Jason:
On 01/29/11 12:22 PM, Jason D. Clinton wrote:
+1 to most of the ideas thrown out here but the above back-and-forth got me thinking about how we could articulate (or narrate) to a donor what it is that they are doing with their money. It's great to say "you get X, Y and Z for your contribution," and another to say that you get "X, Y and Z for your contribution because of what you help us create." I'm thinking specifically of companies that have donated their office space for our hackfests. True, some of these have been Advisory Board members but even when they've already given us money, they went an extra step and allowed us to interfere with their company's day-to-day operations in a material way. Why?
I think many organizations, including ones that are GNOME Advisory Board members, help out The GNOME Foundation in many ways. I think we do a a good job to recognize such organizations in blog posts and hackfest Wiki pages, etc. However, I do think that we could probably generate more help in this way if we did a better job recognizing organizations who help. Perhaps if such organizations could be recognized in some way on the FoG website, it might be an additional way to thank such organizations and to open involvement so new organizations may consider contributing in this way. I think many Advisory Board members are often eager to contribute office space because it is a real benefit to them to have GNOME hackers come visit them. Having access to these GNOME experts can be helpful to them in ways that go beyond the focus of the hackfest.
The only over-arching idea that I guess is "a better seat at the table" which is, ostensibly, what the Advisory Board and the proposed one-on-one with the ED get them. But I'm thinking that if we agree that this is some kind of unifying donor pathos, then we can start to ask questions like, "Should donors be encouraged to participate in/table at hack-fests?"
I think we do want to encourage more types of organizations to consider cooperating with The GNOME Foundation to make hackfests happen. The could be real value in finding out what types of GNOME related hackfests might be of interest or value to potential donors and to try and organize them with the understanding that the funding is available. However, in terms of planning hackfests, I think this will always be handled in a bit of a case-by-case basis. The GNOME Foundation is likely only interested in participating in hackfests that do have some reasonable relation to GNOME, for example. Also, if the organization wanted to contribute by sending experts to participate in the hackfest, then discussion about extending invitations would likely be necessary. However, I would see little problem in making it easier for additional organizations or people to be aware of and consider contributing funds to already planned hackfests. So, there could be a real benefit in Friends of GNOME allowing people or organizations to earmark funds for funds to be spent on making an upcoming hackfest possible, or larger in scope. To contribute in other ways (such as making resources like office space available or wanting to send experts to a hackfest), it would be good if the FoG website made it clear that people should to contact the board to discuss and make plans. Brian -- marketing-list mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
