----- Original Message ----- From: "Ian Clarke" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Newsbite" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2003 8:09 PM Subject: Re: funding
> On Tue, Aug 12, 2003 at 04:09:52PM +0200, Newsbite wrote: > > I suggested then, that it might be a good idea to seek out additional > > sponsors, be it non-profit organisations, or even commercial > > compagnies. > > I have investigated various non-profs that might give us grants - > however it never really went anywhere. > Probably because you didn't offer any advertising in return! ;-) j/k Well...half kidding, anyway... > > In return, we could set up modest banners on the site (I > > mean the freenet site on the www, NOT anything on freenet itself) or > > we could make a 'sponsor page' with links, or little banners, or a > > combination of both, depending on the level of sponsoring. > > This may violate the SourceForge terms of service, they prohibit > advertising - in fact, they even prohibit the solicitation of donations > but on my request they made an exception for us. > This could be a major obstacle indeed. Would even a page with mere 'thanks to'-links violate it? If so, my proposal becomes obsolete, of course. Unless we envision some second co-official (mirror)site, where we can make some adds.On itself, that may not be that bad an idea - well, exept for the forums and stuff - but pretty much the rest would be fairly easy to recreate on a second site. Even if this one stays the prime one, one could consider the other as backup or something (one can always wrap it nicely for compagnies - 'sell-management' ;-). > > In any case, if some sort of moderator for the job would be needed, > > I'm volunteering, and if Pr0n-compagnies sponsoring would be deemed > > 'unproper', so be it. But we can all agree that organisations like the > > EFF would be prime candidates, and I think there is a definite > > potential for free-speech and IT/tech organisations and compagnies. > > Maybe enough for a second developer, who knows? > > These companies are welcome to sponsor Freenet, but I don't think that > they should expect free advertising in return - we are not an > advertising service. If they like the project, then their reward should > be that the project progresses faster thanks to their donation. > Well..maybe it *should*... but I refrain from making any such assertions based on interpretations of esotheric statements (or other utopian world-views :-). Fact is, it probably won't. It's corporate and, who knows - liberal capitalist rule (well, more of a habit/tradition, really) that 'sponsors' get recognition in some form or another...as long as it is pretty direct. Saying: "but you should have enough just knowing you helped" is in reality seldom enough, for big sponsors. It's just the way the world works: major sponsoring is add-driven or gets you some press-coverage or at least gives you the social admiration of being a mecenas (and, of course, mostly it's tax-deductable, to a non-profit org ;-). Trust me, that's how it works on that level. Hmmm....many, many organisations, projects and people are sponsored, while not being an 'advertising service'. So, as an (counter)argument it doesn't really count. > > If anyone (meaning; those that have any say in the matter ;-) is > > interested, I'm willing to take this job of sponsor-seeking&handling > > on me, because I'm fully aware that it's more of a manager issue then > > a developers'one. (which was another remark made; that developers > > don't have time for such a thing). Since I'm part-time manager and > > part-time IT free-lance writer, I have no problem with it. > > Certainly I think there is merit in applying for grants from foundations > and such like - but I don't think we should be offering advertising on > the website as a reward, donating to Freenet should be its own reward. > Yes, I agree it should. And world-poverty should be abolished, and people should not starve of hunger in the world and if everyone in the West payed 20% of his earnings to furtherhence these worthy goals, it would go a long way. But, alas.... I'm being a bit sarcastic, but I'm afraid it's also true: it's nice to ideologically say 'it should be this or that'...but in reality, it's simply a fact that you get much easier donations and sponsoring from compagnies or organisations, if they receive some benefit from it, even if that benefit is largely symbolic or even imaginary. Be it in the forms of adds, press-coverage, tax-reduction, status, etc. It's, quite frankly, normal practise (in the classical way of sponsoring) to be mentionned if you are an important sponsor of a non-prof org. > > So, that was basically it. I have a bit more detailed idea about the > > how and what, but I think that's better discussed more directly, > > instead of here. > > Well, I think that in-theory a more aggressive fundraising effort > focusing on corporations (for- and non- profit) would be very > worthwhile. > > Ian. Yes. But, as I said, in practise that would be a lot easier to accomplish if you could swing an additional banana in front their nose. > > -- > Ian Clarke [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Coordinator, The Freenet Project http://freenetproject.org/ > Weblog http://slashdot.org/~sanity/journal _______________________________________________ devl mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://hawk.freenetproject.org:8080/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devl
