www.okfn.org/board/> _______________________________________________ okfn-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.okfn.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/okfn-discuss
