Re: Next meeting, Wednesday 30/4 7UTC.
On 24 April 2014 23:49, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote: > 7:00am UTC is too early for us. I don't think any of us U.S. folks will be > able to attend. It's 7pm, Sri :) ___ engagement-list mailing list engagement-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/engagement-list
Re: Next meeting, Wednesday 30/4 7UTC.
Oliver Propst wrote: > Want to announce our next Engagement Team meeting on Wednesday 30/4 7UTC. > > Agenda items include: > *Publicity Plan for GNOME.Asia summit [1] > *How we can improve our fundraising efforts [2] [3] I'll be at the Developer Experience Hackfest in Berlin next week, so I won't be able to attend. Allan ___ engagement-list mailing list engagement-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/engagement-list
Re: How we can improve our fundraising efforts
Karen Sandler wrote: ... >> 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). > > I like the idea of a newsletter - the main thing is that we actually commit > to write something on a regular basis. Given how hard it was to get > quarterly reports together I think this is non-trivial. Yes it's a challenge, but I really do think that it is essential. It's really not cool to accept money from people and not keep them informed. I would at least like to have the conversation about how we can make this happen, before we discard the possibility. We should look into ways that we can be clever about generating the required content. For example, we could: * Recycle material that we generate for news posts. eg. When we write news posts about events, fundraising campaigns or releases, we could repurpose the same copy for the newsletter, or generate emails from them directly. "eg. GNOME 3.12 released today: thanks for helping!", "Greetings from GUADEC", etc. * Recycle the copy from blog posts about events (from those who have been sponsored). * Automatically sends emails to donors on the anniversary that they started to donate. Maybe these could have a link to a page with information about what we've been doing with the money. * Use the annual reports as a way to generate the copy. Each time we write the report, we can have an article about Friends of GNOME which can get turned into a newsletter. * Automatically contact donors if their direct debits stop coming in, in some way. It could be a mistake or, if it is deliberate, we need to find out why. >> * 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. > > Actually, thanks to Tobi, this has gotten much much better. Reminder emails > are reliably sent. I know that at least for the postcards I'm asked to send, > I get nagged periodically until they are sent (though I usually send them > right away - I swear!) I think the issue is that it is failure-prone. Not everyone will send them straight away. We just aren't going to send them on time, every time - and when these items don't arrive on time, it can potentially take the shine off the whole experience. I've repeatedly heard complaints from people about late post cards or t-shirts, or items that never arrived. Sometimes they complain publicly - that isn't good. When something doesn't arrive, there's no way to check on what's happening either - there's no easy way to check if you're still a part of the scheme, whether we have the right postal details, when the item was due to be sent, whether it has been sent, etc. >> * 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. I think this has benefited us in the past. > > I like this a lot, but we should also consider that the campaigns are also a > way to state our ideals. Yes, and I've been in favour of that in the past. My concern is that we could end up making our val
Re: How we can improve our fundraising efforts
> > Yes it's a challenge, but I really do think that it is essential. It's > really not cool to accept money from people and not keep them > informed. This sort of direct-to-donor communication is a requirement and whether it's a newsletter or some other type of communication some sort of follow-through is needed. We also need to encourage the Board of Directors to post > more about what they are doing. It's a shame that we the board doesn't > have a public face like this. People donate to the Foundation, they don't donate to individual GNOME projects. So the newsletter should a GNOME Foundation newsletter. The ones that should be communicating directly to donors should be the Board of Directors. The newsletter will have to be a platform for Board members to communicate directly to donors. On Fri, Apr 25, 2014 at 6:15 AM, Allan Day wrote: > Karen Sandler wrote: > ... > >> 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). > > > > I like the idea of a newsletter - the main thing is that we actually > commit > > to write something on a regular basis. Given how hard it was to get > > quarterly reports together I think this is non-trivial. > > Yes it's a challenge, but I really do think that it is essential. It's > really not cool to accept money from people and not keep them > informed. > > I would at least like to have the conversation about how we can make > this happen, before we discard the possibility. We should look into > ways that we can be clever about generating the required content. For > example, we could: > > * Recycle material that we generate for news posts. eg. When we write > news posts about events, fundraising campaigns or releases, we could > repurpose the same copy for the newsletter, or generate emails from > them directly. "eg. GNOME 3.12 released today: thanks for helping!", > "Greetings from GUADEC", etc. > * Recycle the copy from blog posts about events (from those who have > been sponsored). > * Automatically sends emails to donors on the anniversary that they > started to donate. Maybe these could have a link to a page with > information about what we've been doing with the money. > * Use the annual reports as a way to generate the copy. Each time we > write the report, we can have an article about Friends of GNOME which > can get turned into a newsletter. > * Automatically contact donors if their direct debits stop coming in, > in some way. It could be a mistake or, if it is deliberate, we need to > find out why. > > >> * 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. > > > > Actually, thanks to Tobi, this has gotten much much better. Reminder > emails > > are reliably sent. I know that at least for the postcards I'm asked to > send, > > I get nagged periodically until they are sent (though I usually send them > > right away - I swear!) > > I think the issue is that it is failure-prone. Not everyone will send > them straight away. We just aren't going to send them on time, every > time - and when these items don't arrive on time, it can potentially > take the shine off the whole experience. > > I've repeatedly heard complaints from people about late post cards or > t-shirts, or items that never arrived. Sometimes they complain > publicly - that isn't good. When something doesn't arrive, there's no > way to check on what's happening either - there's no
Re: How we can improve our fundraising efforts
On 25 April 2014 13:40, Alex G.S. wrote: >> Yes it's a challenge, but I really do think that it is essential. It's >> really not cool to accept money from people and not keep them >> informed. > > > This sort of direct-to-donor communication is a requirement and whether it's > a newsletter or some other type of communication some sort of follow-through > is needed. > >> We also need to encourage the Board of Directors to post >> more about what they are doing. It's a shame that we the board doesn't >> have a public face like this. > > > People donate to the Foundation, they don't donate to individual GNOME > projects. So the newsletter should a GNOME Foundation newsletter. The > ones that should be communicating directly to donors should be the Board of > Directors. The newsletter will have to be a platform for Board members to > communicate directly to donors. Uhuh, and where do you propose that the board find the time to do this? Under normal conditions, on average, each board member does spend around 10 hours per week on board duties on top of their projects and paid work. It's already quite a hefty time commitment and, due to other issues, some of the board members are currently spending a second job worth of time on board work as well, which is likely to continue for the next month or so. Until a new employee is hired, the board also has to do a number of fundraising and administrative duties too, which is likely to push the average board member work up to 15 hours per week indefinitely. It's also worth keeping in mind that the board does not have anything to do with the technical direction of the Foundation, which is where most money is spent. It would probably be a better idea to delegate this to someone who is interested in working on it and let the board concentrate on getting back into shape and being able to provide all the relevant information in a timely manner (board minutes, account summaries). Ideally, the information which you want to be in the letters should be freely available anyway, which is what the board is currently working on doing better. Most of the Foundation money is spent on employees, followed by conferences and hackfests. I think event organisers will also be better placed than the board to provide information directly to whoever puts together a newsletter. > On Fri, Apr 25, 2014 at 6:15 AM, Allan Day wrote: >> >> Karen Sandler wrote: >> ... >> >> 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). >> > >> > I like the idea of a newsletter - the main thing is that we actually >> > commit >> > to write something on a regular basis. Given how hard it was to get >> > quarterly reports together I think this is non-trivial. >> >> Yes it's a challenge, but I really do think that it is essential. It's >> really not cool to accept money from people and not keep them >> informed. >> >> I would at least like to have the conversation about how we can make >> this happen, before we discard the possibility. We should look into >> ways that we can be clever about generating the required content. For >> example, we could: >> >> * Recycle material that we generate for news posts. eg. When we write >> news posts about events, fundraising campaigns or releases, we could >> repurpose the same copy for the newsletter, or generate emails from >> them directly. "eg. GNOME 3.12 released today: thanks for helping!", >> "Greetings from GUADEC", etc. >> * Recycle the copy from blog posts about events (from those who have >> been sponsored). >> * Automatically sends emails to donors on the anniversary that they >> started to donate. Maybe these could have a link to a page with >> information about what we've been doing with the money. >> * Use the annual reports as a way to generate the copy. Each time we >> write the report, we can have an article about Friends of GNOME which >> can get turned into a newsletter. >> * Automatically contact donors if their direct debits stop coming in, >> in some way. It could be a mistake or, if it is deliberate, we need to >> find out why. >> >> >> * 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 per
Re: Enterprise Engagement, at the distribution level...
On Fri, 2014-04-18 at 09:07 -0400, Alex G.S. wrote: > > It would be nicer to closer work together with distributions. The ones > > packaging GNOME, but maybe also the ones making decisions regarding > > Wayland, etc. > > > This might be an interesting first-step. I think it's important to address > different points in the process. This distribution work may be useful as a > way for me to learn the distribution landscape a bit more and one I can > probably do in the short-term. What I can do is interview various packagers > and maintainers on the desktop teams and compile their feedback together > into a report of sorts. In case somebody plans to work on this, a page on wiki.gnome.org listing potential questions for such interviews would be a good start. andre -- Andre Klapper | ak...@gmx.net http://blogs.gnome.org/aklapper/ ___ engagement-list mailing list engagement-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/engagement-list
Re: How we can improve our fundraising efforts
Ekaterina Gerasimova wrote: ... >>> We also need to encourage the Board of Directors to post >>> more about what they are doing. It's a shame that we the board doesn't >>> have a public face like this. I hope I didn't sound unappreciative of the board - I know you do a huge amount of work already! >> People donate to the Foundation, they don't donate to individual GNOME >> projects. So the newsletter should a GNOME Foundation newsletter. The >> ones that should be communicating directly to donors should be the Board of >> Directors. The newsletter will have to be a platform for Board members to >> communicate directly to donors. > > Uhuh, and where do you propose that the board find the time to do > this? Under normal conditions, on average, each board member does > spend around 10 hours per week on board duties on top of their > projects and paid work. It's already quite a hefty time commitment > and, due to other issues, some of the board members are currently > spending a second job worth of time on board work as well, which is > likely to continue for the next month or so. Until a new employee is > hired, the board also has to do a number of fundraising and > administrative duties too, which is likely to push the average board > member work up to 15 hours per week indefinitely. It's also worth > keeping in mind that the board does not have anything to do with the > technical direction of the Foundation, which is where most money is > spent. > > It would probably be a better idea to delegate this to someone who is > interested in working on it and let the board concentrate on getting > back into shape and being able to provide all the relevant information > in a timely manner (board minutes, account summaries). Ideally, the > information which you want to be in the letters should be freely > available anyway, which is what the board is currently working on > doing better. Most of the Foundation money is spent on employees, > followed by conferences and hackfests. I think event organisers will > also be better placed than the board to provide information directly > to whoever puts together a newsletter. Right - the board need to be focused on board stuff. I wonder if we could work towards having someone extra attached to the board to handle publicity and public relations? Not sure who that would be or how it would work... A. ___ engagement-list mailing list engagement-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/engagement-list
Re: How we can improve our fundraising efforts
On 25 April 2014 15:53, Allan Day wrote: > Ekaterina Gerasimova wrote: > ... We also need to encourage the Board of Directors to post more about what they are doing. It's a shame that we the board doesn't have a public face like this. > > I hope I didn't sound unappreciative of the board - I know you do a > huge amount of work already! You were completely spot on here, the board does need to get our collective backsides into gear and tell people what's going on. It's a bit of a problem that our work tends to bounce between nothing interesting going on to too much to do, not enough time to write with pretty much nothing in between. >>> People donate to the Foundation, they don't donate to individual GNOME >>> projects. So the newsletter should a GNOME Foundation newsletter. The >>> ones that should be communicating directly to donors should be the Board of >>> Directors. The newsletter will have to be a platform for Board members to >>> communicate directly to donors. >> >> Uhuh, and where do you propose that the board find the time to do >> this? Under normal conditions, on average, each board member does >> spend around 10 hours per week on board duties on top of their >> projects and paid work. It's already quite a hefty time commitment >> and, due to other issues, some of the board members are currently >> spending a second job worth of time on board work as well, which is >> likely to continue for the next month or so. Until a new employee is >> hired, the board also has to do a number of fundraising and >> administrative duties too, which is likely to push the average board >> member work up to 15 hours per week indefinitely. It's also worth >> keeping in mind that the board does not have anything to do with the >> technical direction of the Foundation, which is where most money is >> spent. >> >> It would probably be a better idea to delegate this to someone who is >> interested in working on it and let the board concentrate on getting >> back into shape and being able to provide all the relevant information >> in a timely manner (board minutes, account summaries). Ideally, the >> information which you want to be in the letters should be freely >> available anyway, which is what the board is currently working on >> doing better. Most of the Foundation money is spent on employees, >> followed by conferences and hackfests. I think event organisers will >> also be better placed than the board to provide information directly >> to whoever puts together a newsletter. > > Right - the board need to be focused on board stuff. I wonder if we > could work towards having someone extra attached to the board to > handle publicity and public relations? Not sure who that would be or > how it would work... That would be the engagement team, but the board can be a bit sucky at remembering to tell you (succeeded on one account and completely failed on another recently). I don't think this would be as much of an issue if minutes were published on time. > A. ___ engagement-list mailing list engagement-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/engagement-list
