Hi, A while back, when I started fundraising for DebConf I looked on-line for some training material on fundraising (ping me if you want some links ;-). One of the things I read was that it is always easier to raise funds for specific, earmarked purposes than general "save the world" type of things.
So, without further ado, here's a proposal to get all our hard-working top-contributors attend DebConf: * This proposal is given as an option for people in the waiting list to voluntarily come forward and expose themselves to the world to seek out funds for traveling. * Participation in this separate fundraising doesn't change the position of a person in the queue nor stops them from receiving regular travel sponsorship if it becomes available (but if their travel needs get covered by this, they'll free up space for people who remain in the queues). * We raise funds for a number of people at a time (say, 5) and we invite people to participate in this program in the order of the travel queues. * When a person has raised enough funds to cover their travel requirements, we invite again the remaining people, giving priority based on the travel queues. * The people requesting sponsorship make very clear how much money they are requesting and do a good write up (the fundraising team can help) explaining the things they have done for Debian and what they expect to accomplish by coming to DebConf. * This is key: the fundraising is for a person in particular and only up to the money needed to cover the travel sponsorship request. After donating, the donor can request feedback at the end of debconf. Each of the receipients of this special earmarked donations can then receive an email from the DebConf attendee thanking them in person (same email goes to all donors, of course) and explaining them what their sponsorship helped them accomplish at DebConf. * We can bring some new volunteers to implement this as some extra pages at the website plus a link to click&pledge with the comment field already filled in. The key part here is: this can be implemented *very* quickly __with no penta hacking required__. * This proposal will allow people with real economic needs (so as to come forward in a webpage saying they need help) and contributions that touch a large number of people involved in Debian (I'm thinking about them adding a link to their email signatures, for example) to benefit from this, more or less independent of the position in the queues assigned by the travel sponsorship team. We can discuss it here by e-mail or we can discuss it tomorrow at the global team meeting, but I wanted to let people time to think about it. P. _______________________________________________ Debconf-team mailing list Debconf-team@lists.debconf.org http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-team
