[Foundation-l] Re: NEH grant

[Daniel Mayer]

--- Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > It needs to be updated daily.
> 
> I strongly disagree with this.

As the person who would have to do daily updates, I also strongly disagree as
well. :) But I could manage daily updates during a quarterly fund drive. 

Aside: I guess a bot could be used to grep these data from our PayPal and
MoneyBookers accounts and display it on our donations page, but there are
potential security issues with that (not to mention the lack of a developer
volunteering to code such a thing). 

> A budget is not something you balance week per week or even month per 
> month. We must plan it. In advance. A budget is something you have to 
> organise, to take into account structural needs, contingencies, and see 
> how to best use the remaining.

The budget needs to be be adjusted at least once a quarter and most books I've
read subject suggest once a month adjustments. But since we are just starting,
once a quarter seems to be enough for now. 

>...
> I also am not very motivated by the idea of asking money all the time. 
> That is just showing we do not manage well our funds.
> I think it much more positive that we make a call for donation just a 
> couple of time a year, that donations are set in such a way that they 
> can be monthly donation, and that the call for donation is made in 
> parallele to a nice press release.

I was thinking along the same lines. 

> > I think we can raise more money that way than through grants
> 
> > Furtehrmore, once grant moeny starts rolling in, users will be able
> > to say: they're funded by grant money, so I'll not contribute.

We can simply build into the budget a certain percentage of the server fund,
for example, that has to be raised through individual donations. IMO, such a
percentage for that fund should be set high (<50%).
 
> But asking money all the time will make them think we are heavy, and do 
> not know how to manage money.

Nod. 
 
> Okay, donations is one way to raise money, and we should use it.
> It is best that donations calls are made during a special event, when we 
> can see we are just great.

That is true, but in order to balance the quarterly budget we would need a fund
drive each quarter. Could we manage 4 special events each year? A meet-up each
quarter could be a standing special event (hint: my idea of having the
quarterly board meeting in a different part of the world and fly the trustees 
there). 
 
> In about 2 to 3 months, Wikipedia will be 1 000 000 articles.
> This is a very serious milestone.
> We should at this occasion make a third global press release (this is a 
> global milestone).

I agree. 

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


		
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