Hi everyone,
I'm on the board of WiserEarth http://www.wiserearth.org/, which is a 501(c)3 that is well-aligned with Wikimedia's mission. I talked to the ED, and she very graciously agreed to act as a fiscal sponsor for our upcoming conference! We still need to work out the paperwork and get official board approval, but what it basically means is that WiserEarth will process payments and disburse checks. It will also take a 3% overhead on sponsorships, which is very small.
This also means we'll be able to accept sponsors soon. Which means we should start looking for some. :-)
Unfortunately, I won't be able to do the leg work on this. I'm literally leaving town next week and will be off-grid for the better part of October. Before I go, I'd love to work with some volunteers interested in going out and getting sponsorships, and I'm happy to make introductions where I can. At minimum, we should apply for a Wikimedia Foundation grant soon.
Who's in? :-)
=Eugene