On Thu, Apr 24, 2014 at 11:13 AM, Allan Day <allanp...@gmail.com> wrote: > Oliver Propst <oliver.pro...@gmail.com> wrote: >> When we are doing a campaign we tend to be very focused on it (thus >> busy), and not have the resources to focus on more long term planning. >> >> Thus its a a good time for us now to think about how we can improve >> our fundraising efforts [1]. A great start is to learn how from how >> other free/open source projects have conducted their fundraising >> campings. > ... > > Thanks for getting this started, Oliver. I've been thinking about this > a bit myself recently, and I'd like to do some work on Friends of > GNOME if I can find the time. I wanted to discuss it in a team > meeting, but the mailing list works. I have added this an agenda item for the upcoming Engagement Team meeting set for next week [1]
> So, some general thoughts: > > * One of my main issues with Friends of GNOME right now is that we > don't do enough to engage with existing donors. If people donate, the > least they should get back is regular updates about how we are > spending their money. Right now, Friends of GNOME is a black hole - > people make their donations and that's pretty much it. This is not an > effective way to encourage people to keep donating or to get them to > donate more (see below). One obvious thing we should be doing is > sending regular updates to donors, probably as an email (I wonder if > this could be tied in with the annual report somehow - eg. quarterly > donor updates could be used as the basis for each annual report). > > * We ought to be looking to existing donors as the potential source > of additional cash. If someone is making a regular donation, the > chances are that they will also be willing to donate to periodic fund > raising campaigns. This is the way a lot of charities operate - once > you are a donor they will contact you about their campaigns. One thing > we need to do here is separate Friends of GNOME and our fund raising > campaigns into different entities. > > * It doesn't seem like the adopt a hacker postcards and the t-shirts > are being tracked and distributed very effectively, and I'm not > convinced that we have the administrative capacity to do a good job of > these. I wonder if we should drop them in favour of other incentives > that don't have the same administrative burden. Ideas: discount > vouchers, vouchers to spend on GNOME merchandise, freebies at > conferences, membership badges you can download and print at home. > > * It's time to be thinking about another campaign. When that happens, > we need to be certain that we will be able to use the money fairly > quickly - this hasn't happened in the past, and that is potentially > damaging. (Again, people need feedback about how their money is being > spent, otherwise they might not donate again.) We should think about > what we actually need money for, and I'd like the board to provide us > with some advice here. There are outstanding sysadmin tasks, for > example, like upgrading Bugzilla, or maybe we need to improve our > infrastructure in some way. > > * Aside from the funding campaigns, we don't actively promote or > publicise Friends of GNOME. This is a basic error - we should be > routinely inviting people to join, posting about the scheme, and > advertising what we are doing with donations. This should be part of > the Engagement Team's regular activities - not just when we happen to > have a campaign running. A good way to start here would be to come up > with a plan for what kinds of posts we should be making and how often > we should be making them; this is something we can check ourselves > against at each team meeting. > > * It seems to me that the Foundation's money goes into a central pot > - I don't get the impression that particular income is earmarked for > specific uses. I wonder if the finances could/should be organised in > such a way that we can definitely say where Friends of GNOME money is > going, or even channel it to areas that we think are more interesting > to donors. Again, that's something for the board. > > * Finally, we need data about our existing donors. There needs to be > a system where we have email and postal addresses so we can contact > them. We need to know how much they donate and how long they have been > members for. We need to know how many people are joining/leaving over > time. We need to know why people are joining/leaving. This will > require new infrastructure, and we need advice from the board about > what is technically required and how we can get it. These are all great points I agree with. We can elaborate more on how to adress this at the next meeting. 1 https://mail.gnome.org/archives/engagement-list/2014-April/msg00054.html -- -mvh Oliver Propst _______________________________________________ engagement-list mailing list engagement-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/engagement-list
