Re: Question for the candidates : money !
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 > > 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.
Re: Question for the candidates : money !
On 05/31/2010 07:45 AM, Lionel Dricot wrote: 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. Do you think that donations are good ? Good enough ? Do you plan to work on this business model ? Do you have any proposals ? It's also the Advisory Board fee [1], and having more companies join the Advisory board is a good goal I think. I also think there is some value in merchandise, such as t-shirts etc. that we're selling through the GNOME Store [2]. We have a cool and valuable brand, lets use it (within safe boundaries of course ;) However, regarding donations from individuals specifically, the sysadmin fundraiser was a great success once we finally got it online and I think we shouldn't be afraid to do more things like that. 1. http://foundation.gnome.org/about/advisoryboard/ 2. http://www.zazzle.com/gnome - Andreas ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Question for the candidates : money !
On Tue, 2010-06-01 at 15:11 -0500, Brian Cameron wrote: > 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) And I'll add that there's some opportunities around referal and advertising revenue on the desktop itself (some of that revenue unfortunately being snatched by distributors), as well as trying to get some (recurring) donations from projects that depend on us (say, Mozilla Co. for the Linux related work). Cheers ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Question for the candidates : money !
On Tue, 2010-06-01 at 15:11 -0500, Brian Cameron wrote: > 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 I think Brian has done a thorough job answering the question for all the candidates. :) One last thing to add, as a small point about fundraising. After J5's email last year, and the Sysadmin campaign this year, we've learned that we do have the ability and the community to do small, focused fundraising campaigns that can raise significant amounts of money. It is our goal to continue to do that, probably no more than twice a year. As it was pointed out, Friends of GNOME contributions primarily come from our users, and we don't want to ask too much of them, so running very short, very targeted campaigns twice a year with a specific purpose is something we'd like to do moving forward. Paul ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Question for the candidates : money !
Hi, El mar, 01-06-2010 a las 15:11 -0500, Brian Cameron escribió: > > > Do you plan to work on this business model ? Do you have any proposals ? > > - 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. Brian refers to this email in marketing list: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/marketing-list/2010-June/msg1.html Basically we want to define new roles that can be taken by smaller companies or organizations so they can donate and get visibility for it. Likely there are a lot of companies that would like to associate to GNOME if they had a clear chance. Comments welcome in marketing-list! ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Question for the candidates : money !
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 ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Question for the candidates : money !
Hi my dear candidates, 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. Do you think that donations are good ? Good enough ? Do you plan to work on this business model ? Do you have any proposals ? Thanks, Lionel ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
